Climate change isn’t the only thing we deny. Why is reality such a challenge in Washington?
Monochrome view: This week’s events are a stark reminder of the perils of not facing up to reality. Photo by Kevin Burkett/Creative Commons
By Chuck Thompson. January 8, 2020. Like everyone else I’ve spent this week ignoring my to-do list (our Christmas tree is still up) and sitting transfixed by the images on TV coming from Washington, D.C. Once the Wednesday bedlam had subsided enough for members of Congress to return to their Capitol chambers, I watched one after another as the country’s senators and representatives took to the floor to assure themselves that “this is not who we are.” Many reached for the delusional trope that this country remains that “shining city upon a hill.”
I thought, “In addition to every other privilege of their positions, do our elected officials have access to different networks—social and otherwise—than the rest of us?” I appreciate soaring rhetoric as much as the next patriot, but I’m skeptical of people who talk about gym memberships and keto diets while reaching for another slice of cake. Even as a kid I never cared for fairy tales.
The chaos Wednesday was sickening but not surprising. From Black Lives Matter to Standing Rock to Occupy to WTO to Rodney King, I’ve been watching the political version of “who we are” boiling on the front burner for most of my life. Others can trace the sad declension of events that led to this week’s “takin’ it to the streets” mayhem to ERA, Kent State, Caesar Chavez, Vietnam, Little Rock …
I thought of all this when I finally pulled myself away from the flat screen and endless texts to charge my phone (either my thumbs are getting faster or my phone is getting older) to post Columbia Insight’s short piece on the federal government’s dubious removal of gray wolves from the Endangered Species List. Precious little science supported the decision announced by the Trump administration just days before the October election, but which took effect this week.
I thought of it again when giving a final read to this week’s feature story on the way wildfires pose a particularly toxic problem around the asbestos-laden Superfund site outside of Libby, Montana. (That piece, by the way, is the product of our new partnership with the stalwart environmental reporters at Inside Climate News.) Like a lot of what you’ll read on Columbia Insight this year, the story is about the dysfunctional way our government—ourselves—chooses to deal with the environment. This is us. We’re going to be dealing with it for a long time.
This year, many of us in Pac-12 territory (Pac-10, Pac-8 or PCC if you go back that far) missed the pomp and pageantry of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl that traditionally takes place in Pasadena on January 1. The football game itself was moved to Texas due to COVID-19, thanks largely to more government denial of a crisis, yet another illustration of its chronic inability to bridge social divides and solve problems.
We got spectacle, anyway, to start the year. It just came a few days later than usual. This is who we are and I’m afraid we’re just going to have to keep living with it, and keep cleaning up the messes we make along the way.
Chuck Thompson is the editor of Columbia Insight. The views expressed in this article belong solely to its author and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else associated with Columbia Insight.
