Compromise is obsolete.
Collaboration for the common good is the only way forward - as the ugly "compromises" of the climate action legislation show us.
Dear friends: First, a word of thanks. With your support, last week’s meditation on the meaning of wealth, and how we’ve been suckered into believing that money is wealth, reached more readers than any other post. Thank you, and please keep sharing these essays with anyone you think would find them interesting or useful.
And this week, the impact of the substitution of money for true wealth continues to stand out. We saw the passage of sweeping legislation that includes important provisions to shift our economy away from its addiction to fossil fuels, to help folks access health care, and to collect taxes that too many wealthy individuals and corporations avoid paying. Much has been written about these notable achievements.
Less visible within the (somewhat cynically named) Inflation Reduction Act are the giveaways to the fossil fuel industry that continue to put our poorer, more Black and Brown, neighborhoods at high risk of poisoned air and water. From the Washington Post:
To secure Manchin’s support, the Inflation Reduction Act includes several provisions that will benefit the fossil fuel industry: a pledge to open up new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico; a commitment that congressional Democrats and the White House will complete a controversial pipeline carrying gas from West Virginia; and a promise to pursue a separate measure that would ease permitting requirements for fossil fuel facilities as well as clean energy infrastructure. It also allocates billions of dollars for carbon capture and storage — a technology that many climate advocates say does not address air pollution and other local threats to communities.
(Read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/10/victory-whose-expense-climate-activists-grapple-with-political-compromise/)
Some will call this “compromise with moderates.” I believe we need to reject that language, and call it something more plain and accurate: selling out the health and well-being of the vulnerable.
It is not moderate to insist on keeping fossil fuel companies happy, and their stockholders rich, as their businesses destroy the habitability of the planet. And it is not compromise to allow that destruction to continue.
While we (legitimately) celebrate the potential accomplishments of the Act in terms of climate action and health care access, we cannot shrug off the cost of getting it through the Senate. To allow 50 wealthy and privileged individuals such an outsized voice in the legislative process is problematic; when one or two of them use their privilege to deny climate justice to millions, while taking credit for climate action, it becomes obscene.
And the fact that we cannot muster the will to change our practices and our systems to save our own species without making action profitable, in money, for the already wealthy? I’m not sure obscene is a big enough concept for that.
My neighborhood is heading into a predicted major heat emergency this coming week, the second or third of this summer. Action is imperative. Collaboration must replace compromise as our operating principle. Instead of trading the health and well-being of some to preserve the wealth of a few, we must work together for the common good.
Thank you, again, for sharing this journey.