No Dark Cloud without a Darker Lining

President Elect Obama wasn't alone in seeing the economic collapse as a final judgment on the effectiveness of conservative fiscal policies. The idea that the personal greed of executives, the profit motive of corporations, and the overall health of society are directly correlated, has been so discredited that the few market fundamentalists still humming this mantra should worry less about being shouted down, and more about being hauled off to a rubber room. The utter failure of the unrestrained free market and it's trickle-down cousin is so evident that even such high priests as Alan Greenspan have been forced to admit that they were mistaken about very basic aspects of their religion.

But even with the core ideas of conservative economics in tatters, there's a shadow that lingers over the discussion of where the nation goes from here. After decades of indoctrination into the cult of selfishness, it's become so deeply ingrained that even in the midst of definitive failure, we still treat the tenets of conservatism as if they're givens. We're still so thoroughly in the conservative mindset, that we constantly posit (with a straight face) propositions like "well, now that the economy is bad, we may not be able to make all the environmental improvements we wanted."

Conservatives, from the moment the economy started to skid, started mouthing this as a bedrock Fact. In fact, they looked to this idea with some obvious relief. Sure, our stock options may be worthless, but hell, at least nobody will try and rescue those polar bears. We can thank God for that. There's no dark cloud from which Republicans can't produce a still darker, sootier lining.

But conservatives weren't alone in these statements.  Sure, you had Texas Governor Rick Perry arguing that regulating greenhouse gases as pollutants would wreck the Texas economy by blocking the scores of new coal burning power plants slated for the Lone Star State. But you also had John Kerry talking about how the economy would constrain the Obama administration from improving emission rules, and a broad cross-section of the world's nations – the same nations who signed off on Kyoto -- retreating from environmental rules in the face of the economic difficulty.

The headline on reporter Alister Doyle's article for Reuters says it succinctly:

Economy offers excuse to avoid climate fight

To some extent, this retreat from change comes from the simple momentum. Without the incentive of high fossil fuel prices, the easiest thing to do is... nothing. With all the dollar signs (and Euro signs, and Yen, Yuan, and Tugrik signs for that matter) all pointed down, every government's primary thought on the environment Is simply not now. Gas prices are the one good thing about smashing the economy, so not now. Not now, when we already have so much to deal with. Please, will not someone rid me of these bothersome environmentalists?

The answer to that question is "no." Or at least, let's hope not. Because at the heart of the "now the economy is wrecked, with need to go slow on environmental regulation" argument are two simple ideas. First, that the economy should be our primary concern, and second that protecting the environment is expensive. Which is quite possibly the most idiotic construction since the float/sink test for witches.

Here, let's do a quick mental experiment.

Suppose you live in a giant floating ship. Not just you, but everyone you know or have ever known lives in this pearl-white ship with its sails of glowing gossamer and its railings of gleaming crystal. All your life this ship has been racing across a barren landscape, heading toward some vaguely defined, but surely glorious destination.

And as you breeze past craggy peaks and scorched deserts you, along with everyone else on board, practices their wrestling. This isn't just wrestling, you understand. It's wrestling refined into an art as subtle as a noh play, as vigorous as mountain climbing. It's both the entertainment and the religion of those on board the floating ship. The champions of this sport are idolized. The many matches that take place each day are scrutinized to the last drop of sweat, the schedules for the next day are examined and weighed. The rules are not just written in the ancient pages of the Holy Rule Book, they're engraved on the souls of every passenger.

Then one day, someone – to tell the truth, a low-ranking woman child, a laughably scrawny yellow-robe who shows no flair for fingerwork nor skill in foot placement – notices that there is a problem with the great ship. The crystal rails are riddled with cracks. The polished decks are wearing thin. Even the great flying kilu birds who drag the ship through the sky show signs of illness.  A few people show concern when she spreads this news, but then we are nearing the season of the Grand Tournament, and there's so much to do.  

Yellow-robe just won't let it go. The ship has sailed the skies on its endless quest for centuries, for millennia, for generations uncounted. Why has no one noticed these problems before, she asks? The stick-thin girl keeps examining the damage, keeps looking for answers. Then one day, when everyone is gathered to watch one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she stands up and shouts her conclusions.

Wrestling, she says, is destroying the ship. As the crowd looks at her in astonishment, she explains that though wrestling itself is certainly almost as ancient as the ship, in recent years people have tended toward more violent forms of struggle. In hurling each other against the railings, the crystal rails have been damaged. In scuffling over the boards, the decks of the ship have been warped. The actions of the wrestlers have been so boisterous  that they have even set the ship to rocking, injuring the kilu in the process. Unless the wrestlers calm down, there is every chance the great ship could be seriously harmed.

Though there's a great reluctance to believe yellow-robe, gradually she is able to win converts by showing them the same evidence she has followed. There are still many who believe that the ship has merely been damaged by the passage of time, or by strong winds, or even that the damage has always been there and yellow-robe is completely mistaken. There are still more who believe her, but who can't imagine any change to the sport they love. Even so, there are proposals put forward  that would constrain the actions of the wrestlers. All of which sets up a howl of protest from the purists. Yes, they say, our wrestlers are more active than those in the past, but that is because they have studied more, worked harder, and practiced long hours. The very things yellow-robe is pointing to are simply signs of growth.

In the midst of this difficult discussion, another crisis erupts. One of the greatest heroes of the sport, a cyan robe of the finest quality, has been found guilty of cheating. Soon it becomes clear that corruption has spread among many of the top competitors and among their judges. People turn away in disgust. The stands that once thronged with spectators are all but empty. The whole sport, the very definition of their culture, is on the brink of failure.

Yellow-robe comes to the captain and his officers. "The ship is in great danger," she says. "We need to make changes now, while we can."

The captain looks on the young woman with kindness, but slowly shakes his head. "We can not risk it," he says. "We must first restore the reputation of the sport before we can entertain changing the rules. Wait until the tournament is restored to its glory, then we will talk."

Yellow-robe leaves the captain's quarters sadly, the worn decks groaning under her slight weight.

The people of the flying ship are making two clear errors. They are valuing the game they play above the very vessel on which their life depends, and they are assuming that the same rules and system that led them into a crisis are the only ones that can lead them out. Sound familiar?

More than thirty years ago, when the first iteration of the Clean Air Act was under consideration, the industries involved predicted disaster. The cost of electricity would soar to such levels that the average family would "freeze in the dark." Utilities would be forced out of business. Unemployment and economic collapse would follow. What actually happened? The cost of electricity actually fell as the rules went into effect. We met the new obligations for a tiny fraction of the predicted costs while improving health, aiding the environment, and advancing technology.

The "costs" of tackling environmental protection are being generated from the same industries that have the most to gain by holding onto the status quo and by the economists who assured us that the credit default swap was a brilliant idea. For decades, conservatives have been pushing the idea that the environment and the economy are at opposite ends of the line. You can't help one without hurting the other.

Says who?

We couldn't sign Kyoto, because it would hurt the economy. Well here's news, we didn't sign, and the economy failed.  We couldn't place tough requirements on our cars to protect the auto industry. We didn't, and the industry has been dragged to the brink of collapse. We couldn't restrict mountaintop removal mining, because it would cost us jobs.  We expanded this form of mining at a record pace, and mining jobs evaporated. We had to open up the national parks to being drilled, chopped, and mined, because the economy needed it. We did all that, we did everything the purists asked, so where are our super duper trillion dollar economic boom times?

We've just experienced the most environmentally abusive administration since the word "ecology" was coined, aided for most of those years by a Republican-dominated congress all too eager to set fire to every environmental rule ever concocted. Even as they head for the door, the Bush administration is still intent on gutting the Clean Air Act, expanding mountaintop removal, breaking the Endangered Species Act, and opening more public lands to destruction. None of which has done a damn thing to help the economy. Republican tactics have both wrecked the ship and ruined the game, and we're still buying into it.

The economic crisis is not a reason to back off from daring changes in environmental regulations. This is the time to demand a fundamentally new game.

In the United States, some business groups are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to move cautiously in tackling global warming, saying that a too aggressive response could prolong the economic downturn and cost jobs.
But a growing chorus of other businesses, environmentalists, and politicians are calling for a green-based economic recovery. ... Such a Green New Deal, woven into the economic stimulus package being crafted for early next year, could create millions of government-subsidized jobs and build a new energy infrastructure.

Those who brought on the economic collapse now want to use it as an excuse to perpetuate the same policies that got us to this point. To this end they present numbers suggesting enormous costs for making changes and dire threats of storms ahead. However, they're writing these warnings on the back of a sheaf of failed predictions. We can keep listening to them, or we can toss this last bastion of conservative economics onto the same toxic scrapheap with the rest of their disastrous ideas.