Today, I also read an article in the Globe and Mail talking about California's debt crisis. This is a story I've been following for the past couple years and it looks like it's finally coming to a head. In short, California is going bankrupt, and it might take a bailout on the same scale as the big bank bailouts we have seen in the past couple years to keep the state's essential services operating. This is bad news for the US and the rest of the world, which is still reeling from the previous financial crisis in the US, and is wary that the financial crisis in Greece will create global havoc.
So, other than the far reaching impacts of both, what do these two issues have in common? More than what you might think. To follow my train of thought, we must look at pieces of each of the articles I have linked to to go deeper into each of these issues.
The first linked article states that "while the BP Spill is the biggest single oil spill we here in America have experienced, in terms of overall impact, it's just a drop in our pollution bucket... Even in terms of oil spilled in North America, this disaster is small compared to business as usual: more than 90% of all the oil spilled in North America comes from oil leaked from cars (or poured down drains) finding its way to the sea". Why has the general public not heard about this? Why are people so outraged over the BP spill, yet not the everyday pollution which is far worse?
There are two answers to this question. The first is that the BP spill is very visible, very sudden, and effect a specific geographical region and specific people. It is very easy to get angry when you can see the damage being done and who and what it damages in a very short time-frame. The other reason is very similar. There is only one very visible bad guy. It is BP that was in charge of the rig that collapsed which caused the oil spill. It was their lax safety practices that led to the disaster. It is easy to angrily point our fingers at BP and says "You did this!" However, you do we point our fingers at for the everyday pollution? Who is most affected? What exactly is the damage to the environment and where is it? These questions aren't as easily answered. We are all part of the society that is responsible for this pollution. Does this mean we should be pointing our fingers back at ourselves? That we should all abandon our jobs and our cars and live in little homesteads in the woods? Not so fast, the worldchanging article adresses this point:
"In failing to see that the BP Spill is a symptom, we also make it easy to blame the wrong people for the failures of the systems we now use. I've read dozens of pieces parroting the opinion that the BP Spill is all of our faults; that because we all use oil, we've all been responsible for making this happen. That's just stupid. Leaving aside entirely the fact that this particular spill itself appears to be the result of unethical and possibly criminal leadership within BP, the simple fact is that we continue to use so much oil largely because Big Oil, the car companies, the road-building lobby and sprawl developers have engaged in one of the largest sustained political efforts in history to keep us using as much oil as possible by blocking climate legislation and gas taxes, fighting smart growth laws and new public transportation investments, stalling higher mileage standards in new cars, channeling trillions of dollars into new roads and auto infrastructure, gutting water- and air-quality laws, even (arguably) getting a former oil man (George W.) elected, which resulted in a war for oil and general atmosphere of climate denialism. We burn oil in such astonishing quantities because those who profit from selling and using oil have all but run the American political system for the last ten years, and exerted decades of dominant influence before that.
In that light, our personal behaviors are essentially meaningless, especially if they aren't part of a larger effort to identify ways of changing our cities, transportation, agriculture and energy systems to function much more sustainably. If we want to change our impacts, we need to change our systems, on a scope we almost never talk about, stretching through essentially every aspect of our society."
Based on the arguments given in the article, the problem is that big business has too much influence on government decision making. This is a big problem, but is that the extent of the problem? If we just don't allow big business to tell government what to do, will everything be alright? Can we even do this? To answer these questions it is useful to look at the California debt crisis.
The reason California is in the precarious situation it's in is because people's fight against many forms of taxation since the 1970's. It costs more and more to provide services for a growing population, but the tax revenue hasn't grown at the same rate. "Americans have been “brainwashed” into believing they pay a lot of taxes ... In fact, they are among the least-taxed people in the Western World, particularly if they’re wealthy" states the Globe and Mail article. California residents want the services, but they are not willing to pay for them.
This situation reveals two issues. The first is that the wealthy aren't carrying their weight in paying taxes. This points to the theory that the wealthy and big businesses have too much influence on government being true. But what the previous statement really points to is a bigger underlying problem. People do not want to sacrifice their own income and comforts to allows government to provide all the services that they want to see government provide. The general public is not seeing the bigger picture. Most people focus on their own economic situation, and trying to get ahead in any way they can. The motto of today's China sums it up the best: "It is glorious to get rich."
The real problem at the base of each of these issues can be derived from China's new favorite pastime. We are a society that is focused almost exclusively on economic progress, and we need to change our values... fast. Until we change our fundamental values, any move to separate business from government won't gain any traction, because our societal values as they are right now, are exactly the same values of big business.
If we valued a sustainable healthy environment to live in, BP wouldn't have been allowed to skimp on safety precautions. We probably wouldn't have developed a society based on polluting technologies in the first place. And the only way we are going to move our society away from these polluting technologies is if our society as a whole changes what we value most away from the economy.
The same can be said for the California debt crisis. If people changed there values from a me first financial perspective, to a perspective that values health, education and community support services instead, the state would have much less resistance to the taxes needed to pay for these things.
Both of these crises are the fault of society at large. By places our values in a me first economic system, we are setting ourselves up for many such catastrophes. We need to look into our collective mirror and ask ourselves what we really value. This includes each individual and business, but especially the media and government. Because if we don't change our societal values quickly, we might lose all those things that really are more important than our pocket books, like our natural environments, our schools and our health care systems.
Rob McDonald
Worldchanging.com is a nonprofit media organization that covers the world’s most innovative solutions to the planet’s problems, and inspires readers around the world with stories of new tools, models and ideas for building a bright green future.
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