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Tom, I half-way agree with you.  In the last ten years we've seen widespread misbehavior in the the finance industry, health insurance industry, and now big oil. BP, our current favorite whipping boy, has seen repeated safety and environmental lapses in the last few years that have resulted in substantial environmental damage in Alaska, more damage in the Gulf of Mexico, and loss of life in Texas and in the Gulf.

What has been missing these and other industries is thoughtful, meaningful regulation that protects the interests of the people and their economy, future generations, the environment (in the case of oil), and investors. The conservative credo of less regulation is better has clearly failed to protect these constituencies.

I do not, however, think President Regan was wrong when he worked to reduce government regulation in the early 80s. Looking back, many of those regulations failed to protect the people, environment, and so on while costing the economy huge amounts of money. Many of the regulations in place in the 70s were not "thoughtful, meaningful regulation."

Where things went terribly wrong is through the application of a single solution -- less regulation, less government -- to all problems. What we've done is let corporations police themselves, with predictable results: Near collapse of the financial system, health insurance policies that don't provide the promised care, and oil companies that rain economic and environmental ruin on thousands of miles of coastline.

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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Two points, one on how we respond to ecological disaster, the other about our energy use and focus on cars and transportation.

We saw it following the Exon Valdez spill and we're seeing it again today: Lots of people running around, demanding that resources be moved to Alaska to respond to the spill and a lot of recrimination that suggested that science and technology should solve the problem.

The problem is that neither science nor technology is an instant persuit. Science is not a fast, instant process. It takes years to find, test, and bring a new drug to market, and it takes years to think a problem like a giant oil spill through, perform experiments, test possible solutions, and then build and deploy the resulting technology. You have to do all of this ahead of time, and we haven't given it a thought . . . until now, when it is too late.

My other gripe is how, over and over again, people seem to focus on how much energy our cars take when 3/4 of our energy consumption is due to structural heating, lighting, and industrial consumption. You can save a lot more energy by turning lights out and using compact flourescent or LED lighting, keeping the thermostat down, adding insulation, and, most importantly, living in smaller houses. It amazes me that, in our neightborhood of family-sized housing, most of the homes here are occupied by older couples whose children have grown up and moved out. It takes a lot of energy to heat, cool, and light a 3000 square foot house. We could save a whole lot of energy if people chose housing that meets their needs, not their egos.

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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