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TODAY Thursday 15 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Thursday 15 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Our Forthright Administration
"Voluntary is not a dirty word," said former Energy Secretary O'Leary when she unveiled the toothless plan of the early Clinton Administration to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions. The primary engines for change were expressions of good will from your better sort of CEO and a series of well-designed brochures, reports, and public relations offensives by bright young bureaucrats. You will be shocked to learn that there was no stabilization of emissions, nor even an appreciable decline in their rate of growth.
Fast forward to 1995. The Administration, including the President himself, pores over public opinion surveys and reports of focus groups, trying to find the issues and the vocabulary to drive a wedge between the triumphalist Republicans of the 104th Congress and the majority of voting Americans, i.e. 25% of the adult population of the country. Social Security and Medicare top the list, of course, and the President reminds voters that Republicans were historically unenthusiastic about those programs in much the same way that late-19th Century Republicans "waved the bloody shirt" to remind voters that Democrats had been squishy during the Civil War.
Medicare is especially important, it turns out, to adult working women, even though their paychecks are made smaller by its costs. It is they, not their men, who actually take care of their parents (not to mention their kids), and any intimation that the government is going to cut back on assistance to the elderly becomes a pocketbook, time-management issue of the first proportion. More surprisingly, perhaps, the surveys also reveal that this crucial bloc of voters is decidedly in favor of environmental protection, and adopts two bedrock positions on the subject: one, that they simply do not want to hear that you can't have prosperity and a "clean" environment at the same time; and two, that they do not trust businesses to tell the truth about these things.
Well, quicker than you can say "triangulation," Bill Clinton starts talking about the environment. "I say we can have environmental protection and economic growth at the same time!," he proclaims, links the Republicans with "special interests" and "polluters," and quickly the environment becomes one of a handful of issues invoked ceaselessly to separate the moderate, sensible President from his dyspeptic, ungenerous challenger. It works.
Here in 1997, as our in-house sage Hibernicus predicted, Al Gore goes more green in public. There's a joint appearance with Secretary of State Albright to announce that the environment has risen to the top of foreign policy priorities. There's an announcement that the acceptability of toxic chemicals will be determined by their influence on the health of children, not adults. There's a newly-enlarged "brownfields" initiative.
But maybe more interesting, the President himself is getting into the act. On his trip to the Dakotas to comfort flood victims, he speculated that human activities had changed the weather. In Costa Rica he worried aloud about climate change, praised efforts to preserve biodiversity, and promised some technical assistance on electric vehicles. He announced he would personally lead the American delegation to the United Nations conference to follow up on the Rio Summit of five years ago. Is he thinking of his place in history? Smoothing the way for a Gore candidacy? Just checking in on more focus groups? Whatever -- it's welcome.
But note a little cloud on the horizon. Off in Rome, last week, the Assistant Secretary for Fossil Fuels at the Energy Department gave a presentation at the US-European Coal Conference. The gist of Robert Kripowicz's remarks was that although the US government had agreed to negotiate legally-binding targets for stabilizing greenhouse emissions, those targets "must be realistic and achievable, and without a timetable." The Administration "won't close the door" on fossil fuels, he said. He held out great promise for the potential of new clean-coal technologies to achieve higher rates of burn-efficiency and lower rates of carbon dioxide emissions.
Let's hope he's right. But is it all right to confess a little uneasiness at the word "realistic?" And can anyone really reach a target "without a timetable?" I suppose this is an improvement over the happy-talk of Hazel O'Leary, but don't get fitted for those rose-colored glasses just yet.
TODAY ON THE SITE
If you want to know about the science and politics of climate change, you're a click away from the best introductory lesson on the Web. Leonie Haimson's climate feature in our In The Trenches section summarizes the issues, quotes a wide range of experts, highlights upcoming hot spots, and presides over an interesting exchange of views on the proper division of climate-change-abatement responsibilities between rich and poor countries.
5/14: Coral Reefs of the Sahara
5/13: (Life Before) Death and Taxes
5/12: Kids
5/09: Free Trade and Hormones
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway