Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

late-night thoughts about democracy S 67
In Robert Kuttner’s words: “more than half of the income lost by
the bottom eighty percent was captured by the top one-quarter
of one percent” (Kuttner, 2006, p.3). Not to put too fi ne a point
on it, this was a con job sponsored by a few who had a lot to gain
from public befuddlement, culture wars, and political polarization.
The results were a three-decade-long, deliberately provoked public
donnybrook that distracted us from more serious issues having to
do with policy changes necessary to promote energy effi ciency
and solar power, encourage sustainable economic development,
improve environmental quality, modernize transportation, and
rebuild cities in order to head off climate destabilization.
In the election of 2008, a majority of Americans decided that
the country could not be run indefi nitely on debt, mendacity, and
incompetence. But the damage to be undone is daunting, including
the highest income disparity since 1929, fi nancial markets in
ruin, severe economic recession, record defi cits, soaring national
debt, the quagmire of wars in the Middle East, the continuing fallout
from multiple corporate scandals, many federal departments
and agencies in shambles, a bloated security apparatus, and a considerable
loss of respect in the international community. None
of this will be undone quickly. Predictably, there is an ongoing
battle over the agenda of the Obama administration—whether
it should be centrist or transformative in the face of the looming
emergency of climate destabilization. After the election of 2008, it
is apparent, too, that the Republican Party is in disarray, its moderates
all but banished and its controlling conservatives increasingly
isolated from mainstream public opinion and, for decades to
come, burdened by the legacy of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
It would be a mistake to assume that it is spent as a political force,
but without signifi cant changes in doctrine and outlook necessary
to accommodate the realities of climate change, ecological limits,
multiculturalism, and world opinion, it is unlikely to play a constructive
part in the creation of a new order adequate to the times
ahead, and that will prove to be unfortunate.