Op-Ed Columnist - Cassandras of Climate - Krugman - NYTimes.com:
But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.
Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It’s also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists.
Op-Ed Columnist - The New Sputnik - Tom Friedman - NYTimes.com:
If we can continue stumbling out of this economic crisis, I believe future historians may well conclude that the most important thing to happen in the last 18 months was that Red China decided to become Green China. [...]And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.
Corruption takes many forms in different countries and locations. Here in the United States it may not be as common to pay off a judge or a customs official as it is in most low- and middle-income countries, but we do have quite a bit of legalised bribery, especially in the form of electoral campaign contributions.
The most obvious current case is that of healthcare reform, where the powerful insurance, pharmaceutical and other lobbies are in the process of vetoing some of the most important parts of the healthcare reform that most Americans want and need.
Bill Moyers was on Bill Maher's show last night and spoke about the core failures of Democratic Party in the context of both the health care debate and the ongoing escalation in Afghanistan. The whole discussion is really worth watching [...] but I want to excerpt several key parts, including his very complimentary featuring of this post I wrote on Thursday regarding Democrats.
Something is going very wrong in the heads of a substantial number of Americans.
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