Baseball Cap and Trade
Posted June 4, 2010 in Solving Global Warming
The big news yesterday was the heart-breaking story of Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga’s almost Perfect Game. Galaragga was robbed of this ultimate achievement by an umpire’s blown call on what should have been the final out of yesterday’s game against the Cleveland Indians. All the more poignant since the umpire, after seeing the unequivocal post-game instant replay, was quick to acknowledge his mistake.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation declaring Galarraga’s outing a perfect game, and presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs joked that President Obama was mulling an executive order. Senator Debbie Stabenow and Congressman John Dingell called on Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig to change the ruling under his inherent powers to act in the best interests of baseball. Selig declined to change history but vowed reforms, including the likely greater use of instant replay to correct on-the-field mistakes.
A friend tells me the baseball story ran second on The Today Show yesterday morning right behind the update on the BP oil disaster.
There’s a message here: The country is yearning for problems we know how to solve.
Things are hard right now. The economy is recovering, but people are still hurting. Tensions are high in the Koreas and the Middle East. And the BP disaster goes on and on.
Over the last year, the news media have reported the day-to-day political struggles over the recovery act, health care, financial reform, and – now – energy policy. But the context is missing.
Right now, we in the midst of a collosal political struggle. On one side are those who believe we can work together through our government to solve real and difficult problems – indeed that these problems cannot be solved without government action. On the other side are those who believe (or say they do) that the government only screws things up, and maybe the problems aren’t even real.
I can understand how some of our fellow citizens are frustrated by the complexity of modern problems. Some choose to wish those problems away. Others have given up on government as a force that can solve them.
But those who run for office on that back of that anger and frustration, by denying problems and rejecting solutions – they are a different breed.
I wish all our problems were as straightforward as that call at first base, and that we had instant replay to sort out all our mistakes. But outside the ballpark, life is more complicated.
Over the last year the president and the congressional majority – sometimes with help from a few moderates crossing the aisle – have stepped up to face real problems and have accomplished big things. Now, with the daily feed from BP’s spillcam underlining why, it is time for the Senate, with a strong hand from the president, to step up once more and adopt comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.
We have a long national history of confronting complicated problems, and solving them. And of rewarding the political leaders who step up to do it.
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Comments
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Co. — Jun 6 2010 06:34 PM
Yes of course, some coherent energy policy is appropriate, but actually the leak does not underline a need for cap and trade, as timed and as now being discussed. But moving on to this without first getting the leak stopped is bad action.
It appears that environmentalists are accepting, as if with wisdom about ocean operations that they barely comprehend, that the leak can not be stopped. Of course it can.
It can be stopped by casting a dam around the well head and the pipe below to a some depth down. That is a refined way. It also can be stopped with a blockbuster bomb making a crater, then to be filled with a sequence of bulk ore carriers unloading rock, with layers of concrete put down in sequence. This will also dam the flow, though a bit more crudely than if a concrete dam was simply cast around the well head.
BP appears to be making decisions like the slum landlord who worries about whether the firemen are saving the beams as they lift them off the bodies. Yes, they want the leak stopped, but at each decision point they opt for measures that enable preservation of the asset.
There is always a technical sycophant who will assure management that a given process will succeed, and of course, when offered the choice of permanently disabling the well and tinkering a bit more to both stop the leak and preserve the well, management always goes for the best economic option.
The blame is shifting from Bush and his administration that put nothing appropriate in place to Obama who is fully bamboozled by BP, through his also bamboozled advisors who also barely comprehend what is going on. Curiously we, now have in Carol Browner, Energy Advisor to Obama, a Brownie equal to Bush's Brownie. As she wrings her hands and accepts that this could go on several more months, we should be more enraged even than we were at the previous Brownie.
It is terribly misdirected for environmentalists to skip blithely on to cap and trade without first bringing every bit of their force to bear on stopping the leak.
David Doniger — Jun 6 2010 11:08 PM
Jim, Of course the leak can and must be stopped. That's first and foremost BP's responsibility. But I'd hate to see the oil disaster be a magician's distraction that keeps us from focusing also on the need and opportunity to pass clean energy and climate legislation through the Senate this summer.
Tom Toles nails the connection between the spill and the climate in this June 6, 2010 cartoon: http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Co. — Jun 9 2010 02:31 PM
A magician's distraction????
Do you actually not realize that this is real?
And no, it is our responsibility, first. An environmentalist can not say otherwise.
Getting BP to act might be a constructive action, but it is clear that they are not able or willing to act effectively.
A sensible climate bill that represents the human condition in all respects, including the environment, is essential. However, ramming it through on a hysterical note driven by this spill disaster is not going to produce a well thought out law.
I have no time to study it now, and I do not see how any real environmentalist could.