The op-ed: final class version

Here is my final class version, I am going to need to compress it before I submit it to the paper.

I think it’s probably the best piece of writing I’ve ever produced. It goddamn well better be after the time I’ve spent on it. Of course, I can still find plenty of faults in it, I’m just not as sure how to improve them.

I’m not lj-cutting it because, well, you all ought to read it. Here goes.

As neighbors and citizens, we have a duty to reduce our own emissions and to lead others to follow our example. As we emit waste into the air, we harm ourselves and everyone nearby. Therefore we have a moral obligation to clean up our act. Reducing our emissions provides small benefits to everyone and prevents terrible misfortunes to a few. But no person, state, or country can clean up the air alone. We must work together to produce meaningful results.

Every time we burn something we produce air pollution; and we are always burning something. We burn coal to produce the electricity which lights our streets and cools our offices. We burn natural gas to cook our food, heat our water and our homes. We burn oil products every time we commute to work, ship a package, or take a trip on a plane. We rely on fire to maintain our current way of life, and the smoke is choking us.

Emissions from these millions of fires invade our bodies, disrupt our climate, and cloud our skies. The biggest byproduct, carbon dioxide, spreads out through our atmosphere to trap the sun’s heat, raising temperatures and increasing climate volatility: freezing Moscow, thawing Minneapolis, and increasing the frequency of events like Hurricane Katrina. But other emissions damage us more directly and more locally. Carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and other toxic emissions interfere with our metabolisms, cause lung disease, and produce cancer. Still other emissions, like unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides contribute to smog and ozone formation, creating locally unhealthy air conditions and obscuring our skies. We continually degrade the air we breathe, and we are not slowing down, let alone reversing the process.

We can reap tangible, short term rewards from cleaning up our act. The immediate health benefits directly improve our lives and increase worker productivity in addition to improving life for future generations. These benefits inevitably extend beyond our borders, allowing us to build better international relations while repairing damage wrought by prior U.S. foreign policy. Countries interested in sustainability will buy our research advances, creating high quality jobs and opportunities to export valuable technology.

Some of us blame greedy corporations for environmental woes. While this story contains some truth, it lets many people forget that not all corporations are greedy or lazy. Some are ahead of the curve while others lag behind. Our markets do not reward companies for operating more cleanly. While our legal system sometimes punishes those corporations that harm citizens, it does not prevent the damage. We must reward and praise companies looking out for the common good and stop those that indiscriminately harm their neighbors. We can structure our market to help this, taxing emissions and rebating environmental improvements.

We can make small improvements easily, but obtaining the real benefits requires tremendous work, change, and sacrifice. Technology fixes get us part way there; generating electricity from wind and sunlight, improved building efficiency, and running vehicles on biodiesel and ethanol can all reduce the damage we do to the environment. But we must also learn new ways of life. To reduce our emissions, we must reduce the fires we burn.

We can reduce our emissions while building more connected communities. Carpooling can cut personal commute emissions in half, or even more, while reducing congestion and increasing time with others. When buying a home, choosing a place closer to work and closer to school gives us more time to spend at home with family and friends, reduces our energy bills, traffic, and emissions. Rather than pushing our neighbors away with larger lot sizes in isolating subdivisions, accessible only by lengthy drives, we can live closer together and know one another better, in places with tree-shaded sidewalks connecting us and our neighbors. We can have a higher quality of life and a better environment, but it requires us to value our families more than our commutes, our neighborhoods more than our houses, and our health more than our cars.

Emitters cast long shadows, causing small damages to everyone. It is a death by a thousand cuts. No single action damages any individual enough to inspire a personal, self interested response or to leave anyone aware of their guilt. We are all contributors and we are all victims. Some will continue in harmful behaviors and ignore the costs to others, regardless of what they hear. This highlights the importance of cooperating with people who care and intervention in the actions of polluters.

We must realize that these benefits will not arise from individual, self-interested action, but that we can work together for the common good. We can reach out to our neighbors, our families, and our leaders to make ourselves heard. We can educate ourselves on the issues and engage with community groups to make collective efforts for a better future, groups that support politicians who work for cleaner air and push legislators to tax emissions. We can choose a better life and a better environment at the same time, and I ask you to join me in doing so.