Ditch delusion, face reality
I hate to say that I’m becoming disillusioned, but I am disillusioned, at least with Congress, which has become delusional. With many more pressing issues at hand, 230-something members of the House of Representatives voted to stop the USDA from even acknowledging that the world’s climate is changing, that perhaps human activity has something to do with it and maybe we ought to prepare for a disruption to the food supply. What were they thinking?
Most of us hoped this sort of thing went out with the Bushies who placed a gag order on the words “Global Warming.”
Now we have the Tea Partiers following the same pattern. Denying the existence of climate change will not make it go away nor will it even mitigate its effects. Drought, floods, freakish storms and other unusual phenomena are ruining crops not only here but worldwide. Australia swelters under severe drought, Russia is awash in floodwater after last year’s massive wildfires. Here, hundreds of square miles in the southwest are still ablaze while Midwest rivers claw at their banks. Engineers release excess water from dams, diverting the flow from large cities to less populated areas. In the process acres of farmland are underwater, their crops destroyed.
Record snowfall in the mountains has created record depths of snow pack, a boon to ski resort operators and a hedge against drought, at the same time that snowmelt adds to already roiling rivers.
Here in Montana, where tourism contributes mightily to the state’s revenues, clear water is what attracts fly fishing enthusiasts. Outfitters are telling me they have been returning huge chunks of money to clients who won’t come until the churning, brown waters recede.
To make a dicey situation even worse, a ruptured pipe spewed enough crude oil into the Yellowstone River to foul miles of shoreline. In a Congress espousing small government and deregulation it will be hard to find anyone to hold Exxon’s feet to the fire. With the fish floating belly up, the wildlife displaced, the water unfit even for floating, tourists will be going elsewhere.
Congress can call it what they will, blame it on whatever they want, but denial won’t alter the facts. Refusing to address climate change will adversely affect many businesses, perhaps agriculture most of all. And how will we feed a growing population on an increasingly hungry planet?
All the while, Congress dithers over ethanol subsidies, a significant portion of which goes to the energy industry. Agribusiness gets its share leaving precious little for small farmers who need it most. These farmers were encouraged to plant corn, and when they couldn’t make a living, they were urged to plant more corn. Meanwhile, industry groups devised ever more ways to use surplus corn. Think high fructose corn syrup (now appearing on labels as corn sweetener), which is in practically every processed food product on the market. Feeding corn to livestock, another dumb idea as cattle produce tons of methane in a futile effort to digest it, simply inflates the price of meat. And rising corn prices have affected world markets in a very unfortunate way.
Anyone who watches C-SPAN or other cable news channels realizes that the clowns we sent to Congress are more interested in posturing than problem solving. Well, at least they didn’t go home for the holiday weekend. The president appears to have shamed them into staying in Washington and doing their work.
The looming deadline for raising the debt ceiling could bring them to their senses, but they should have been making a sincere effort to negotiate some agreement. This is not a new problem. Every Congress and every administration has dealt with this before. Yes, it would be nice if we didn’t have to fund so many pet projects of defense and industry. But where does it say that once a subsidy outlives its usefulness, disposing of it amounts to a tax increase?
As we celebrate the nation’s birthday, could we get serious here and earnestly try to solve the immediate problem and then agree to tackle the root causes soon after. None of us want to follow Greece down the road to default regardless of whom we might blame.
We can’t do this if our leaders resort to buzzwords or just stick their heads in the sand. Unpleasant realities like climate change and the rising debt must be addressed and dealt with. But you can’t do that until you admit they exist.