YEAR OF THE MELTDOWN

Happy New Year, everyone! Americans are famous for customary greetings that bear little relevance to events or context.  By all accounts, the New Year will be anything but happy. For some, 2009 will be called, “Year of the Ox.”  In my book, it should be called, “Year of the Meltdown” … in more ways than one.

The Economy
Since the first of the year, 100,000 job cuts have been announced including: 30,000 at Circuit City, 5,000 at Microsoft, 6,000 at Intel, 2,500 at United Airlines, 11,000 at General Electric, as examples.

According to Futurist.Com, our economic problems are "deep and structural and even cultural. It has to do with energy, with lifestyle, with the shape and form of what we build, and with global politics, and more."

In Florida, for example, our local supermarkets stock oranges from California and vegetables shipped from Chile, Mexico, and Peru.  Most of this produce is grown locally, transportable to market at little cost, and far cheaper than inferior store-bought varieties.  Yet, local growers are struggling or going out of business. Why? It seems chain stores favor a procurement model that ignores long distances, higher energy costs, inferior quality goods, and impacts on local economies. Hardly a model of efficiency, one would think.

James Howard Kunstler of Clusterfuck Nation says we should "prepare for the end of current global commerce as currently conducted, prepare psychologically to downscale, take a time out from immigration, prepare for a lot of paper “wealth” to disappear, prepare for a psychology of resentment."

America’s Defense Meltdown
Our country supports an annual defense budget of $600-700 billion and rising but gets less bang for the buck with each passing year.  We have the fewest number of navy combat ships, submarines, and combat aircraft, and the smallest number of personnel in uniform at any time since the end of World War II.  Why are we spending more and getting less?

According to Winslow Wheeler, "In Congress they're interested in jobs and campaign contributions. In the Pentagon they're interested in various political and bureaucratic agendas. They're not paying attention to the lessons of combat history … we should only fight when we truly have to fight rather than pursue agendas and political dogmas and help politicians posture as patriots."

Global Climate Change
In March of 2002, a giant ice sheet known as Larson B broke away from Antarctica and went adrift. According to global climate scientists, the Antarctic continent as a whole warmed at the same rate as the rest of planet.  Local conditions, however, are another matter of special concern:  The western peninsula warmed at a rate five times faster than the rest of Antarctica. Ice sheets such as Larson B hold back the glaciers behind them.  If they were to collapse completely, scientists say, the entire western ice shelf would fall into the ocean … resulting in a 16-foot rise in sea level.

In 2009, an even bigger chunk threatens to break away.  The Wilkins Ice shelf, roughly equal in size to the State of Connecticut, is literally “hanging by a thread” and “could go at any minute,” according to the latest observations.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science.  The Bush administration sought to further undermine public understanding of the issue by censoring the findings of climate scientists.  Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to influence the debate.

Apparently, a little propaganda money goes a long way.  This comment from a conservative blogger is representative of how public opinion is shaped by good ol’ boys:

CB (12-20-2008 at 9:35 AM): I am an outdoorsman and a conservationist. I support clean air, water, etc. What I object to is the leveraging of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas and not a pollutant, into anti-capitalist redistribution schemes.

... and some of my best friends are [fill-in the blank].   When a conservative blogger makes a statement like this, claiming to appreciate the outdoors while debunking climate science, it reminds me of a pedophile who says: “I like children.”

Shadows of the Indignant Desert Birds
There will always be shrill voices resistant to change. Public policy debates have an aspect of “advertising jingle” to them.  A catchy melody repeats endlessly on the radio over months and years, then plays continuously inside the head long after the product has disappeared from the store: “Its not how long you make it, its how you make it long.” Once firmly imprinted, it is difficult to reshape public opinion.

Or perhaps one can look at the issue of changing public opinion from the perspective of a psychotherapist whose client engages in reckless behaviors.  An addict clearly knows the risks of substance abuse but is unable to break the habit in emotional terms, such as a chain smoker who reaches for another cigarette after being told of dire health consequences.  Even when understood intellectually, it is hard to change old habits and perceptions.

For those of us who read scientific studies, the data may seem compelling, but how do we convince others who don’t study graphs and maps, who listen only to long imprinted jingles?

And then there are lobbyists trying to protect their dirty franchises. They would have us focus attention, not on the data points clustered around a trend line, but on the statistical outliers … the confounding dodge and feint.  Once imprinted, only a catastrophe will change minds.

There will always be voices from a bygone era still hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are difficult at best. We can understand these quirks of human nature with all due patience, but we are running out of time, and there is little wiggle room left.

Happy New Year, everyone.