I feel as if I might end my whole posting with its title. What need to rant on and on? Alas, in the interest of some smidgen of clarity, I will take on global warming from a site of argumentation which has been constructed for that very purpose - argument.
I will start from a personal anecdote and try to build upon that to make my case that lawyers are such an integral part of global warming, such massive producers of CO2, producers, consumers and beneficiaries of disputation, that we must make haste to adopt my manifesto, the NONO Protocol.
I have a friend. He is a lawyer. He is an environmental lawyer. He is also a lobbyist. Lobbyists tell legislators which laws to write (and how to write them) if they want to get re-elected. Getting re-elected costs a lot of money. Lobbyists work for people/places/organizations with LOTS of money. Lobbyists are lawyers. Are you still with me?
My friend the lawyer is a very good lawyer and he works for a very important law firm. My friend plays golf (he sucks). My friends plays golf with the Governor and other really important Minnesota personalities like the Chairperson of the Big Bucks Committee and the Secretary of Blah-dee-Blah. My friend lets these important people win at golf and buys them drinks. Laws are made at the 19th Hole.
My friend the attorney is a good attorney and a good lobbyist (but he sucks at golf). He is for hire. Sometimes he works for the people with smiley faces on their lapels, but other times, he works for the great big meanies! Since he is a really good lawyer, he is good all the time - he is either on your side, or he is on the other side. Which side are you on? Are you a smiley or a meanie?
Today, you can get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. You don't have to do anything wrong besides forget to wear your seatbelt in order to get a ticket. Not wearing a seatbelt is a primary offence. That was my friend's work - yay! Guess who paid for that work? Five years worth of my friend's time is NOT cheap! Do you think that auto insurance companies would like this law or hate this law? Would Sarah Palin like this law or hate this law? What does this have to with the environment? Nothing! Yay!
I like my friend. He is nice. He lets me win at golf and tells me funny stories about lawmakers - yay! Lawmakers, for all of their importance in our lives, live in constant fear. Sometimes, lawmakers ARE lawyers, but lots of times (in state legislatures) they are not. The only thing they know about laws is that they have their staffers read them so they can know which way to vote. As long as their staffers tell them "vote yes!", they vote yes. Their staffers are often, yep, very young lawyers - yay!
Here is a really cool website where the rubber meets the road (yay!):
http://www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange
Wow! Columbia University! In New York!!
This little manufactory of lawyers has a specialty line of Environmental Lawyers that they are producing (yay!). They churn them out by the dozens because, you guessed it, "The Center for Climate Change Law is committed to providing robust and up-to-date online resources related to the burgeoning area of climate law. Please see links to our various resources" (http://www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange/resources).
Did you notice the word that matters most? Burgeoning!! Yay! Environmental Law is burgeoning! Now we all know that burgeoning means budding, flourishing, growing at a rapid rate; the more laws we write about the environment, the more environmental lawyers we need to help us fix the laws and get us out of the mess we are in. We need lawyers and lobbyists to tell the lawmakers which laws to write so that they can stay in office and write more laws and then new lawyers can come and challenge the laws (or they can try to save the laws). It doesn't matter which side the lawyer is on, the lawyer gets paid. Pretty neat, huh?!
Folks, the good guys, the bad guys, the lawyers, the legislators, the chemical producer, the little old lady who lives at the end of Love Canal Lane all have an ax to grind. Crichton has not stopped being a showboating public "intellectual" since the day he dropped. He's no dummy, but his approach to the science and, more specifically, his disingenuous claim of working toward a de-politicized science is a populist move. Science free of politics YAY!! FREE...THE...SCIENCE!!....FREE...THE...SCIENCE!! YAY!! Populism riles up the people (i.e. Joe the Plumber) with lots of fun promises: lower taxes!, smaller government!, drill baby drill! free science! (yay! yay! yay! yay!). I like the sound of all of these things and I say yay! to each of them.
But I also believe that an illiterate child in our country is a criminal act - NO! I think that law upon law upon law, interpreted by lawyers, for lawyers, through lawyers, is a criminal act - NO! We are no longer able to know or rely on much of anything at all, this includes our scientists, unless the non-disclosure agreement has been signed (with a witness), the waiver of liability has been signed in the presence of a parent or guardian. Crichton, corporation, President, lobbyist, lawyer, legislator, us. Do you even feel like you're a part of it any more? The NONO Protocol requires the gradual reduction in the production of any person, place or thing which derives its root from legis, law or any close relative thereof.
I want your children to have clean air and water and I believe that Crichton wants the same for his kids, but as long as the legal profession has absolute ownership of our country, we will always have a hard time knowing what is right. The black box rests.
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I feel like I'm reading a screenplay for a documentary by Michael Moore's protege...
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, I would much rather read yours than his.
"...as long as the legal profession has absolute ownership of our country..."
Quite a chilling yet poignant statement. I would extend that ownership to the insurance guild as well, but it's already covered if you figure out how those companies achieve their tight grasp. You already spelled it out.
I think that Insurance profession may be a key link between the acts of these "others," these lawyers with their conflicting etho-political interests, and the public 'act,' of clapping our hands to show that we believe in the guiding Tinkerbells of liability. There is such an internalized obsession with safety that we allow our landscapes to be closed off and divided, and leave our imaginations in the hands of lobbyists.
Are we really safe? and who is WE?
Obviously not everyone can claim that the current system is working for them...
By the way, I am awaiting a revised publication of NONO Protocol.
I see your lawyers and raise you...well any number of professions or industry that could be said to be wrangling the whole system. Maybe it's really the corporations the lawyers are working for? The one super-rich guy who owns a bunch of these corporations? Or his spirtual guru or tarot card reader? or the school boards who are allowing generations of un-critical children and encourage the kids to group up to be lawyers? Or the governors who leave no extra $$ for books for the children? Or the owners of golf courses who need to keep paying for all that fertilizer to keep the $$ rolling in. . . .
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