Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Nickels has been bullish in two areas, that of the aforementioned bike alternative as well as that of bus transportation as a substitute for automobile use.  In fact, Seattle has instituted a carrot stick approach to encourage bus transportation by instituting a free ride plan within the widely traveled downtown area of the Emerald City.  

An early supporter of Nickels's efforts to achieve a climate protection agreement was Mayor Will Wynn of Texas' capital city of Austin.  

In Austin the city-owned utility was able to cancel construction of a 500 megawatt coal-fired power plant, that was planned to power 50,000 homes, thanks in part to an intensive green building program that offers energy efficiency audits to all residents and businesses, retrofits schools and shade screens to reduce sunlight in low income housing.

The good news is that some forward-looking chief executives of major U.S. cities are acting in a positive way to confront the ill effects of global warming.  Both Greg Nickels and Will Wynn have realistically stated the bad news within positive action frameworks.

"If it's not going to happen from the top down," Nickels said, "let's make it happen from the bottom up."

"We're frustrated by the lack of national leadership," Wynn related. "This is about the future of the planet."

Nickels and Wynn have stated the situation realistically.  It has been up to the nation's mayors to launch positive efforts to save their cities in the wake of an appalling absence of leadership from the Bush Administration.  

While 53 Nobel Prize-winning scientists from around the world have warned of the dangers of global warming to the planet in urging that climate corrective measures be promptly taken, George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh, neither of whom has ever been known to possess scientific expertise, have assured us that we have nothing to worry about.

Bush's pathetic track record on the environment was dramatically evidenced prior to his White House days while Governor of Texas.  Bush allowed executives of the state's powerful oil companies to write a law, which he wholeheartedly supported, enabling them to govern themselves pertaining to emission standards.  

This "corporate self-enforcement" approach reeked disaster as Houston soared to the top as America's dirtiest city with corresponding rising respiratory death and illness tolls, particularly in the two most vulnerable categories of the citizenry, the very young and very old.  It came as no surprise, therefore, for Bush as the nation's chief executive to exempt the United States from the Kyoto Protocol.

The Bush edict falls into line with the position taken by that lionized figure of the American right, Ronald Reagan, who popularized the refrain, "Get the government off of people's backs!"  Followers of American history recall that Reagan was elected president in 1980 during a period in which an energy crisis had paralyzed the nation and President Jimmy Carter was emphasizing energy independence.

The Reagan response was to present a Doctor Feelgood image and denounce Carter as being a spokesperson of doom and gloom.  Reagan campaign spokespersons frequently ridiculed Carter's energy independence move of placing solar energy apparatuses on the roof of the White House.  

When Carter delivered a speech from the Oval Office in which he referred to America as caught up in a "malaise" and urged greater energy conservation such as lowering temperatures and wearing sweaters indoors he was ridiculed as a doomsayer.

During that same period Governor Jerry Brown of California was also urging energy independence and conservation, warning about tough times ahead globally.  

He was ridiculed by being called "Governor Moonbeam" and one Republican primary candidate in the 1978 governor's race played a campaign jingle belittling Brown's warnings of excessive growth and proclaiming that this individual "loved California."  The implication was clear; Brown did not due to his pessimistic political approach.

California's current governor is bodybuilder turned movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose political hero was Reagan.  

Schwarzenegger has taken Reagan's cue on the subject of public discipline as he takes joyous jaunts in his Hummer while conducting state business in a Bedouin tent next to the Capitol Building in Sacramento so he can indulge himself in cigar smoking, which has been banned in all state public buildings for health reasons.

The ensuing years have revealed who was realistic as well as those who were false prophets, such as the Doctor Feelgoods Reagan and Bush, who ridiculed the idea of conservation and concern over issues such as global warming.  To impose discipline on society was ridiculous and unnecessary.  The idea was to take the easy way out.

It is interesting to observe the current news from Brazil.  Brazilian political figures confronted reality and developed energy independence through enhanced fuel efficiency.  They have achieved a current energy independence that we can only envy as we sit back and recall the messages of the false prophets along with how they ridiculed those who dared to speak the truth.