Frank Rich, writing in this morning’s New York Times, says:
On the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place—in cities all over America.
Had I not witnessed such scenes of revelry, I’d suggest that perhaps Mr. Rich was indulging in more than a bit of hyperbole. But watching ordinary Americans dancing in the streets, singing the national anthem, cheering, chanting and even weeping, I was personally reminded of the end of The Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor has finally been vanquished and the Republic restored.
I think it’s hard to overestimate how significant this win is. Come Inauguration Day, President-elect Obama’s team is preparing to overturn 200 executive orders signed by President Bush, many of them related to his administration’s blatant contempt for science.
I am optimistic right now because President-elect Obama comes across as conscientious and well-informed. He knows that we have serious problems, but also that we’re in this together. Take, for instance this comment about climate change, off-handedly cited in Newsweek’s post-election wrap-up (emphasis mine):
The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, “I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I'm thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”
For me what makes Obama’s election so gratifying is that he understands the need for big solutions to complex problems—particularly in regard to climate change and sustainability—but that he is both deliberative and thoughtful in his decision-making process.
Take, for instance Michael Pollan’s recent letter about food policy to the presidental candidates, Farmer in Chief. In his thesis, Pollan reasons that the health of our food supply is a national security issue, and that the way we eat today is inexorably tied to a triumvirate of significant challenges; energy independence, healthcare and climate change.
When asked in a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, if either campaign had responded to the article, Pollan answered:
“Well, I haven’t heard from them personally, but one of the campaigns’ transition team did ask me through an intermediary if—you know the article is 8,000 words—could I prepare a one or two page summary for them. And my response to that was ‘Don’t you have staffers who do that?’The reason I wrote 8,000 words is because that’s what I needed to tell the story. If I could have done it in one or two pages I would have. ”
Pollan never indicates, and Gross never asks, which campaign requested the summary. But we now know that President-elect Obama has read the article, because he cites it in a Time Magazine interview with Joe Klein:
“I was just reading an article in The New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.”
And what was the McCain campaign’s response? Why derision of course:
“In a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign [responding to the interview], Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, called it ‘ludicrous to blame farmers for obesity and pollution.’Said Grassley: “It shows that Sen. Obama doesn't have a very good foundation in American agriculture. And people in agriculture need to know that if Sen. Obama is going to get his ideas on agriculture from a professor at Cal-Berkeley, they should think twice about what they are voting for.”
So we had one candidate with an understanding of the complexity of our food system, and the effect subsidies have had both our environment and the types of crops that are produced. And we had another candidate who mocked thoughtful commentary on our intertwined energy, food and healthcare challenges in an effort to score cheap political points with farmers.
Thankfully, the more thoughtful candidate won. And I hope that, when inaugurated, President Obama consults with advocates for a variety of sustainability issues. I am heartened that Vice President-elect Biden has long been an Amtrak commuter, as well as its advocate.
I also hope that Obama will consult with former Vice President Al Gore about his climate change initiatives, and take seriously the challenge to create a new electric grid, based on renewable resources, within the next decade.
Now I know there are some who dismiss this goal as outlandish, economically unsound or even impossible, but as President Kennedy expressed when setting his 10-year timetable to reach the moon, we take on such challenges “…not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Having evoked the Kennedy name, while it may only be a wild-eyed fantasy of environmentalists and tree-huggers, it is refreshing to hear Robert Kennedy, Jr. cited as a potential EPA head in an Obama administration.
As Kennedy realized back in 2003, President Bush has not only squandered a terrific opportunity to protect our natural resources over the last eight years, but has, in fact, exacerbated many of our problems.
While I expect that some of President Obama’s initiatives and appointments will disappoint me, and that congressmen—focused on re-election and the whims of special interests—will sometimes thwart progress, as will a conservative, pro-business judiciary, an understanding of our impact on the environment, and the consequences of our choices is an important first step.
I don’t think all of those reveling Americans were truly celebrating a libration, but rather, in a shared hope for the promise of tomorrow that this election, and specifically the Obama campaign, represent.