After the first Presidential Debate of the 2012 election, I am again struck by a striking, disquieting realization: neither of the two largest parties’ candidates appear to be worried about the environment, climate change, or science in general. With the threat of global warming looming darkly over us, it pains me to see both candidates so callously ignore the danger it represents. Already we can see entire countries1 plan to evacuate their citizens due to rising sea levels caused by global warming. This problem threatens national sovereignty, and yet both candidates dismiss it as some secondary issue, insignificant when compared to arguing over who gets the last word in any given section of a debate. What happened to the days when politicians took the recommendations of scientists seriously, where they respected the decades spent learning about their field in order to better the understanding of humanity as a whole? Governor Romney certainly used to.
During his gubernatorial term in Massachusetts, he argued for, and indeed pushed through, strict environmental policies, policies that would lead to cleaner air, water and homes for his constituents. He fought back against corporations lobbying to prevent these plans, and he dedicated himself to ensuring that his commonwealth became much more environmentally friendly. Governor Romney teamed up with staunch environmentalists, because he was concerned for the future of his state. He accomplished a great deal of good in his term as governor, including the creation of a governmental “agency” in order to “integrate policy in housing, transportation, energy and the environment.” Then he put in charge of it an environmentalist who lead a group that had filed lawsuits against Massachusetts due to the state’s poor energy practices. Governor Romney “was like Nixon to China,” according to a Democrat, high praise coming from his opposing political party.
Of course, this golden age was not to be forever, as Romney, near the end of his term, shot down a plan he had worked on for two years, likely because it would hurt his chances for the presidency in the upcoming years. He gave in to bipartisan politics, and refused to do what was needed, indeed what was right, and allowed concern for his own political future cloud his better judgment. Once again, science was ignored in favor of political safety, and a candidate put his own needs in front of the needs of his constituents. I fear that by the time we are able to have a serious political discussion on the state of the economy, amongst the big players in Washington, at least, it will be entirely too late, and we will be unable to change our course and prevent irreparable harm to our beautiful planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment