[We could be moving toward a devastating war, possibly even nuclear. Straightforward ways exist to overcome this threat, but they will not be taken unless there is large-scale public activism demanding that the opportunity be pursued. This in turn is highly unlikely as long as these matters remain off the agenda, not just in the electoral circus, but in the media and larger national debate.]
“There are two issues of overwhelming
significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental
disaster, and nuclear war.”
By Noam Chomsky
With the quadrennial presidential election
extravaganza reaching its peak, it’s useful to ask how the political campaigns
are dealing with the most crucial issues we face. The simple answer is: badly,
or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do
about it?
There are two issues of overwhelming
significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental
disaster, and nuclear war.
The former is regularly on the front pages. On
Sept. 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in The New York Times that the
melting of Arctic sea ice had ended for the year, “but not before demolishing
the previous record – and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of
change in the region.”
The melting is much faster than predicted by
sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N. report on global
warming. New data indicate that summer ice might be gone by 2020, with severe
consequences. Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050.
“But governments have not responded to the
change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions,” Gillis
writes. “To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation
of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil” –
that is, to accelerate the catastrophe.
This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary
willingness to sacrifice the lives of our children and grandchildren for
short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an equally remarkable willingness to shut our
eyes so as not to see the impending peril.
That’s hardly all. A new study from the Climate
Vulnerability Monitor has found that “climate change caused by global warming
is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a
doubling of costs in the next two decades.” The study was widely reported
elsewhere but Americans have been spared the disturbing news.
The official Democratic and Republican platforms
on climate matters are reviewed in Science magazine’s Sept. 14 issue. In a rare
instance of bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the problem worse.
In 2008, both party
platforms had devoted some attention to how the government should address
climate change. Today, the issue has almost disappeared from the Republican
platform – which does, however, demand that Congress “take quick action” to
prevent the Environmental Protection Agency, established by former Republican
President Richard Nixon in saner days, from regulating greenhouse gases. And we
must open Alaska’s Arctic refuge to drilling to take “advantage of all our
American God-given resources.” We cannot disobey the Lord, after all.
The platform also states that “We must restore
scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political
incentives from publicly funded research” – code words for climate science.
The Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seeking to
escape from the stigma of what he understood a few years ago about climate
change, has declared that there is no scientific consensus, so we should
support more debate and investigation – but not action, except to make the
problems more serious.
The Democrats mention in their platform that
there is a problem, and recommend that we should work “toward an agreement to
set emissions limits in unison with other emerging powers.” But that’s about
it.
President Barack Obama
has emphasized that we must gain 100 years of energy independence by exploiting
fracking and other new technologies – without asking what the world would look
like after a century of such practices.
So there are differences between the parties:
about how enthusiastically the lemmings should march toward the cliff.
The second major issue, nuclear war, is also on
the front pages every day, but in a way that would astound a Martian observing
the strange doings on Earth.
The current threat is again in the Middle East,
specifically Iran – at least according to the West, that is. In the Middle
East, the U.S. and Israel are considered much greater threats.
Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections
or to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty^.@ It has hundreds of nuclear
weapons and advanced delivery systems, and a long record of violence,
aggression and lawlessness, thanks to unremitting American support. Whether
Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence doesn’t know.
In its latest report, the International Atomic
Energy Agency says that it cannot demonstrate “the absence of undeclared
nuclear material and activities in Iran” – a roundabout way of condemning Iran,
as the U.S. demands, while conceding that the agency can add nothing to the
conclusions of U.S. intelligence.
Therefore Iran must be denied the right to
enrich uranium that is guaranteed by the NPT^,@ and endorsed by most of the
world, including the nonaligned countries that have just met in Tehran.
The possibility that Iran might develop nuclear
weapons arises in the electoral campaign. (The fact that Israel already has
them does not.) Two positions are counterposed: Should the U.S. declare that it
will attack if Iran reaches the capability to develop nuclear weapons, which
dozens of countries enjoy? Or should Washington keep the “red line” more
indefinite?
The latter position is that of the White House;
the former is demanded by Israeli hawks – and accepted by the U.S. Congress.
The Senate just voted 90-1 to support the Israeli position.
Missing from the debate is the obvious way to
mitigate or end whatever threat Iran might be believed to pose: Establish a
nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. The opportunity is readily available:
An international conference is to convene in a few months to pursue this
objective, supported by almost the entire world, including a majority of
Israelis.
The government of Israel, however, has announced
that it will not participate until there is a general peace agreement in the
region, which is unattainable as long as Israel persists in its illegal
activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. Washington keeps to the
same position, and insists that Israel must be excluded from any such regional
agreement.
We could be moving toward a devastating war,
possibly even nuclear. Straightforward ways exist to overcome this threat, but
they will not be taken unless there is large-scale public activism demanding
that the opportunity be pursued. This in turn is highly unlikely as long as
these matters remain off the agenda, not just in the electoral circus, but in
the media and larger national debate.
Elections are run by the public relations
industry. Its primary task is commercial advertising, which is designed to
undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational
choices – the exact opposite of how markets are supposed to work, but certainly
familiar to anyone who has watched television.
It’s only natural that when enlisted to run
elections, the industry would adopt the same procedures in the interests of the
paymasters, who certainly don’t want to see informed citizens making rational
choices.
The victims, however, do not have to obey, in
either case. Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable
one.
(Noam Chomsky's most recent collection of
columns is ``Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and
Resistance.'' Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.)
@ Nation of Change
@ Nation of Change
