A Change in the Wind

Is Human Kindness Surprising?

In Harper's in September, Rebecca Solnit wrote that rare animal--a truly surprising essay. Published on the eve of Katrina's landfall, and excerpted on the web, Solnit made at least three really thought-provoking points:

First, that people who live through disasters often look back on them fondly. New Yorkers remember the blackouts that way. Solnit, who lives in the Bay Area, recalls "the gregariousness in the hours and days after the l989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which killed sixty-three pople and interrupted life for millions...the quake shook us out of our everyday grudges and create a rare sense of fellowship in an increasingly atomized region." From this and a few other examples she concludes, following William James, that because we share the experience of a disaster, "the solidarity may eclipse the suffering, and thus rather than adding to the isolation of individual misfortune such events may undo the loneliness of everyday life."

Second, that what transpires in the aftermath of a disaster rarely resembles a horror movie. Even after the l906 earthquake, witnesses recalled "no running around the streets, or shrieking, or anything like that," but rather people walking calmly about, talking, even joking. "Instead [of panicking], the people generally classified as victims generally do what can be done to save themselves and one another. In doing so, they discover not only the potential power of civil society but also the fragility of existing structures of authority. And perhaps this, too, is grounds for joy."

And third, most radically, that disasters can allow us to rediscover the community that our government and our way of life are conspiring to eradicate, in much the same way that the festival of carnival was a joyous respite from the heavy structures of church and tradition. Solnit sees our recent history of privatization as moving us away from each other. "...we are encouraged by our great media and advertising id to fear one another and regard public life as a danger and a nuisance, to live in secured spaces, and communicate by electronic means...but disaster makes it clear that our interdependence is not only an inescapable fact but a fact worth celebrating..."

I've never lived through a disaster comparable to Katrina, but I have seen numerous fires and floods and an earthquake in fifteen or so years in the somewhat melodramatic landscape of Southern California where we live, and it's absolutely true that people around here cherish their disasters. They mark their lives by them, and take pride in their willingness to help neighbors, and exhibit no signs of panic or desperation in the midst of the calamity, and a great eagerness to talk and share their experiences in the aftermath.

Once I thought it was simply that people liked the drama, but Solnit has got me thinking. Perhaps, in our heart of hearts, the disaster we fear the most is the one we know the best: Loneliness.

Toles vs. Toles

Tom Toles, an editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, has a fascinating feature in which he publishes sketches of work he doesn't finish and put into syndication. Given Toles' brilliance, and the fact that he is the editorial cartoonist most interested in science and environmental issues, these sketches sometimes turn out to be quite wonderful in their own unfinished way...

Making the Connection

Democrats and leftists are excited about the accelerating crack-up of the Bush administration, which--as acerbic Dana Milbank of the Washington Post noted in the aftermath of Katrina--no longer can even effectively stage a photo op. (Interesting, Fox News is now taking the position that supporting the troops means attacking those trying to shove words into their mouths--even if those people are Presidential handlers from the Bush Administration. Maybe they can tell which way the wind is blowing.)

But those of us on the left hand side of the dial concerned about enviro issues need to keep our cool. It's a long way to the next national elections, first of all, and when it comes to global warming, the fact remains that we need to move not just the elites, but vast middle of the country, the self-identified moderates who tend to lean to the right, as Kevin Drum of the "Political Animal" site at the Washington Monthly has eloquently written about on many occasions. Drum points out that according to numerous polls, self-identified liberals are down to about twenty percent of the electorate, which is why it's so important to reach beyond this natural audience.

One piece of very good news is that the most popular politician on the national stage, John McCain, is leading the fight on this issue in the Senate, and is said by some grumbling right-wingers to be "obsessed" with global warming. But what excites yours truly is that McCain--unlike Gore and quite a few leftists--doesn't talk about global warming as a distant prospect that could bring total disaster to far-off places and species at some point in the alarming future--the disaster movie approach.

No, McCain travels the country to bring the issue home. In Arizona he talks about drought (which according to NOAA, is now in its sixth year in much of the Southwest). In Minnesota he talks about ducks, and how enviros and hunters are working together to save them...from global warming.

This week, we’re stopping at Buffalo Creek, Minnesota, home of the Prairie Pothole Region: the most important breeding ground for ducks in the United States. But this critical area is at risk.

With global temperatures rising by just a few degrees Fahrenheit, the future of this crucial habitat and the ducks that breed there are at stake. As temperatures rise, ducks migrate farther north in warmer weather in the Northern Hemisphere. These ducks risk losing a place to live, eat, breed and survive. The climate changes taking place affect young ducklings’ ability to survive their first migration. Rising temperatures even lowers the rate of survival for the food that ducks eat and feed to their young. Most notably, the population of ducks could decline by about 70% in about 70 years if current projections play themselves out. This would be caused mostly by the fact that 91% of the wetlands that ducks need would have dried up.

In a rare coupling, environmentalists and hunters have joined forces to call attention to the threatened duck. Hunters spent $1.3 billion in the United States in 2001, $99 million of that was spent in Minnesota alone. Hunters and environmentalists join together to highlight the demonstrable fact that change is already occurring. The migratory and brooding cycles of many types of birds has significantly changed compared to patterns from 1960. Hunters know that their livelihood is at stake as climate change takes a toll on the duck population in the United States. Environmentalists know that wetlands are drying up as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases and temperature change follows suit.

Check out McCain's travel log for more information on "virtual march" on Washington.

Writers Around the World...on the Big Heat

I admire scientists enormously but let's face it, they're not the most captivating of storytellers, even with their nifty color graphs. Darwin has a lot to say but when it comes to our heritage, he loses most of the country, the polls say, and no matter how many times anthropologists and National Geographic explain that no, we weren't descended from apes, but from a common ancestor to both apes and humans; well, never mind. Too complicated and/or thorny for prime time, apparently.

So when the fall issue of the great English literary magazine Granta arrived, complete with brief letters from writers around the world on global warming, I perked up. At last a way to offer human truths on what many (including Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes) call "the biggest story in the world."

I'm sure Granta won't mind if I quote from some of these wonderful pieces over the next few days. Note: I'm deliberately not going to quote the Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood, because her piece on the Artic is jolting, and for now I want to bring to light other--gentler, but no less memorable--visions of the change that is now sweeping the globe.

From The Weather Where We Are:

Urvashi Butali: INDIA

"...the weather has always been cruel in India, but it was at least more predictable. You knew the summer would be hot, and the winter cold. March, and the harvest festival of Holi, brought a hint of summer, and by April the heat had begun to kick in, rising until the monsoon broke in June or July. November, and the festival of Diwali brought a hint of winter and by December the warm clothes were out. Now you're guessing much of the time: will the winter be cold, the summer hot? WIll the heat come early, the cold late? Nobody, not even the Met department, seems to be able to say for sure."

"Perhaps we can adjust to this new uncertainty--people are adapatable and so, up to a point, are the crops they grow. But if the monsoon were to become equally capricious--and its arrival and duration have never been completely dependable--then India would face a very different future. The monsoon is the most essential and cherished of our seaons. The harvest relies on a good monsoon, and therefore the economy relies on a good monsoon. It directly affects our well-being; it can influence the outcome of elections; it's the only season that merits a whole raga to itself in Hindustani music. The story goes that in the court of the Mughal king Akbar, courtiers jealous of the poet Tansen persuaded the ruler to ask the poet to sing the raga Deepak, the music that is dedicated to fire, to a flame. They knew that once he began, he would become so absorbed in his music, that not only would everything else burn with the fire, but he would die too."

"But Tansen was cleverer. He agreed to sing, he had little choice. But he spoke to his young daughter, and warned her of what would happen, telling her that as he began to sing, she should take up the raga Malhar, the raga that welcomes the monsoon rains. He sang, and she sang. His music ignited a fire, everything began to burn, her music brought the rain, everything was blessed. A song that everyone across India will recognize is a song that asks for rain

Allah, give us clouds, give us rain, give us shade... Allah, give us clouds...."                                                                                       

The Uses of Cynicism

A couple of weeks ago newly-elected Senator Barack Obama impressed even the jaded blogosphere with the brilliance of his response to those on the left eager to punish Democratic Senators deemed to be "appeasing" right-wing Republicans by working with them on certain issues, or not opposing them bitterly enough on others.

The post on Obama's website, which also can be found on Daily Kos, fully deserves reading from start to finish; it's a masterpiece, not for its rhetoric, its flowery phrases or angry denunciations (what flowery phrases?)...but because it just makes so much sense. But what makes it inspiring to yours truly is its determination not to be drawn into hyperbole , but to make a virtue of the truth.

Hyperbole is especially tempting when it comes to global issues such as climate change, I think, because the fact that we are facing a whole new world, literally, opens the door to the wildest sort of speculations or fears. It's especially important to those of us who believe in truth and science not to be drawn into the trap of exaggeration, from which no reputation can emerge unharmed. The issues we face are big enough.

Here's what Obama said:

And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

He was speaking of politics, but it's just as true regarding the planet's health. The temptation is to respond to cynicism about science and the environment with apocalyptic visions of doom; tempting, but that way hyperbole lies. The facts are troubling enough; leave the apocalypses to the religious fanatics.

Business As Usual in Bush Adminstration: It's Okay for Industry Lobbyists to Write Hazardous Waste Regulations

A story in today's Washington Post reveals yet another full-scale assault on the environment from the Bush Administration. This has become so routine that it's a little surprising the paper even thinks it's worth the front page. 

Back in 2001, the Bush Administration Environmental Protection Agency (which clearly needs a new title) allowed industry lobbyists from Cintas Corportation, whose chairman raised more than a quarter-million dollars for the Bush-Cheney campaign, to rewrite rules on the washing-out of hazardous waste from industrial towels. This caused some controversy, because environmentalists and landfill operators objected, and the issue landed on the desk of the Inspector-General of the EPA, Nikki Tinsley.

Her response? No problem!

"The bottom line is that's okay," she said. "If someone gives them words that they think are appropriate, there's nothing wrong with that. That's legal -- and common, apparently."

Certainly under this administration it's common. Tinsley is a long-time bureaucrat enthusiastically endorsed for her office by anti-science extremist Senator James Imhofe of Oklahoma (who once famously called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"). He expected her to be critical of the agency and its science advisors and evidently she's filling the bill.

In the past, it was commonly considered shameful to let polluters write regulations. But those days of responsibility to public health and the future are gone.

According to a profile in the newspaper, Tinsley has in her office a pillow on which in needlepoint is emblazoned: If You Obey All the Rules, You Miss All the Fun.

That's today's EPA: having fun with hazardous waste.