Wars Bush Doesn't Want to Fight

There are a lot fights to pick on this planet (and apparently, we should call everything a "war" because there's that lovely imagery of a violently, fiery death so important to propaganda). But the war on consumerism is one fight for which Georgie Porgie is not itching. According to Thomas Friedman in this week's op-ed, that's because Bush is a sissy. Sadly, I know many of you out there will not be able to read this article, so I'll just quote liberally:

As we enter 2006, we find ourselves in trouble, at home and abroad. We are in trouble because we are led by defeatists - wimps, actually. What's so disturbing about President Bush and Dick Cheney is that they talk tough about the necessity of invading Iraq, torturing terror suspects and engaging in domestic spying - all to defend our way of life and promote democracy around the globe. But when it comes to what is actually the most important issue in U.S. foreign and domestic policy today - making ourselves energy efficient and independent, and environmentally green - they ridicule it as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies believe is possible or necessary. Sorry, but being green, focusing the nation on greater energy efficiency and conservation, is not some girlie-man issue. It is actually the most tough-minded, geostrategic, pro-growth and patriotic thing we can do. Living green is not for sissies.

As usual, nameless relative and I do not completely see eye to eye on the problem (though at least we agree that environmental degradation is a problem). His/her response to the article is along the usual Republican fault line (no pun intended) of personal responsibility:

I quickly reviewed this and do agree with him. Our mayor in his inaugural address asked that we practice conservation -- it was the centerpiece of his speech. Also even Bill O'Reilly continues to make a big push about conserving energy and has asked that people not drive on Sundays. Is anybody listening to these people? At the end of the day it does not matter what our leadership says -- it has to be a personal effort that each person takes on. I am beginning to see more and more people getting rid of their SUV's and buy station wagons. While not huge that is a step in the right direction. I drive very little so it does not matter. Having no commute really saves on energy.

While I agree that a personal effort on every individual's part is very important, we need vast changes at the national level if we hope to rescue ourselves from our impending predicament. Recycling here and there and not driving one day a week is not going to do it. Most people need to be taking public transportation or walking in most of the country - right now, very few places have the infrastructure in place to accomplish this. Agriculture uses incredibly unsound practices to deliver a boatload of food that Americans do not need (in fact we throw away millions of pounds of food per year). Protien sources are all too cheap - if all beef indisutrialists used natural techniques (grass-fed cows raised to full maturity before slaughter, no hormones or anti-biotics, free range), beef prices would skyrocket and people would eat less of it. Same with grain, milk, eggs, pork, etc. Consumer packaging, particularly of food (even organic stuff), is incredibly wasteful. The food we make contains highly addictive elements like corn syrup, which means that people will consume much more packaging and eat more calories than is necessary (also making themselves fat and paradoxically malnourished at the same time). Cities allow for too much suburban expansion - suburbs are land-intensive, cannot avail themselves of high-density infrastructure, encourage wasteful behavior (lots of storage space which means people will collect more stuff, use of lawn care products and too much water, etc). We have all these electronic devices that contain mercury, lead, PCD's, and dioxin that we just dump willy-nilly, whether here or elsewhere in the world. Manufacturers are never responsible for disposing of all the waste from which they profit - some companies, like HP, have taken it upon themselves to recycle or reuse things like ink cartridges, but it's not mandatory which means most companies won't do it.

The bottom line is that we have a consumer-based culture from which the individual citizen cannot be expected to substantially escape on his or her own. If there is a massive information campaign about conservation and individuals do not respond, then conservation laws are our only choice (imagine if we said, we leave it to your conscience whether you can steal from or kill your neighbor - some people wouldn't take anything or wouldn't kill, but quite a few people would). One method for imposing individual conservation is gas taxes, but we can't implement high gas taxes unless we give people an alternative method of transportation. Also, companies must be held responsible for their own waste, period. If they cannot make products profitably when paying for the true costs of manufacturing these products, then we don't need the products. For instance, drink manufacturers should be responsible for reusing or recycling their drink containers, instead of a city or a locality having to dispose of them (this would force manufacturers to come up with innovative ways to reduce their waste creation and it would also increase prices, which might reduce consumption). With regard to gasoline use, many companies relocate out to the suburbs, which causes some incredible commutes. Therefore, companies that want to relocate out to the suburbs to save money on facility costs should pay a commuter fee, which could be calculated on the number of workers they have. And we should make it extremely unprofitable for car companies to make SUV's - right now, the converse is true. The Hummer should not even be legal.

At our current rate of burning up the planet, whether in a few decades, or a century, there's going to be an apocolypse of a fashion, except without any rapture, and those of who are left will be living like Mad Max. But even if we accept that our past dooms us (and most of us naturally do not accept this proposition), we can slow down our demise significantly through conservation. If women with ovarian cancer can suffer through a course of incredibly painful IP treatment for an additional 16 months of life, we can all find the courage to build some subways, dismantle our outlying suburbs, reduce the availability of junk food, regulate our agriculturalists and manufacturers more heavily, and maybe even get rid of some of our cars for a few more years of humanity's existence, right?