Monthly Archives: July 2011

New Test For Political Nominees

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on July 28, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”) The Democratic and Republican parties announced their nominations for the November elections in towns throughout Fairfield County last week, eliciting little more than a collective sigh from an electorate weary of partisan politics. To be fair, the announcements were made even as President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner turned the crucial negotiations surrounding the need to raise the national debt ceiling into a high-stakes game of “he said/she said.” Faced with an opportunity for leadership, both sides reverted to childish antics more akin to “Thomas The Train” than Thomas Jefferson. All sides in Washington agree we need to at least temporarily raise the amount the government can borrow by August 2 or risk defaulting on our obligations. This could mean further destabilizing the financial markets while devaluing the dollar and increasing interest rates. Rather than bowing to the gravity of the moment, both President Obama and Speaker Boehner chose to host separate press conferences vilifying the other. On Sunday’s “Face The Nation,” US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner bemoaned that the histrionics resulting from these delicate negotiations have already gone too far. “You want to take this out of politics… you don’t want politics messing around with America’s faith and credit.” This simple posit can be applied to every major issue facing all levels of government today: painting each debate as an ideological struggle has wasted whatever credit our politicians had left. Few have faith in the ability of our elected leaders to play nice with each other, much less solve the problems set before them. A July 20 Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 80% of respondents are “dissatisfied” or “angry” about the way the government is working. While discontent is not unique, one associates negative numbers like these with the Arab Spring more than a congressional recess. More and more Americans are growing sick at the prospect of further political gamesmanship among the major parties; former President Richard Nixon referred to this group of citizens residing in the middle of the two extremes as the “silent majority.” These are not flag-wavers or gavel-smackers; you won’t find them standing on the corner with sandwich boards or rallying in the streets. These are the folks whose time is taken up providing for their families, paying their taxes, and improving their community. They just want their government to work, and they’re smart enough to realize that some compromise is in order when working with a diverse population. To think otherwise is not merely childish but dangerous It’s amid this backdrop that we meet the newest crop of nominations for local government, and one could be forgiven the cynicism that accompanies the platforms they trot out. I have the utmost respect for those local men and women who seek the thankless job of representing our best interests, but it’s hard to maintain that respect when important issues are held hostage to political affiliation. What we need is a layer…

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Fun with Footprints

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on July 14, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”) Earlier this month, Canada joined France, Japan and Russia by refusing to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit the emissions of industrialized countries (the US reiterated at a recent G8 dinner that it would continue to fight for climate change “outside the Protocol”). Poor and emerging economies wanted to extend the pact, but the departure of these big countries at U.N. climate talks that ran from June 6th to June 17th in Bonn, Germany, have cast a pall over the Green movement. While I respect how important “green” sustainable living is to the future of our planet, the infancy of this movement makes for great comedy. Take carbon offsets, for example. A carbon offset is a reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases or any carbon dioxide equivalent in order to make up the emissions made somewhere else. In other words, my wife guilts me into buying and planting trees to make up for the fact that I bought an SUV six years ago. In theory, they bridge the gap between what we should do and what we will do. In practice, however, they can be ridiculous. Rather than doing the hard work of capping harmful emissions, companies turn to carbon offsets as sinners do to the Catholic confessional: do what you like, but one visit to the priest absolves all sins. Unlike your spiritual salvation, however, you don’t need to wait long to see if it worked; former vice president Al Gore gives you the dispensation immediately (especially if you work for Generation Investment Management, a company Al Gore co-founded in 2004 that buys carbon offsets for all its employees). The logic defies me. The next time I go out to eat, I will respond to my doctor’s concerns about my weight with, “I’ll order all the food I want, but I’ll also make sure to buy my dog a big salad. That way, it’s almost like I ate what I was supposed to, and not like the bloated pig I’ve become.” Even better, carbon offsets are now treated as a commodity. The Kyoto Protocol sanctioned offsets as a way for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits that could be traded in the global marketplace. The protocol established the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a watchdog that ensures “real” benefits as a result of the actions taken. In my case, I can store up the “credits” I created when I was forced to eat a salad after I’d run out of pizza last weekend and really go hog wild before the next tailgate. I haven’t worked out the math yet, but I’m thinking one salad offsets about 6,000 calories. God I love healthy living. Luckily, the creators of the Kyoto Protocol are not as dumb as I am, so surely they had a better way to get the word out to the public before the initiative began. After setting these important standards, the…

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