Another sign of a broken system
by David Atkins
I mentioned earlier today that AIG’s suing the federal government, while offensive on many levels, is actually just the modern capitalism system working as intended, with AIG “innovating” products to meet quarterly expectations, the government stepping in to stabilize a crisis, and then AIG doing corporate duty to maximize shareholder return. If that system is offensive, then perhaps it’s time to change the system.
Here’s another example of a broken system:
It’s official: 2012 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States and the second most extreme in terms of weather events, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) annual “State of the Climate” report released Tuesday.
The average temperature for the entire year was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a full degree warmer than the previous record warmest year, 1998, and 3.2 degrees above the entire 20th century average.
While one degree may not sound like very much in terms of temperature as humans experience on a day-to-day basis, it is actually an enormous increase in the country’s climate history, as NOAA scientists explained in a press conference on their results Tuesday afternoon.
“The difference between the record coldest year and previous record warmest year was four degrees,” said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, during the press conference. “So there’s 117 years of data that were encompassed by four degrees of an average temperature, and now the 2012 value is one degree outside of that envelope. So we’re taking quite a large step above what the period of record has shown for the contiguous U.S.”
So why don’t we have the political will to do anything about it? Well, because climate change doesn’t really impact immediate corporate profits, so neither industry nor Wall St. seems much inclined to step in. It should theoretically be government’s job to step in with far-sighted regulations, but American democracy is specifically designed for politicians to respond to issues that immediately impact citizens within the timeframe leading up to the politicians’ re-election. Nothing in American corporate or state governance is designed to resolve problems today that will show up in 50 years. This is also a conservative complaint when it comes to much more easily manageable issue of deficits as well (insofar as deficit hysteria isn’t just an excuse to cut discretionary spending), which is why legislators set up ridiculous sequesters to force their own hands. In the case of deficits it’s an ephemeral non-problem. Climate change by contrast is a very real problem. But in both cases no one is interested in solving problems that won’t show up for decades.
Whether it’s AIG suing the American People who saved them, or Congress unable to deal with climate change, the systems are actually working as intended. So maybe it’s time to change the systems.
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