Barack Obama inherited a platterful of crises. More than any President in history. By the time he leaves office, that smooth face is going to have some deep lines in it, and there will, I suspect, be more than a bit of gray at the temples.
One of the toughest things on that platter is dealing with climate change, the global warming that already is having serious negative impacts, whatever clueless men like Senator Jim Inhofe, pundits like George Will and the shills on the payrolls of Exxon-Mobil and various "astroturfroots" operators have to say on the subject.
Exactly how bad a situation we're in is arguable. There are experts who believe we may already be past the tipping point, the point of no return. Climate change may not continue in a long, slow wave but soon come galloping at us. Scary thought. But does this then mean we throw up our hands and say "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we fry"? Because, I hear a lot of that kind of talk, from my neighbors, some relatives, and on-line.
Accepting the idea that there's nothing practical we can do about the devastating impacts of climate change - so why bother even trying - puts smiles on the faces of those top-of-the-pyramid folks who really don't want to do anything about it. They're the corporations-are-people-too crowd as well as those who think they'll be dead too soon or be too rich to be affected by the change. And who apparently don't give a damn about the rest of us, including their own children and grandchildren. That's our enemy. The powers-that-be.
Accepting the idea that something should be done but that nothing can be done politically because that enemy is too strong is music to the ears of the powers-that-be. It's precisely what their efforts at corralling public dissent and operating sophisticated, effective disinformation campaigns are focused on. Demoralization. Getting as many people as possible to give in to the muse who says: what's the use? Many people have already done that when it comes to global warming.
For a progressive, buying into this despair is the worst possible response. Despair breeds apathy, which causes paralysis, which is the death of activism. As progressives who know their history are well aware, without activism nothing changes. Not just every other year, or every once-in-a-while, but year-round activism, all-the-time. Without it, we're stuck with the status quo.
Because we can’t count on elected leaders to do it for us. There aren’t nearly enough politicians fighting for our side, the progressive side, the side which has dragged this country over the centuries toward more equality across class, race and gender lines. The side that has, throughout its history, been told to calm down, chill out, shut-up, take what crumbs of change we can get and be satisfied with them. The side that has always said crumbs aren't enough and eventually won fight after fight for a whole loaf. It wasn't easy. Many had their lives ruined, their careers destroyed, their privacy and personal affairs smeared and their reputations permanently sullied. Some were murdered.
Not having enough allies in high places on most issues is hard enough. But when it comes to climate change, activist despair occasionally does seem warranted. The powers-that-be – not just in our country, of course, it's a worldwide phenomenon – have not changed so very much. Globalization is making the ruling class more multinational than it's ever been, and the only thing that is certain about what this new interconnected concentration of wealth ultimately means is that the powers-that-be will do everything they can to retain that power and that wealth. Everything else is decoration.
So what's happened at Copenhagen, and Nusa Dua, and Montreal, and all the other climate summits is no surprise. Too few among the powers-that-be want to make so bold a move that it might detach their grip from the reins.
Still, after eight years of Cheney-Bush, it's refreshing to have a President who not only isn't a denialogue – who actually believes in global warming – but who also accepts that it is a crisis requiring serious, intensive attention. Barack Obama has taken the important step of adopting a progressive narrative about global warming. The effect of that voice presenting that message cannot be underestimated. I'm personally grateful for it.
Unfortunately, the 12-point Copenhagen Accord, as many environmental spokespeople and other critics have said, is mighty weak tea if it's supposed to be about taking something seriously. Sure, the boilerplate phraseology of the accord sounds serious. The sense of urgency is there. But, in reality, the words at their core are just another promise to keep talking, just as we - that is, we the countries of this planet - have been doing on this subject since 1992. Passing the action part of the agreement onto to the next conference is a familiar dodge.
Talking, obviously, is better than not talking. But talking without acting is behaving pretty much like the proverbial frog in a pan of slowly boiling water. However, we can't save ourselves by leaping out of the pan; we have to turn off the burner. The day, year, decade, perhaps not even the century, of when we'll get around to doing so is not even implied in the Copenhagen Accord.
There is no sugarcoating the fact that whatever promising behind-the-scenes developments may have occurred, the final document from Copenhagen is a failure. And there is worse failure to come without stepped-up action on our part.
Even if a binding agreement can somehow be extracted from this insufficient accord in, say, a couple years' time, we in the United States have a giant obstacle standing in the way of progressive action: the United States Senate. Which, of course, actually means the captains of industry and finance, who with their money and flattery have ensured that, before or after they are elected, a hefty portion of Senators will have a vested interest in not making the powers-that-be uncomfortable by rocking the boat.
Assume that, come mid-2011, President Obama comes home with something much better than what came out of Copenhagen. A real pact that recognizes the fact of global warming and the severity of its impacts, has bold emissions objectives, allocates appropriate amounts of money to emerging nations so they can meet their objectives and ameliorate impacts, and includes some effective and well-funded enforcement mechanism.
The only way to transform the words in that pact into reality would be to gather up 67 ratifying votes in the U.S. Senate.
Right now, it's hard to believe that more than 55 or so could be obtained for a resolution favoring the Copenhagen Accord in its current mediocre form. But what if they were faced with a real agreement, a pact with teeth and serious goals? Face it. Half the Senators might as well be named Jim Inhofe when their time to vote arrived.
Some critics are laying the failure of Copenhagen at President Obama's door. Frankly, that gets us nowhere. He's certainly no more to "blame" for what happened (or didn't happen) in Copenhagen than anybody else from the developed countries (plus China and India). Instead of focusing on whatever he may have done or not done to get 115 mostly recalcitrant world leaders to produce a better accord that the current Senate would never ratify, we need to set our sights on getting more progressives into that body. People not beholden to the powers-that-be, or at least, less beholden to them. Because no matter who is in the White House, the Senate will stand in the way of progressive action if we don't see fresh leadership chosen and better Democrats elected.
There is no gainsaying the difficulty of this. So, of course, it would be easier just give in to all the frustrations and just stop participating in the electoral process altogether. Staying at home in this way is a recipe for disaster. That doesn't mean taking what's dished out to us for candidates and policy. It means building a counter to the powers-that-be that they cannot ignore. Sound like a lot of work? Yep. Always is. Always has been.
As progressives, we have a self-imposed centuries-old duty to do the best we can to make life better for those whose lives can be improved, economically and socially. Progressives don't do that by staying home on election day. To be sure, our politics have always embraced far more than merely campaigning and voting for political candidates. Progressives work outside the system, too. Our courageous predecessors in the abolitionist, suffragist, unionist, civil rights, women's rights and gay rights movements have always had an "in the streets" component, in attitude and action.
But while all fundamental reform originates outside the Congress, outside the state legislatures, outside government altogether, ultimately we need those bodies to confirm the reforms we seek by enscribing them into law. And enforcing them. We can't get that if we don't do everything we can to put more progressive men and women into those seats. Even though that process inevitably includes disappointments and betrayals. Perhaps, someday, the U.S. Senate will be done away with as an anti-democratic relic and cease to become a key obstacle to progressive reform. But nobody has yet shown a path toward achieving such a radical change. Just like getting rid of the Electoral College, only much harder.
Progressives will never get everything we want. We've had centuries to get used to that. It's why we're never satisfied. It's not our job to be satisfied. It's also definitely not our job to go silent, sulk and sit out elections.
Climate change is only one crisis we face, but it is the most serious one, and we must do a better job of organizing around it and find means to nudge, cajole or force the powers-that-be to change course. Progressives in other countries must take their own steps. Here, in the United States, it's up to us here to continue building power to act from the ground up. We can't blame politicians for their failures and their collusions if we ourselves are unwilling to keep working to replace them or bend them in the direction of real policy change.
We have tools we never before had. We have new platforms from which to operate. We have the innovative arsenal of technologically-enabled collaborative efforts. We have a teensy bit of clout. It may not be much, and the enemy is strong, ruthless, devious and entrenched. But, as has been the case with every progressive movement in history, results take time, and the only way to guarantee that nothing changes is to do nothing to get it changed.