Democrats debate on energy and the environment..sort of

August 1, 2007 by patrick.

On Monday, Dan and I attended the Democrat-sponsored debate on Energy and the Environment in Boxborough. Candidates discussed a number of issues ranging from global warming and alternative fuel sources to superfund sites and farm policies.

A few of my thoughts:

The very nature of environmental problems is that everything is interrelated. The question of what natural resource is most vulnerable completely misunderstands that a problem in one area has consequences throughout our ecosystem. No one mentioned human resources. There was hardly a mention either of the necessarily international dimension of these problems and what kind of cooperative efforts must be made to address them. So much conflict arises out of the exploitation of our natural resources which have been confused for and reduced to the level of man-made products. Yet something as simple as aiding people with public clean drinking water projects could see substantial returns in sustainable peace and development in the world. We must be concerned with improving our environment at all levels, from personal habits to international initiatives.

Mentioned briefly by some candidates, the idea of “offsets” and on a larger scale “cap-and-trade” emissions seems to fail to address the problem directly, allowing wealthier individuals and corporations to avoid making any effort to change their own behavior. It’s a bit like pissing on someone’s shoes but giving them twenty bucks for it afterwards. Sure, twenty’s better than nothing, but there’s still the problem of piss on my shoes. (so too with carbon emissions) As is the case with China under the Kyoto agreement, there is also the chance that corporations simply begin polluting more in order to receive greater compensation when they reduce their levels.

This, and policies like it, stem from the endless reliance on the market, the “invisible hand,” to magically solve our problems. However, “economy” is not simply about maximizing a desired output–say happiness–but maximizing it with the minimum input of resources. When judged by this standard, people in this part of the world are highly inefficient and uneconomic. After all, consumption is what drives our environmental problems. We hear “we must end our reliance upon foreign oil,” but never on current levels of energy or even oil itself. While one candidate continues to say that “we are 5% of the world’s population…,” our only hope is placed with technology, and uncertain technology at that. This ignores what we can do now: to begin to change our values and our lives to better reflect them, to give the environment—that which sustains all life—its proper place among our priorities.

Candidates were asked their opinion on the farm bill which has just passed in the House and despite minor changes, continues the industrialization trend in agriculture. The biggest share of federal subsidies goes to the largest farms in the country, driving smaller farms out of business. While some have been able to survive these anti-competitive policies (pursued when free marketeers see it in their self-interest) by creating a new market for organic farming, these farms are still struggling and worth saving. Agriculture is not the same as industry; it involves the relationship of humans to nature, to life itself. What Roosevelt envisioned with the original farm bill was the protection of farmers from the price drops of their crops, but also a preservation of their way of life. If we continue to sever our natural connection to the land by subsidizing the consolidation of agribusiness, we will reap what we sow: more degradation of our environment, more unhealthy food, more unemployed farmers. Instead, we should implement payment limits to what an individual farm may receive, give greater weight toward helping smaller farms, reward good stewardship of the land in conservation efforts and organic farming, strengthen our rural areas rather than impoverish them further, and encourage young people to begin working again in farming.

The last point I will make is on the one source of debate within the “debate.” Rep. Eldridge asked Finegold why he was now not in favor of ethanol or “clean” coal after making reference to support for them in his stump speeches. As I remember them—the repetition helps—Barry said in his speeches that he supports fuel cell technology because this district is best suited to produce it, just as he would probably support ethanol if he hailed from Iowa, or clean coal if were a Congressman from West Virginia—”this is good for the environment, good for our wallets…” So he did not say that he would, in fact, support those sources of energy. Yet through this logic, I suppose if he were from Alaska or Texas, he’d support more drilling for oil. The argument for an unproven and as he acknowledged, very expensive technology, is undermined when compared with the others as another triumph of self-interested provincialism over the common good which, particularly in environmental policy, requires a much more expansive and comprehensive view.

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