POLITICS AND NATURE

Happy New Year.

As we stand at the dawn of a new age, the beginning of 2009, I have one resolution I am determined to work at which is keeping this website up and running more fully than I have paid attention to it in the past. I have gotten through my first semester of my PhD program and assume that I have worked out some of the bugs inevitable within the context of figuring out how school life works again. I am re-focused on the issues at hand.....public policy, its social and environmental effects, and the generation of honest and substantive public dialogue over the meaning of American citizenship and mending the fences erected against our relationship with nature.

2008 was a banner year for the downward turn in the economy, the endless cycle of war throughout the world, and a failure to protect remaining lands and elevate the need to tackle important issues of poverty and social justice. All in all, the year could have been better but it was one which showed us clearly about the need for greater dialogue over a host of issues and it ushered in a tremendous growth of the centralized authority of the president with the treasury secretary taking nearly a trillion dollars (and who really knows how much more) into his own personal account to do with what he would. Hopefully, what he has been doing has been beneficial. It is so complicated it would be difficult for anyone to track what is truly going on.

The incoming president will need a great deal of support from the public and the media. This will come in strange ways at times, through letters, and protests, and investigations to keep the newly emergent majority party on its toes. The current governor of my original home state of Illinois deftly and capably proved to all of us how influence peddling and dirty politics grips individuals in both of the major parties.

The coming year presents us with a great many opportunities as well as the challenges. Everything will not change on January 21^st, or by January 21^st 2011. Things take time. I disagreed with President Bush on just about everything and I believe he was arrogant and ignorant in his attempts at leadership. I think he led the nation down a dark and dreary path with little hope and no joy. But I repeatedly gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped and prayed he would overcome the substantial deficits of his personality. I can only ask the same of those who disagree with me or with the Obama agenda.

The green energy revolution he has promised which has been embraced by the likes of Thomas Friedman has been promised for my lifetime. It is not going to happen by fiat from the center. If we don’t all take our responsibilities as consumers and citizens responsibly, we will never move beyond incremental steps away from the destructive paths we have been traveling. I have heard a number of people say.....gosh he’s got a tough job......but sans support, it will be an unrealistic wish.

There is no reason we can not conduct business with a sense of what is beneficial for the whole of humanity. There is no reason we can not stop polluting poor neighborhoods and we can not lead the world in cleaning up from the mess of industrialization.

I know we can make changes which will be substantive and lasting if we desire to build a new future. The hope of America is change and environmentalism needs to focus on re-connecting people with nature and establishing a stronger bond between human beings and our natural environment.

The ringing in of the New Year is always a reminder to us of the choices open to us. We have made a historic choice in the last election and it is time to move beyond trying to see if we can eliminate his opportunities to succeed by working together. Narrow views are irrelevant for the time being but they will be back soon enough.

In the coming year, I hope to look at clean energy more fully; examine the effects of oil/gas drilling in the Intermountain West; investigate the reality of coal; analyze the conduct of business; look into urban sprawl; and learn and share about the other aspects both positive and negative, of environmental action and try to advocate for a more complete understanding of the importance of nature and our relationship with it.

Happy New Year. Let’s try to make it prosperous and just.