I associate Ted Turner with cable news, superstations, and Jane Fonda. Apart from marrying Jane, I have never associated him with social causes, unless you consider infotainment and preservation of classic movies as progressive. However, a recent interview in Foreign Policy gives me more of a reason to pay attention to him. In that interview, he touches on the importance of fighting global warming and even pays homage to Al Gore.
Foreign Policy gets credit for asking some intelligent questions. I particularly applaud the framing of the climate crisis issue in terms of the American political climate.
FP: How do you get the politics of climate change in the United States to the point where a member of Congress from Toledo is scared to vote against, say, a carbon tax or a global cap-and-trade system to replace the Kyoto Protocol? Because we’re not there yet, are we?
Herein lies the heart of the problem. With brain-dead deniers rampant in the Republican party, from Senator James Inhofe to the toxic slime in the executive branch, there are potent political roadblocks to progress. We cannot afford to wait until Democrats become a super-majority before we take steps to address the problem. That means convincing the deadhead party to join with us, which is a tall order. I once thought that we had an important ally in Senator John McCain but he has decided that his personal ambitions trump human survival and has abandoned any real effort to fight global warming.
Turner's response to the question is somewhat disappointing, but contains a key insight.
It’s going to be less so now. It’s been hard with the [Bush] administration. There are a number of energy bills going through Congress, and I think that Congress is a lot more amenable to listening to suggestions and studying the issues and getting familiar with them. The administration is moving a little bit, but they’ve always been holding back on this issue, disappointingly.
If we end up doing nothing or not enough, we’re facing very, very difficult times. In fact, we’re in difficult times right now. Down here in Atlanta, we’re running out of water. We have the worst drought in history in this part of the country. It’s almost unbelievable.
It is an understatement to suggest that the Bush administration has been obstructive. That is like saying the Iraq war has been a waste of blood and money. The scale of Bush obstruction on climate change is equivalent to his disastrous Iraq policy. Turner's optimistic appraisal of Congress taking more of a leadership role is difficult to understand. Unless I have missed a real push to move away from fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions, the most I have seen from Congress is more hot air.
It is the second part of Turner's answer that gives some reason to hope. In a nutshell, he is saying the climate changes we are seeing are too large for all but the most determined Republican dodo bird to ignore. He points to the severe drought in the east and southeast U.S. as a case in point.
An article in the current issue of Time outlines the scope of the problem. Climate change has produced the worst drought in the recorded history of the region. Local politicians with their head in the cracked earth have had no plan to address the water needs of the community and have promoted malignant suburban sprawl.
(Atlanta) — With the South in the grip of an epic drought and its largest city holding less than a 90-day supply of water, officials are scrambling to deal with the worst-case scenario: What if Atlanta's faucets really do go dry?
So far, no real backup exists. And there are no quick fixes among suggested solutions, which include piping water in from rivers in neighboring states, building more regional reservoirs, setting up a statewide recycling system or even desalinating water from the Atlantic Ocean.
"It's amazing that things have come to this," said Ray Wiedman, owner of an Atlanta landscaper business. "Everybody knew the growth was coming. We haven't had a plan for all the people coming here?
I hope Turner is correct that the climate crisis will demand action and soon. Some parts of the Atlanta metropolitan region have less than a one-month supply of water. As water becomes scarce, industries that need large amounts of water to operate will have to shut down, including power plants. The deniers love to talk about the costs of doing something to address the climate issue. There is a much greater economic cost of doing nothing.
One response summarizes the very nature of the climate crisis fight.
FP: As a philanthropist, does it frustrate you that you can’t make policies? Without government, are you just nipping at the margins?
TT: I’m frustrated a lot, but we can’t give up and get discouraged. We have to keep pressing on. I was good friends with Captain [Jacques] Cousteau. I told him one time in the Amazon, doing a series down there on [Cousteau’s boat] the Calypso, I said, “Captain, I’m kind of discouraged.” He said, “Ted, we cannot afford to get discouraged, even if we knew that we were going to lose. Which we don’t. What can men of good conscience do but keep trying until the very end?” And whenever I tend to get discouraged, I think of those words and I press on. Failure is not an option here. We’re talking about the survival of the human race, as well as all the other critters we share the planet with—the elephants and the pandas and the polar bears.
Failure is truly not an option. It is easy to become discouraged, but as Cousteau noted, we cannot afford to get discouraged and we must do everything possible to win. To move people lacking a social conscience like many calling themselves conservatives, they have to suffer the consequences of inaction so they begin to act in ways that support the common good.
Perhaps the best way to co-opt the greedy is to show them that they can make money by doing the right thing. At the moment, the denial crowd loves to say that responding to the climate crisis will be expensive and hurt our economy. Turner gets to the heart of the economic matter.
It’s going to cost trillions of dollars to rework the energy sources all over the world. We’re going to have to move away from fossil fuels. Even if we didn’t have greenhouse gases, we’re going to have to move away from fossil fuels as we’re going to run out. They’re finite, whereas solar and wind are infinite.
[snip]
Solar and wind energy are a win-win situation. We get energy independence, which we desperately need to have. We’re transferring our wealth right now in massive amounts to the most unstable parts of the world that happen to have oil.
[snip]
This is the greatest business opportunity that has ever come along. It’s truly global. We have to phase out all the coal-burning plants all over the world. We have to come up with new fuels for transport, biofuels probably. This is big.
Nothing wakes up a self-serving prick like the opportunity to make money. This has to be the most attractive framing of the issue I have seen: "This is the greatest business opportunity that has ever come along." Greatest business opportunity ever. Since Ted Turner has a much better track record for knowing how to spot and exploit business opportunities than 99.999% of staunch Republicans, it would wise for them to pay attention. Unlike Bush, who has yet to prove that his Harvard MBA was not a gift to an undeserving offspring of a big money family, Ted Turner has succeeded in media without the big money bribe machine fashioned by Rupert Murdoch.
To continue to scramble for fossil fuels is definitely a wealth transfer, driving our trade imbalance. Turner does not fall into the trap of promoting coal. Although abundant in the U.S., it is an environmental disaster to extract and worse to use. He also is not looking to seductive quick fixes like ethanol and nuclear power, which have too many hidden costs. The use of corn for ethanol production has driven up food costs. Ethanol and nuclear power require an abundance of water. Turner is betting his money on solar and wind.
For the Gore lovers in our midst, of which I am one, there is this tidbit.
FP: What do you think of Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Does it help the fight against climate change, or does it turn it into more of a partisan issue in the United States?
TT: It’s going to help. Al Gore didn’t get it because he’s a Democrat. He got it because he is a good guy who’s smart as a whip. He sees ahead. And he’s made a great contribution. Every little bit helps. CNN is running a major series next week entitled Planet in Peril. It would have been a title that I would have been proud to have when I was there. It’s strong language, when you say “in peril.” Iran does not put us in peril like global warming does.
Actually, Ted, you know the Iran issue is more about who controls the oil reserves than about a military threat. Gore has already made a huge contribution to the future of life on this planet. The only prizes the neocons can win are those they give each other and their contribution to the future of life on the planet has been profoundly negative.
As for Turner's offspring CNN, its day to day attempts at journalism leave me cold. However, every once in while, they get it right. After giving Glenn Beck an hour to promote climate change denial, the Planet in Peril series sounds like something worth watching. Can you imagine a series about our planet in peril from environmental catastrophe airing on Murdoch's propaganda network? There is more of a chance that Bush will sign onto the Kyoto Protocol.