Addressing global warming, the EPA, and the question of democracy.

The big news this week is that the Obama administration through the EPA has proposed a 30% cut in greenhouse gasses from power plants by the year 2030. After we say the obvious, it’s still in the proposal stage, power production is just one source of greenhouse gasses, 30% is too little and possibly too little to late, what do we say? Pundits could wax poetic all day about each of these points.

I want to go behind the question of what the EPA proposal means to how it happened. I’m not talking about the specifics of the back room deals or who convinced whom that this proposal should be put forward in its current form.  I want to ask is this some reflection of democracy working, at least almost working?

Let me frame that question more fully.  Many of us voted for Obama first out of hope, and then out of despair.  In voting for a candidate who promised change in the nations response to global warming, Did we set in motion this action by the Obama administration? Do the proposals weaknesses reflect the compromises that are necessary when the populous has divergent opinions? Do the proposals strengths reflect populist political voices being heard?  Or, as it often feels, is democracy long since done with, and oligarchs and big money are now running the show.

I would like to think that this proposal promises to be one of the positive effects of voting for Obama.  It's up there with an imperfect health care law, some early gestures towards nuclear disarmament, opening up the military to openly gay people(which we're not sure is such a good thing since the world is probably better off when fewer people are allowed to fight), and the bailing out GM and Chrysler  (which was actually important because it showed that the government could "nationalize" a major portion of the auto industry) and a possibly somewhat quicker sort of withdrawal of most troops from Iraq. Without a doubt I do believe that Obama's politics are far better than either Romney or McCain. I believe this particularly in the area of global climate change politics. 

A more cynical view of things sees this all as orchestrated by political puppeteers representing the interests of the super rich. In this view these puppeteers, often called lobbyists, some times called advisers, even known as trusted political allies, all work together to create a picture in which the only logical choice is the one that the power élite want. Obama the liberal compromises to the right , a conservative president would compromise to the left, but the results are fairly similar.

Does a 30% cut in carbon emissions from power plants represent what the science of climate change suggests is necessary, where the cost and benefit lines cross on the graph, or is it some compromise between the interests of the coal industry and the interests of the insurance industry looking a extreme weather and rising tides.

While both the “democracy in action” and the “power overlords” scenarios are both a bit cartoon, reality likely has some amount of each.  We can squabble over how much of each, but in the meantime it’s worth acting like we have some democratic power.  If you care about the planet,  who doesn’t? I’d like to encourage you to make an effort to comment to the EPA on this proposal. We have until the end of September to do so. I think comments should emphasize that 30% is not enough.  There are also 4 public hearings around the country worth attending in the last week of July

If climate change activists don’t comment we may get a 28% cut in carbon or less. I’d be surprised if it went up to 35%.  Wherever those numbers end up two things are clear: it will be better than no numbers, and it won’t be enough. Even still cutting emissions on electric power generation is only part of the picture. The tar sands pipelines could reverse any gains this proposal promises. Other pieces of the picture include: addressing  industrial contributions to greenhouse gasses;  taming  the excesses of consumer society; creating energy competent buildings, and reinventing agriculture away from agribusiness. There are political arenas where there is more to do.  Promoting tough international treaties, State, county and city level legislation,  Local initiatives(like the cooperative investments known as community solar) , Grass roots organizing and direct action (like blockades of the XL and Embridge pipelines)  are all part of the solution.

If 30 % cut in greenhouse emissions for electricity generation is a reflection of the percent of corporate interests for and against carbon control, and if this proposal stimulates further growth in the renewable energy sector and in any way inhibits the carbon sector, we can hope that the corporate world will reflect this shift in its future influence on political decisions, offering proposals that are increasingly effective. Of course I’d rather have it that we could just trust democracy to direct our political leaders to fully address the problem of human driven climate change, I’m just not sure that that is the system we have.

20/20 vision on minimum wage

Yesterday president Obama came to Ann Arbor to talk about raising the minimum wage. Since tickets went mostly to students and many students slept out overnight to be in line to get them, I wasn't there. I know the basic message was a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016. Considering current politics in Washington it's hard to imagine the success of this proposal. There's more hope for statewide proposals including the Michigan ballot initiative for a $10.10 minimum wage.  The group “Raise the Minimum Wage” identify legislative or ballot campaigns in nine states and the District of Columbia all focused on raising the minimum wage. Even Alabama has a minimum wage proposal modest though it is at $8.50 an hour. The raise the minimum-wage campaign points out that if minimum wage had kept up with inflation it would now be $10.74 an hour. But as Elizabeth Warren recently pointed out if the minimum wage had kept up with productivity since 1960 it would now be somewhere in the area of $22 an hour.

Now with my environmental hat on I'm going to tell you that increased productivity is not always a good thing. Don't get me wrong I'm all in favor of more resources and a better life for all of us. But gadgets alone don't get us a better life, and the processes for making much of what masquerades as progress are so contaminating to our environment that they detract from the quality of our lives. If raises in wages translate to increased increased consumption, a greater carbon footprint, further global deforestation and more new questionable chemical compounds and more new questionable chemical compounds then it's not clear the world can afford it. (Of course it goes without saying the world cannot afford the superrich either). The only real downturn in global carbon emissions was in 2007 and 2008 after the housing market crash and global recession.

 We are going to have to think about how to build a society that is shaped around needs including human needs and the biological needs of our environment we may have to think in terms of both more and less.

Of course it's important to keep in mind both what could be and what should be. From the standpoint of the latter I would argue that what we need is (excuse the pun) a 20/20 vision. How about increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour, just shy of the productive gains of our economy, but at the same time reducing the workweek to 20 hours. It seems to me that this splits the difference. At the same time that it would raise the income of a full-time minimum-wage worker to an amount similar to what they would be making under Obama's proposal, it would reduce the workweek giving working people more time to pursue the myriad interests that make life great. Perhaps that means pursuing education, perhaps more time for creative endeavors, time enough to participate in our political system, more time for parents to spend with their children.

Remember this conversation is not about what could happen at this point in the American political process. But even from the standpoint of should many people are likely to ask how this would even be possible. Where would the resources come from in a shrinking economy. As I mentioned above the world can no longer afford the superrich. If we look at just the richest 400 families in the United States, they make more than the bottom 180 million Americans. We need to figure out how to redistribute not just the wealth of those 400 families, not just the 1%  easily the top 10% could live comfortably with considerably less in their pockets. There is of course the concern that if we just shot up and hours worked decreased the result would simply be across the board inflation with less resources available and more people scrambling for them. Within the context of our current economic system that no doubt would largely be true. When I suggest that we should want a minimum-wage of $20 an hour and a workweek of 20 hours a week I'm arguing for a wholesale redesign of our economic system.

So in the politics of the real when Obama calls for $10.10 minimum wage he is doing this not to achieve it at the federal level which as I've argued is not so likely in the current political atmosphere of Washington, but he is using this push as a political tool. In part it is a tool to try to engender support for the Democratic Party, in part it is the bully pulpit from which he can promote an idea that is building momentum among the states.

For now the achievable political goal of state-by-state raises in the minimum wage deserves our support. At the same time we need to begin to envision much bigger changes in how our society does business.

Same-sex Marriage in Michigan: on the ground report

I heard rumors from friends the night before, “I'm getting married on Monday, no wait, I'm getting married tomorrow.” In response to an end of the week decision by a federal judge to strike down Michigan's prohibition on same-sex marriages as unconstitutional, the Washtenaw  County Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum decided to open the clerk's office for Saturday hours from nine to noon so that marriage certificates could be issued. As I noticed a number of my friends were planning to jump on the opportunity and tie and their respective knots I knew I wanted to be there to celebrate as well.

At five to 9:00 my family bundled up and headed down to the courthouse, we hadn't gotten a formal invitation to any weddings, but with such short notice who's to stand on formality. For a moment or two I worried that I was “being there for history” slut, but the happiness I felt for several particular friends who were now getting married made it clear to me that I was being there to celebrate my friends. When we got there at 9:05 we were met by my friend Kevin from the People's Food Co-op handing out complimentary coffees just outside the building. He said that everyone had just crowded into the lobby, so we followed on in. 

The lobby was chaotic with chatter and occasional cheers sometimes even very poor efforts at humming a couple of bars of a wedding song. Amidst the brides and brides and grooms and grooms there were children of all ages (more about them later). There was the largest group of religious leaders I've seen in quite a while, and I've never seen so many rainbow colored stoles among the religious vestments. Then there were a handful of folks like me there just to celebrate this small step forward in the march for equality, and the marriages of our friends.

Numbers between one and 50 were handed out to couples; apparently some other couples had numbers from an occasion in the fall where it looked like same-sex marriage was going to become state sanctioned. These numbers were also honored so I think the actual number of weddings today was closer to 80. Slowly couples would enter the clerk's office do the paperwork and come out with signed and sealed marriage certificates. This would garner a cheer from those of us milling in the lobby. In the space downstairs brief marriage ceremonies were sprouting like early spring flowers.

The many friends of mine who were getting married were like a tapestry of people who have woven through my life. Adrian and I lived in a co-op together many many years ago, and then again came into my life when we were both in a birthing class and our partners were each pregnant each with their first child. Beth (not my partner Beth) worked at a homeless shelter with me back in the 90s, and later we ran into her working at a car dealership when we were shopping for a new car. More recently I did some organizing around the international year of the co-op with her spouse Lisa. We became friends with Katie and Diana through mutual friends, and their daughter is a classmate of our son Teo. There was Jeannie who is one of those activists I should have meant long ago but I just met and befriended her about a year ago and now I get together with her and a couple of others once a month in a group I call the wisdom council. Zev’s teacher Peter was also getting married this morning.

There were lots of other people who I knew who were milling around included one of my graduate school professors, our families Rabbi Loren, one of the carpenters who work on my house addition, a friend I’ve known since undergrad and her spouse (already got married in Vermont they told me). It was no surprise that there were lots of families who knew Beth (my partner Beth) from Liberty Pediatrics.

My friend and Rabbi Loren told me that she had been on call all week to potentially officiate a ceremony in case the judge struck down the homophobic law and same-sex marriages became legal. It reminded me of doulas and midwives I know who are on call for births. She said that she had thought that she wouldn't have to worry about Saturday, after all the County Clerk's office is usually closed Saturdays, so she made plans which may have been a little disrupted, but she thought it was worth.

Although Zev and Teo initially came only for the first 10 minutes or so, Zev managed to return with about a half a dozen friends for his teacher Peter's wedding, and when there was a delay between the paperwork and the ceremony because Peter and his husband were waiting for their daughter to show up Zev ran down to the food co-op's to get a couple of bottles of sparkling cider.

The greatest honor I had for the day was holding one of the corners of the huppa for Carla and Adrian's wedding. They needed a tall person and they called me over from the other side of the room. The person holding the corner next to mine was standing on a chair. I suppose this says something about how formal everything was. This particular wedding was also particularly lively as their Rabbi got about half the room to chant amen at the end of several blessings. Remember this is a room that had three or four marriages going on at any one time as well as a lot of background chatter and cheering.

The best question I was asked was as part of an interview for an Internet news program. She wanted to know if I had any thoughts about the links between this the struggle for marriage equality, and the struggles to end homelessness. I had lots I could have said, but in short I said any injury to one is an injury to all this is true in the struggle for freedom and it is true in the struggle for basic resources. Expanding political equality and economic equality should certainly go hand-in-hand.

The most fun thing to watch was the daughter of my friends Katie and Diana, she was bubbling with excitement all morning, and although it was a long wait in a crowded lobby she held bouquets of flowers and seemed to continually bounce. She was not the only child of a couple getting married today, she was just a child I knew the best. I'm sure if I have been watching I would have seen similar continual enthusiasm in many of the other children milling around the lobby (in fact the only upset kid I saw was outside of the courthouse crying that he didn't want to go home).

Now marriage is not always just about the couple involved, and here is where the politics of marriage become important. Love makes a family, but love is a hard thing for the state to measure. In family law marriage is very important. The suit that brought this marriage victory to Michigan was originally brought primarily as a suit for maternal rights for a lesbian co-parent. Two of my friends told me that it was marriage today and on Monday they were filing the adoption papers. Prior to today same-sex parenting couples in Michigan had to live with the fear that if the parent with legal guardianship would die or suffer severe disability the other parent could lose not just their partner but their children as well. I suspect that this was the subtext for far too many families getting married today. 

So we celebrated as we throw off this despotic past. But we are not through the ordeal yet. There are more rounds in court. I am ironically optimistic that the mostly conservative Supreme Court will support today's decision only because the state’s case for discrimination is so pathetic. Today however I raise a glass to celebrate my friends and their loving families. Congratulations one and all!

Wanting more from my Senators on Global Warming.

30 US senators recently stayed up all night to discuss the problem of global warming. Sadly my senators were not among them so I wrote to express my disappointment. I would encourage you to find out if your senators participated http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/11 and then write them. Here is my letter.

 Dear Honorable Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin,

I was disappointed to see that you were not among the majority of Democratic senators who participated in the all-night speechathon addressing global warming. The effects of global climate change are tragic and will be irreversible. We all need to do our part to slow this destructive process.your role in this as a US Sen. is crucial.

As you probably know the planet Earth is currently experiencing what is called the sixth great extinction, five other times in Earth's history species have died off at the rate and magnitude that we are now witnessing species to go extinct. Regrettably,the cause this time is human activity. Fortunately we are not just a destructive species. Fortunately, we have the capacity to see the problem we have created, and fortunately we have the ability and often the heart to take actions  to lessen the destruction.

The sixth great extinction  is one of a number of problems we are beginning to encounter related to global warming. The magnitude of the problem is such that we all need beyond board to look for solutions.

For my part I tried to bring some awareness about global climate change to all the many aspects of my life.As a health professional I know that the climate crisis poses huge problems to global health, and I reflect on this as it relates to my clinical work. As a parent I try to raise my children to be aware of and engaged with this issue, they after all will have to inherent the world we leave them. As a consumer I make choices to maximize efficiency in my home my transportation and my appliances. As an active citizen I remember these issues while sitting on boards and participating groups and I look for opportunities for us to do things  that can in some small way help our troubled planet. Finally as a voter I expect that most from my representatives. Of all the little things I do nothing is as important as convincing you and your colleagues to act and to speak out against global warming.

Although the speechathon was a symbolic act, it was an important act of leadership.From my perspective there has been far too little federal leadership on global climate issues.I understand that in the current hostile political environment the chances for real legislation to address the global warming problem are slim at at best. Nonetheless, this is our best hope. Symbolic actions are important because they can inspire, and because they can shift the political environment. I have been meaning to write you about my concerns about global warming for some time. It took the leadership of your colleagues to inspire me to do so today.

in closing this letter I would like to make two requests. First, if you could communicate with me about your position on the issue of global climate change. Please include some account of your voting record on climate change legislation. Second,please promise me that you will take whatever action you can to help move our society towards a genuine environmentally sound solution to the crisis of global climate change.

I know I can count on you.

Sincerely,

Gaia Kile

Weary of War

Violence around the world has been popping up a lot lately.

 Estimates put the death toll in Syria over 100,000 that makes it the most deadly global conflict at the moment; as deadly in the past 4 years as Iraqi violence in the last 10 years. Negotiations around the civil war in Syria seem to be going nowhere. Some accounts suggest that the negotiations were never more than a charade by the Assad government in the first place.  

Iraqi violence had a significant increase in 2013 with around 10,000 known casualties. Although the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 show some signs of decline in violence Iraq’s irregular periodic up ticks and down swings makes it hard to predict.

 Violence in the streets in Ukraine has led to the toppling of the government and as I write this the Ukrainian president and sections of parliamentary are resigning in mass. There is uncertainty about what is next.

 Venezuela is experiencing violence in street demonstrations started by an extreme right wing and responded to by pro-government groups. It is unlikely that this situation will evolve into a situation like the Ukraine much less the civil war in Syria but one never knows. 

Africa has 15 countries involved in wars or post war conflicts.  

American drones recently hit a wedding party in Yemen killing 12 people. American drones terrorizing the northeastern Pakistani tribal regions controlled by Taliban has led to Taliban leaders refusing to allow immunization programs to continue in one of the last places on earth still plagued by polio. Between the drones and the refusal to permit immunization this should be considered biological warfare.

 This week the UN commission of inquiry on human rights in the DPRK reported their finding of crimes against humanity in North Korea spelling out the violence that the North Korean government has been inflicting on their own population.

In spite of this outline of political violence in the world there are some small hopeful signs. However weekly symbolic North Korea recently allowed a small group of North Koreans to meet with their long separated South Korean relatives. Negotiations around Iranian nuclear development between Iran and the US lead “West” continue to move at pace. On Valentine ’s Day countries of the non-aligned movement called for a target date to be set for the elimination of nuclear weapons. On that same day women around the world participated in a day of mass action called 1 billion women rising which is a protest of violence against women.

But let’s return to the various conflicts around the world. Among these conflicts there is imperial attacks, civil wars , street fights, acts of self-defense,  violence propagated by terrorist groups and bands of thugs (who is a thug or terrorist and what is self-defense may depend on your political perspective). There are conflicts that drag on for years and violence that may be over by the time you read this. Syria has a high death count.  I hope the number killed in Venezuela will remain single digit.

The reasons for these violent conflicts are up for debate: Economics, and the control of resources, religious beliefs, and religious feuds, historical conflicts, political order, political liberty, national pride and political alliances, ideology or class conflicts? Depending on the conflict any one or several of these issues may be at the root.

From a distance I could condemn all of this violence as pointless, and immoral.  Fortunately I believe that more and more people everywhere are growing critical of political violence.  But I want to emphasize the uncertainty and ineffectualness of political violence.

Let’s just look at the Ukraine, with push from Russia, Ukraine’s president Yanukovych decided to crack down on the protesters, they fought back and the crises of legitimacy grew too great so that just a few days later Yanukovych and much of his government resigned and have fled.  Now there is a political vacuum and the forces that might fill it are sometimes opposing factions. If the country leans too far to the west some observers say this could lead to drawn out military conflicts with Russia.

The Syrian Civil war is a struggle for a country with at least three different political tendencies, and regardless of who “wins” as the country is torn apart everyone loses.  The longer the war goes on the harder it becomes to forgive and make peace.

Presumably the North Korean leadership even with Kim Jong Un, the new supreme leader has still concluded that torture, abduction, public killings, planned food withholding and prisoner work camps (all findings of the UN commission) is a way to move forward in the world or perhaps it’s just their desperate strategy for holding onto power.  

Behind the violence in Venezuela some people see US puppeteers; with US history in Latin America this wouldn’t be entirely surprising. Whatever the final results of this violence, likely political fall-out from this street violence will be further fuel for the anti-Chaves anti-Maduro propaganda machine. Engagement in the violence from either the government or its supporters only hurts its cause.  

“Well meaning” American drones are (surprise) fueling anti-American sentiments and helps to prop up the Taliban while increasing political instability in Pakistan and Yemen.

It would be nice if I could claim that the non-violent  “Orange Revolution” of  Ukraine created a fully democratic government that was responsive to the aspirations of its people even 10 years later. 

I wish I could look to the results of the Arab Spring and see clearly that its nonviolent campaigns produced the fruits that its participants were trying to cultivate. While the case can be made for that kind of success in Tunisia, Egypt has swung from nonviolent success, to electoral counter revolution, to military counter revolution each swing seeming to take the Egyptian people further from the society that the original revolution sought.

Things would be easier if Venezuela hadn’t already experienced at least one coup attempt since Hugo Chavez was first elected, if there weren’t forces actively working to overturn Venezuela’s political efforts at economic fairness.

Building a better world is often one step forward one step back and repeat. Wishes don’t always come true, things aren’t always easy. 

Maybe there are times when violence makes sense in moving forward some important political program or goal.  I don’t know how one knows when it’s one of those times.

From my perspective, even with its uncertain results, non-violence holds better promise.  I would much rather be in Egypt than Syria. The science of non-violence deserves deeper research. Even just negotiations whether with a government, a terrorist group or a political opposition hold more promises than turning to force. You might ask, “how can you negotiate with them?” My response is “could talking really be worse than coming in shooting?”