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The More Things Change, The More He Stays the Same

by: Dean Barker

Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 06:06:06 AM EST
Charlie Bass is embarking on his fourth decade of political life. He's keen on fitting in with the new crowd (Nat'l Journal, but paywalled):
Take Charlie Bass, R-N.H., the only member of Congress to ride both the 1994 and 2010 Republican waves into public office, who says he will fit into the 112th Congress better than he did from 1995 to 2006. This may seem counterintuitive.

..."I think the American public is less concerned with alternative energy than they were two years ago," he said. "I think the Democrats oversold the doomsday culture of climate change and the people said hold on, slow up, time out.... If we want to talk about energy, we have to do it without sounding too extreme."

Here's a graph of the 4.7% per decade decline of arctic sea ice extent that roughly correlates to Charlie Bass' political career:

Dean Barker :: The More Things Change, The More He Stays the Same
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The More Things Change, The More He Stays the Same | 7 comments
Thank you, Dean, (0.00 / 0)
for making this correlation and for talking about climate change on the front page.  I am always disappointed that we talk so little about what I believe is going to be the overwhelming issue in the near future, and one that will change our lives even more than the last century did.  Maybe that is why we don't talk about it.
Changing our climate will change everything.  It will change how we get our food, if we have enough water or too much, what our recreation looks like (underwater beaches and no snow would really change things, wouldn't they?!), and the whole economics of NH and the country.  Mostly for the worst, unless we start now to get ready, since it is most likely too late to stop or even slow down very much the effects of an increasingly warmer atmosphere and oceans.  
So many vested interests are threatened.  This is what happens when you let money run your political system.  It's all interconnected.
Now I wait to see if anyone else wants to talk about it.  
Fortunately, humans have a definite life-span and don't (0.00 / 0)
have to live with the mess they've wrought.  Future generations will adapt.  There's a bit of hubris involved in thinking we can change on purpose what we made happen by accident.  On the other hand, if we gave up on our predatory patterns of extraction, exploitation and exhaustion and focused on mutual sharing with man and nature, we might effect the necessary change and reverse the trends.
The EuroAmerican ex-men habits have not served the global community well.  The ex-men

explore
extract
exploit
explode
exhaust
execute
exclude

to their own detriment.

[ Parent ]
All good points, Lucy! (0.00 / 0)
I'm confused as to whom Charlie Bass believes he is representing -- his constituents in CD2 are a largely environmentally-friendly climate-change-fearing people.  

In addition to the issues you mentioned, an area of the world that has already begun to suffer and will continue to suffer immensely is the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA).  Water scarcity issues in these countries have long been a problem, and are only exacerbated by human-induced climate change.  I think we can all understand the related security risks associated with increased turmoil in these countries... This is a good paper to read if you are interested (pdf).

And, yes, mitigation is a lost cause.  Climate change policy analysts have completely changed focus to adaptation.

because who is to doubt the American Way is not the way?

[ Parent ]
Republican voters are people persons. They don't vote on issues. (0.00 / 0)
What I think we failed to recognize is that the "politics of personal destruction" is balanced by the "politics of personal adulation."  Some people make choices on the basis of the importance of the persons in an election.  So, in the case of Charlie Bass, his prior service as a public official, as well as the prominent coverage in the press, clearly defined him as the more important person with whom voters, who set store by such things, wanted to associate themselves.  Also, the former Mayor of the largest city in the Congressional District, who got the majority of press attention (good and bad make no difference), was clearly a more important person than a woman who came out of nowhere to serve two terms in the Washington swamp.  CSP should have been the star attraction, but we failed to assure that, in part by failing to provide a "court" in the primary which would let her shine.
No one saw THIS coming, eh? (0.00 / 0)
. . . unless, of course, they were aware of Charlie's congressional record on environmental issues from 1995-2006.

Bass will do whatever is in the interest of his bosses on the Energy and Commerce Committee (e.g., Joe Barton and his corporate lobbyist paymasters). His New Hampshire rhetoric will be pro-environment, but his actions inside the Beltway will be quite different.

Republicans and Global warming (0.00 / 0)
Two republicans are sitting on a beach
One says to the other  "There is a Tsunami coming"!
The reply is "Man didn't cause it"
So the two Republicans sit there and drown
If they were the only ones who drowned (0.00 / 0)
I wouldn't give a proverbial shit.  However, the rest of the planet is going down with them, and that's a big problem.
[ Parent ]
The More Things Change, The More He Stays the Same | 7 comments

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