Senator Carl drops Scotsw a friendly note

You may not be aware that I'm an intimate correspondent of Senator Carl Levin's. He writes me from time to time -- usually e-mail, because who has time to send hand-written correspondence anymore? -- and lets me know what's on his mind. I know he's writing particularly to me because each letter begins with a very proper invocation, thus:

Dear Mr. Woods:

Which is how these things are done among the well-bred. Anyhow, today's personal note regards Global Warming, a problem which Carl agrees is important -- very important. However, the good Senator is a careful man -- very careful -- when it comes to the economy. And so he writes to me:

"Climate change is a global problem, and it requires a global solution. The most important action that would tackle global warming is to create an effective and enforceable international treaty that binds all nations to reduce greenhouse gases, including developing countries such as China and India. Without actions to limit greenhouse gases worldwide, nothing we do in the United States will really matter...

I appreciate Carl's thoughtfulness on this. I mean, we're buds, so I don't want to sound too harsh. But how bloody dumb does Carl think we are? This pap may mollify the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, but it is, of course, nothing short of delusional.


This warming problem is Hard Reality. This issue is unlike terrorism or abortion or all the other political footballs which politicians in Washington are used to kicking around and recycling in each election. Global warming will have its effects regardless of what politicians say, regardless of blather about what's wise or not wise, regardless of posturing. New Orleans was not a joke, nor a fluke. That's how Hard Reality works.

In the first place, the 5% of the world's population which lives in the United States emits 25% of the world's greenhouse gases. So by definition, yes, even acting on our own, what we do in the United States WILL matter. In the second place, acting now puts us several steps ahead when the treaty comes into effect. We'll be that much further along in the development of technologies the rest of the world will want.


But third -- and this is the whole point -- WE HAVE NO RIGHT to continue to imperil the future of the world's poorest people. For the nefarious cruelty of this issue is that the people who have benefitted least from the activities which caused this pollution are the people who will pay most for our actions. There is a moral imperative that we act now. And I would say that people who have been paying attention have known this for a decade at least (thus the Kyoto treaty), so we're already very late in acting.

The arguments about India and China are also false. Auto suppliers and other manufacturers are already heading for India and China as fast as they can pull up stakes. Besides, those people have the same right we do to a good standard of living. When Americans can get their per-capita emissions down to the level of the Indians and Chinese, then we can start moralizing to them about how they need to act. Please.

But underlying all of this is the wrong-headed idea that this is an economic issue. I simply don't believe that's true. It's insulting to argue that a certain amount of avoidable cataclysm is acceptable to us, and use hypothetical economic calculations to justify our intransigence. We don't know what the future holds -- there may be recessions, depressions, wars, inventions, migrations, natural disasters -- too many variables to try to put a price tag on economic growth down the line.

While the specific effects of global warming aren't known -- and given the chaos of weather systems, are not even knowable -- the general picture is pretty clear: More famine, millions displaced, oceans rising at least a few feet, changing rainfall patterns, species extinguished, and ecosystems turned upside down. That's the Hard Reality, and it don't care about Gross Domestic Product. Try to put a price on that, O pointy heads.

So, no Carl, I don't agree. Everything we do will really matter. It is past time to act. And if a few more jobs go to India or China, so be it. We have bigger fish to fry.