For Whom Are We Saving The Planet?

Global warming is real. The evidence points to the fact that humans are contributing to it, although the magnitude of our contribution remains a point of contention. That is not the point of this post. I believe we should do what we can to reduce our emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere as much as is practically possible. We should conserve natural resources and find sustainable methods of production and sources of energy.

But we should not forget the end goal of saving the planet: allowing us to continue to live here. Saving the planet is not an end unto itself. Saving the planet is a means by which we hope to maintain an inhabitable place for humans to exist. Every argument about why global warming is bad stems from self-interest: rising sea levels will flood our coastal cities (people losing their homes), global warming will cause droughts and crop failures (people won’t have enough food or water), global warming will cause more intense storms (people will lose their homes and lives to massive hurricanes). All of reasons for stopping global warming are selfish, as they should be. Groups like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement are missing the point.  We are saving the planet for ourselves, our own selfish reasons.

What is the point of reversing global warming if it means that we have to forego all the luxuries that modern technology has afforded us?  It doesn’t make sense to provide for our own existence if that very existence is undesirable.  The point of pursuing sustainability is so that we can continue to do things forever.  Saving the planet and curbing global warming are laudable pursuits, but we should not forget what the real end goal is.

SCHIP is sinking fiscal responsibility

I’ve been a little perturbed at Congress for passing such a massive and overreaching expansion of the State Childrens’ Health Insurance Program. I’ve been trying to find out more about the programs, and have stumbled across both articles for and articles against the expansion.

In my opinion this expansion is the Democrats taking baby steps toward proposing universal government run health insurance. They want to make sure that their motto “Government is good for you” really applies for once. Unfortunately it strikes me as exactly the same tactics that the Republicans used a number of years ago to get the ball rolling on making abortion illegal by passing a ban on partial birth abortions. This tactic seems to be pretty straight forward: do something that no one can really oppose to desensitize them for when they do something that a lot of people will oppose, whether it be banning a particularly grotesque method of abortion leading to illegal abortion or giving poor children health insurance leading to government takeover of the healthcare industry.

The problem with the SCHIP expansion is that it isn’t just going to give free government health insurance to poor children. It will cover children whose parents make up to 400% of the poverty level. FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT! That turns out to be $82,600. And it will cover them until the age of 25. I was under the impression that you were legally an adult at age 18 (except for the ridiculous drinking age, but that’s a different issue). For everything else (draft, legal standing, tobacco, etc.) you are an adult at 18. But for healthcare the government wants to treat you like a child. How fitting.

I think the SCHIP program was nobly conceived and should continue to be a part of our social safety net. But this expansion will not only be a huge spending overreach, it will also gut programs aimed to help low income seniors with healthcare and will put a large new tax on private insurance (raising the rates for the rest of us who resist letting the government take over our healthcare). There are very few things that George W. Bush has done recently that I approve of. Threating to veto this bill is one of them.

Would it really take another 9/11 to unite America?

I’m afraid that even that might not do the trick. I read a column today from a man who believes that we are so focused on partisan bickering in the US Government that only another horrific attack on our citizens would cause us to remember who the real enemy is.

In my opinion, it wouldn’t help a damn bit. When 9/11 happened it was nobody’s fault. It wasn’t the result of some fuck-up, or some grave injustice that we had perpetrated on an undeserving population (although as it turns out, that actually was the rationale behind 9/11). I hate to say it, but if we had another 9/11 now we’d have people tripping over each other in a race to blame Bush and the republican leadership for it, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in turn, we’d have the right firing back that it was the defeatists on the left, the “blame America first” crowd, and folk like Cindy Sheehan who had emboldened the terrorists with perceptions that the West was a “weak horse” and for not allowing the Bush administration and intelligence community to properly wage the war on terror. Another 9/11 style attack at this moment would be the worst thing for this country because now we can blame the people on the other side of the aisle for it, and point to their shortcomings as the reason for the attack. I’m afraid that another attack now would only obscure who the enemy really is.