Americas
Mirror On The United States
Kyoto Is About Money: Are We Game?
Conveniently, for someone about to write about the environment, I have an American oil engineer friend who used to sport a bumper sticker reading “Don’t mess with Texas” on the back of her gas-guzzling Jeep. In fact, in the spirit of overconsumption, she had two, one on each side. The joke turns out to be that while she had them, Texas had nothing to fear but Texas itself. The governor at that time, now president of the United States, allowed such slack to chemical plants and toxic dumps that the Lone Star State is at the top of the national ranking for toxic releases, which is why the Yellow Rose of Texas now looks distinctly brown around the edges.
It’s also why it’s no use throwing our collective apron over our head and wailing over his Great Leap Backward on the Kyoto global warming treaty. If we didn’t see this coming, then we just weren’t looking.
For a large and complicated nation, America’s pretty simple and straightforward. It’s hard to remember post-Clinton (who could find wiggle-room in a car crusher) that plain speaking and directness used to be one of its prized virtues.
The last straight Clintonism I remember is his electoral mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid”—and it is. It’s not about religion, race, or imperialism—it’s about money. I’ve had enough “here versus there” conversations to know which way the Euro-knee jerks on this fact. But as the clock ticks, wasting time pooh-poohing American crassness or moralizing about the consequent social inequality is a luxury the environment can’t afford.
Of course the consensus is that the president is paying his dues to Big Oil and Big Metal for supporting his election, and of course that is, to us, outrageous. But money is unsentimental. The fight against global warming and pollution should be equally clear-eyed in its assessment of what just happened.
What happened was that the American president was honest and spoke plainly, and we should start dealing with it. He said: “I will not accept anything that will harm our economy and hurt our American workers.” We should listen to him, because it’s an opportunity. Not the obvious one—given the fact that the European Union is the largest market in the world—of an emotional rush to the barricades and imposition of trade sanctions, but it’s a chance for us to be equally straight about what this game is worth to us, because it is a game, that old favorite, the all-American game: poker. And poker’s about money and character.
America’s cards were being played by Bill, the Big Bluffer. Now, as he heads for the dry cleaners of history, George W. has slid into his seat. The cards didn’t change. All he’s done is tell us what it’ll cost to stay in and ask what we’re prepared to sacrifice to protect the environment.
Now it’s our turn to put up or shut up. How much do we really care?
That’s a character question. If we’re considering a trade war, whose attrition is to be measured in empty shopping bags, what exactly are we prepared to do without?
Starbucks? The Gap? American TV shows? American films? On video, cable, and satellite? American music? Coke? Computers? How about soft ware? The Simpsons? What’s your sticking point? If we answer that honestly, we’ll know something about ourselves.
It is just possible that we are selfish enough not to want to pay too much for our environment. We don’t always listen to the prompting of our better angels: We aren’t all whizzing about on bicycles or curing hunger, and we still buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies that price the Third World out of good health. Even a wildly erratic poker player knows there’s no point bluffing if we don’t have the stomach for it.
It’s not (yet) the end of the world if we admit this. Just as there are no atheists in a foxhole, so there aren’t a lot of activists in a supermarket. If there were, the shelves would look different, and there would be more parking space for bikes. If we’re not up for poker, we should admit it and move on.
The clock’s ticking. We’ll have to do some 3-D thinking instead.
Americans aren’t stupid or blinkered. They are just a mass of contradictions, like us. They breathe the same air. That’s where the hope lies. That oil engineer? She also introduced me to farmers’ markets, evangelizes about organic food, and recycles like a dervish.
