The Bush Remainder

For this post, iHof and CrankCast have indulged in the oracular folly of predicting the course of the most powerful man in the world during the latter half of his second term as President of the United States.

As Bush inexorably approaches his lame duck phase, the end of what can appropriately be called the “Bushie” years leaves me wondering how Bush and his cronies will define the last months of the Big Hat’s rule presidency. I think much of Bush’s time between now and January 20th, 2009 will be occupied by a suddenly vitalized Congress attempting to reign in a President, and Vice President, who have done a huge amount to redefine the roles, responsibilities, and regency of the Office of the President, but, as they themselves will say, “only history can judge.“

The administration has been reduced to some “creative” tactics. Like Cheney‘s staff claiming that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch because of his role as leader of the Senate only to have Democrats try to retaliate by cutting the Office of the Vice President’s out of the executive funding bill to which the Vice President responded by scuttling back to the White House.

I do no think these remaining months will be a time of political impotency for Bush. He has only started the hallowed tradition of pardon game. His greatest threat is the growing Republican Congressional opposition to his Iraq war. Encouraging critics to wait to pass judgment on a war that, he says,has yet to have time to succeed, I foresee Bush getting bogged down in protecting the corner stone of his presidency – The War on Terror. Congress looks to disassemble the secrecy and return the troops while Bush asks not to “let fatigue dictate our policies.” The castration of his war and his augmented war-making abilities will be the greatest threat to Bush’s legacy.

A Greener Bush

President Bush is in a politically perilous place. His immigration plan bogged down in the Senate (though it may make a comeback next week), and he is drawing increasing fire for the failure of both American troops and the Iraqi government to build stability. Up until this point, Bush has also avoided climate change. But his tune has changed in the last month. At the recent G8 summit, Bush resisted mandatory caps but agreed that the US and other industrialized countries (including India and China) need to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has the opportunity to bolster his domestic and international image by supporting meaningful environmental legislation. Ethanol funding is almost assured given that it promotes domestic security and benefits Republican constituents. Bush will likely even have the foresight to throw some funds at cellulosic research, recognizing that corn ethanol alone will not quench America’s liquid fuel thirst. Electricity, however, is a trickier issue. In the past, Bush has allied himself with coal and nuclear. It will be all too easy for him to stay on that path, pushing for new nukes along with coal-to-liquid and carbon capture and storage technologies. Both have grave, long-term side effects and high pricetags (for more on coal see my recent post). But Bush also has experience with renewables – let’s not forget that Texas produces more wind power than any other state in the nation due in large part to Governor Bush’s policies. While Bush has resisted carbon caps, that leaves the door open for a national renewable portfolio standard. The time is right – Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico has authored a bill to require 15% renewable energy to the grid by 2020. With Bush’s support, it will clear Senate roadblocks. It will be quite the turnaround for the man some have labeled G. W. (Global Warming), but I’m not closing the door on a greener Bush by 2008.

Feeling Green

My post and iHof’s post are both in reference to Thomas Friedman‘s article “The Power of Green,” published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on April 15, 2007 (here relinked via the International Herald Tribune).

Friedman attempts, and succeeds to a certain degree, to examine global climate change through three specific filters, “jobs, temperature, and terrorism.” As a political-economist he does a great job examining the first and last facet but that middle facet, the sticking point of the science behind this entire dilemma, is left relatively unexplored. I guess he’ll leave that to Al Gore.

Still, Friedman, the king of catch phrases, writes powerfully and carefully on the issue, pulling no punches in looking this issue head on. In calling “green” the new “red, white, and blue,” Friedman relegates the current administration’s lack of environmental concern to casual treason. Our continued reliance on, and active defense of, Middle Eastern oil is directly funding the terrorism we claim to be combating in our war on terror, Friedman goes on to explain. Instead of pretending to bring freedom to the Mid East why don’t we bring energy independence to the Mid West? How much longer will petropolitics rule our foreign policy?

I think it is when Friedman applies his system-oriented economics to the issue that he produces some novel content in the increasingly crowded arena of green-washed journalism. He asks do we save more money by not paying to reduce emissions and producing goods cheaply or by decreasing emissions and reducing the number of sick workers with respiratory problems. In crowded, smog ridden cities like Beijing there is not a clear answer.

Optimistically, Friedman ends by rephrasing this problem as an opportunity. In so many sectors, green business has already been proven to be good business. And the green business revolution will be a market that the US can succeed and lead in. It doesn’t take cheap labor or cheap resources to innovate and reinvent. It takes the world’s smartest engineers and entrepreneurs. These we have and can continue to have if the US decides to reinvest in science and math in our education system. The space race revitalized these programs in the mid 20th century. Perhaps the green race with do the same at the start of the 21st.

Feeling Green

In his recent NY Times Magazine editorial “The Power of Green”, Thomas Friedman said that green is starting to window shop on Main Street. Change is coming, but not quickly enough. His solution: Green Pragmatism. “I am not proposing”, he wrote, “that we radically alter our lifestyles.” Instead, he proposed a government-initiated carbon tax to push the market in a green direction. Friedman claims that green needs to take Main St by storm, but his solutions walk down Wall Street. He sees a dismal future unless carbon-free technologies hit the China price, meaning the price at which China can produce or purchase them. He is correct in some ways, but we should not shackle ourselves to economic determinism. Rarely has the US fundamentally changed without a shift in philosophy. Before we as individuals surrender green to Wall St, we may need to change ourselves.

Americans see stealing as wrong. We value each others’ hard-earned livelihoods and choose not to jeopardize others’ futures for our short-term gain. Yet too many Americans buy gas-guzzling cars and oversized houses that need excessive heating and cooling. We won’t steal from a neighbor, but what of our children? With every pound of CO₂, we destabilize an already uncertain future. We do not need simply new technologies and new consumption patterns – we need Green Ethics.

Aldo Leopold, forefather of American conservation, drew the foundations of a green ethic. “A thing is right,” he wrote, “when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Adoption of his thinking would obviate Green Pragmatism altogether. Yet his message has lain dormant for sixty years, because only now are we seeing the consequences of fossil fuel addiction. Green is emerging, but we can no longer wait for generational change. Luckily, expanded fossil fuel use is not the only change since Leopold’s day. Green can walk down Main St and Wall St, but it can fly down iStreet. The Green Ethic, which a few million Americans have read in print, can double its readership in a week as it flashes across our desktops. We now possess both the motivation and the means to go green. Green pragmatism claims that our future depends on today’s and tomorrow’s technology. Our ethics may as well.

Turn On, Log In, Go Out. Repeat.

As we digitalize, upload, cast, and migrate our lives in ever more digital ways, we are walking a line.  The technology that we develop and that develops us can connect us to our environments, or with it we can raise walls of 1s and 0s.  Will iPods drown out the sounds of passersby on the subway in the morning, or will podcasts link us to the social, political, spiritual, environmental, and economic developments in our neighborhoods the world over?  Will we homogenize cultures, or will we appreciate difference through exposure?  Our neighbors are no longer just the cup of sugar type – consumption, production, microfinance, blogs, gaming, travel of goods and people connect us all.  Amid change, some things are constant.  We need dialog.  Here we have created one forum as we move forward together.

Welcome.

iHof and CrankCast