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It’s used too easily and too often: “Do it for the children.”
Variations are: “Think of the children; It’s for the children; For our children’s sake.”
A favorite response to proposed expenditures for domestic improvement is often met with “They’re bankrupting our children’s future.”
It’s getting to be as old and tired as “Thoughts and prayers” after a school shooting.
Here’s a reality check on the “for the children” cliché.
The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued reports on the effects of climate change over a period of several years, each reporting the need for drastic action to prevent irreversible climate damage. The most recent describes irreversible damage that has already occurred and the dire consequences of not making immediate radical changes.
For several years, the IPCC has stated that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45% of 2010 levels to prevent irreparable damage to the climate, damage that could become catastrophic. They’re climbing, not falling.
At the rate we are going, the children have no future or at least not a pleasant one.
Anybody paying attention yet? Well, no.
(Actually, the children are: despondent and angry.)
How about the Defense Department? The US is all about National Security. It’s an excuse for an enormous military budget. It’s an excuse for spying on citizens. It’s an excuse for censorship. It is sometimes, when they can get away with it, for imprisoning people for wrongspeak. National Security should make all levels of government sit up straight and pay attention.
Well…here it is. The Department of Defense has issued a report stating that climate change is a great National Security risk.
Anybody paying attention? mmmm…No.
In an effort to kick the can yet farther down the road, corporations and our elected officials have generated the “carbon neutral by 2050” phrase. What is carbon neutral? It is merely the amount of greenhouse gas emissions is equal to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, such as absorption by trees or mechanical/chemical processes.
The IPCC predicts that on the current path, catastrophic and possibly life-threatening changes will occur by 2050. We can all rest assured that if the goal of carbon-neutral by 2050 is met, the catastrophic and potentially life-threatening conditions won’t get any worse after 2050. Good to know, isn’t it?
We are on the sidelines, sort of, in a war between Russia and Ukraine. Among the conditions that make up the “sort of” status are economic sanctions on Russia. Among the economic sanctions is a prohibition of importing Russian oil and gas into the US. That’s all well and good. Russia is an oligarchy. The war is being conducted by a Russian oligarch who makes a lot of his money on the sales of oil and gas. It makes sense.
The result is, of course, gasoline and diesel fuel prices soar.
This is America. The natural reaction is that the government must do something about gasoline prices!
The natural reaction by elected officials is that we must fix the situation by producing more gas and oil. We need to drill more. We have depended upon countries that don’t necessarily like us for our fuel (that’s nothing new, but some folks are just now discovering it). We need to be energy independent.
If there was ever a “for the children” opportunity, this is it. A shortage of petroleum should be the impetus we need to stop using the stuff.
Left unchecked, the effect of climate change will be about the same as the effect of nuclear war. It will just take longer. Forget conflicts with other countries. The threat of the effect of war is upon us. The US should react as it did in 1941. Everyone in the US reduced consumption “for the war effort.” Material needed for war was produced at an unprecedented rate.
440 foot long, 11,000 ton Liberty ships were built in four days. Four engine airplanes were built from scratch in an hour. Companies that were in businesses not related to military supplies started producing military supplies. Lionel (the toy train manufacturer), Ford, Alcoa, and Mattatuck Manufacturing Company (upholstery nails) and many others changed production to military supplies unrelated to their business. US railroads handled 70 percent of all freight (it is now less than 10 percent, which they can barely manage).
We have the perfect opportunity to effectively respond to the climate emergency, protect National security, and respond to the petropolitics that are affecting the economy.
Among the newspeak platitudes to show that the government is doing something is the vision of super fast High Speed Rail. A super fast High Speed Rail project started today would likely not be in service until 2050. One project that isn’t even funded yet promises emissions reductions by 2035. There are promises of charging stations for Electric Vehicles (EVs). Almost half of the population is living from paycheck to paycheck without a dollar to spare. Exactly where are they going to get the EVs to charge at the government charging stations? Those are questions we’re not supposed to ask. When asked, the question of HSR is evaded with empty responses. The question of how people will get the EVs to charge at the government charging stations is met with the possibility of tax incentives. I have news for those elected officials hiding behind that idea. People living paycheck to paycheck are generally not paying enough taxes to allow them to buy an EV even if it was all refunded.
We need to direct funds into rail transportation, electric vehicles, and other greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
The time is now. Kicking the can down the road is no longer possible. It is already beyond the end of the road…and we are at the end of the road.
Elected officials who are in favor of solving the current problem with more domestic production to ensure the status quo need to be replaced in the next election. Do it “for the children.”
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Thos