Big Coal and Big Tobacco: Best of Buddies

Gotta love Garrett County and The Republican – the aptly named weekly newspaper of this very Republican county (69% McCain, 29% Obama, with congressional district election a mirror image). The paper takes just about every letter to the editor and folks write in on national issues, on local issues and on anything that comes to mind...

Hats off to Steve Putnam of Grantsville who dared to write about the similarities between Big Coal and Big Tobacco. A few excerpts from his letter:

“I see a parallel between the coal industry and the tobacco industry. They have a strong lobby group that works real hard at keeping our good neighbors addicted to their not so high-paying jobs. Their byproducts are bad for our health, the health of their workers, and the environment. They expect subsidies and buyouts like the Coal Tax Credit to artificially support their failing business model.”

Then he challenges his elected officials with this admonition: “Think and plan beyond your elected term in office. You are paid to be smart, and not to do what everyone before you has done, just because it’s the legacy of the past. What will you do to pave the way for a sustainable future for western Maryland? "

"One thing is for sure, attracting young workers to a dying coal industry is no different than inviting the Marlboro Man to show up for career day at the local high school!"

Well done Steve!

Budgets

All the coverage about budgets this week reminds me of that popular saying from years ago: “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

On the same day the President’s 2011 budget is released, I read about the budget crunch in Fairfax Country, Virginia. To fill a $176 million budget deficit, talk of eliminating foreign language program, full day kindergarten, the entire elementary school band and string program. From a sixth grader we’re told, “If these programs go, then we can’t play the music coming from our hearts.”

And what about the “President’s budget?” Let’s get real. This is the country’s budget – the budget that we all have taken a hand in creating over many, many years.

Frank Rich’s recent column included an observation by Alan Brinkley … that we are entering the fourth decade where Congress and therefore government as a whole — has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education.

The 2011 budget carries the baggage of what Rich referred to in his column as a leadership deficit. One of the biggest areas of this leadership deficit has been in moving our country to a clean energy future.

In the Washington Post coverage, we see a tiny notation that “other” spending includes $3 billion for “potential disaster costs.” That could easily be a drop in the bucket when you consider that the costs of the record breaking hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis totaled $57.3 billion in damages.

The cost of inaction on global warming will only get higher the longer we wait – as high as 3.6 percent of GDP, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Concerned about the national debt? Add to it $1.9 trillion annually by the end of the century if we continue to ignore the science.

Thankfully, President Obama is trying to move the country toward the transition we must make, by including $2.4 billion for the clean tech sector. While commendable, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the taxpayer subsidies oil companies still horde. Thankfully, the President has called for the elimination of tax breaks big oil continues to be entitled to – $36.5 billion from 2011 to 2020, according to Dan Weiss, at the Center for American Progress. That accounts for half of what the big five oil companies made in 2009 profits.

President Obama also included deficit-neutral revenue from a federal program to cap the pollution that causes global warming. Proceeds from this program would help “vulnerable families, communities and businesses”… and focus on “adapting to the impacts of climate change” both here in the U.S. and in developing countries.

Support for helping those least responsible for global warming is long overdue (and why the commitment to provide $10 billion in funds in the Copenhagen Accord is so significant). While concern for global warming moves further off the radar screen for Americans, the problem only gets worse. According to the Environmental Justice Foundation, 325 million people are adversely affected by climate change each year and 300,000 die. In this century, hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced because of sea level rise.

Connect this with the reference in the release of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review this week that climate change will “exacerbate future conflicts” and the need for action couldn’t be clearer.

No one – no one would suggest that we should ignore adequate defense for our country and our troops abroad. And yet, on the top of the budget pile is $895 billion for defense. I see that number and I’m reminded of a sign in the office of Rev. John W. Wimberly, of Western Presbyterian Church in Washington DC: “Budgets are Moral Documents.”

For a church that helps feed thousands of homeless people at Miriam’s Kitchen, is involved with the Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light to save energy, and respond to climate change, building a health clinic in Ethopia, and much more, the sign is a reminder of what their work is all about. It should be a reminder to all of us. Budgets are Moral Documents.

To Be Of Use

As we await President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight, it seems fitting that I would come across this poem by Marge Piercy. Unfortunately we have more “parlor generals and field deserters” in Congress than the country can tolerate. Thankfully there are millions of Americans who will get up tomorrow and continue to carry their heavy loads with “massive patience”… “who strain in the mud and muck to move things forward.” I honor them tonight.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Flat and Fat

My nephew was 11 and living in a suburb of Chicago when he first visited with us at our cabin in Western Maryland. I told him in advance that the cabin was a “TV-free zone.” A few days into the visit, Ben announced to me that “I was probably the only house in Maryland that didn’t have a TV.” I reminded him that I had given him the heads up. “Oh that’s OK, Aunt Jenn. Who needs TV when you have the wilderness?”

Unfortunately Ben’s experience – and attitude – is not the norm. Today too many kids are spending more time than ever inside in front of flat screens. The Kaiser Family Foundation just released a report Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds that shows every type of media use has increased over the past 10 years, except (and sadly for this book lover) reading.

Kids are now clocking 7.5 hours per day “consuming media” -- these rates are even higher for Blacks and Hispanics. That’s almost as much time, the report notes, as adults spend at work. When taking into account multi-tasking media use, it really adds up to nearly 11 hours a day.

And here’s the kicker: the report also shows that the youth who spend more time with media say they have lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment.

The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone that in the same week, federal health officials reported that one out of every five U.S. teenagers has cholesterol level that increases the risk of heart disease. At least one-third of youth are overweight or obese and that means soaring rates of Type 2 diabetes and other physical ailments that could easily make this generation the most unhealthy yet.

Michelle Obama’s work on childhood obesity is welcomed and the effort should include an emphasis on outdoor time. Kids need time outside, in unstructured play, for their mental, physical and social well-being. Check out some of these resources that can help kids (and you!) get a daily green hour that will keep them healthier and happier.

Jonah Lehrer, writing in the Boston Globe shares some interesting studies on how nature –even a glimpse—can help us focus. It’s referred to as “attention restoration theory” and nature is the single biggest ingredient; and very beneficial to our brains.

Studies show that kids with ADD focus better after spending time outdoors. All of us will focus better after spending time outdoors! So, while I appreciate your visit to this blog, I’d rather you get up and get outside.