Categories
Environment Reviews

Reading Naomi Klein

This Changes EverythingUnlike the climate crisis story spoon fed to us in decreasing numbers of corporate media stories, in social media memes, and in fleeting conversations at community gatherings, in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, author Naomi Klein said there is a nascent, global movement preparing to take climate action.

“The climate movement has yet to find its full moral voice on the world stage,” Klein wrote. “But it is most certainly clearing its throat—beginning to put the very real thefts and torments that ineluctably flow from the decision to mock international climate commitments alongside history’s most damned crimes.”

If you haven’t read Klein’s 2014 book, you should. Not because of a desire to take sides in the public discussion of global warming and the need to keep global temperature increase to two degrees or less. But because a). reading a paper book can be good for us, and b). with Klein you can hear her broader story and learn new things. Here’s more on why you should pick up a copy at your library or bookstore if you haven’t already.

In Iowa, as home to the first in the nation caucuses, we are inundated with stories about politics. Elections matter, and we have seen how in the Republican awakening after Barack Obama’s 2008 election. Progressives hardly understood that Republicans, though in the minority in the Congress, would exercise such power that much of Obama’s agenda was sidelined from the beginning. Republican comebacks in 2010 and 2014 have turned the congress from Democratic to Republican, and right-wing hardliners have more input to the legislative process than their numbers warrant. Taking climate action in Congress has, for the most part, been a non-starter.

“It’s not just the people we vote into office and then complain about—it’s us,” Klein wrote. “For most of us living in post-industrial societies, when we see the crackling black-and-white footage of general strikes in the 1930s, victory gardens in the 1940s, and Freedom Rides in the 1960s, we simply cannot imagine being part of any mobilization of that depth and scale.”

“Where would we organize?” Klein asked. “Who would we trust enough to lead us? Who, moreover, is ‘we?'”

Klein’s book frames answers to those questions: People are organizing everywhere, resisting unbridled extraction of natural resources by corporations. “We” includes almost everyone.

This Changes Everything reviews the recent history of the climate movement. It covers extreme extraction of natural resources that leave behind waste heaps, fouled water and polluted air, then are burned and produce atmospheric gases that warm the planet. Everyone from fossil fuel companies to environmental groups have been involved in what Klein calls “extractivism.” There is a growing resistance, including environmental groups divesting from investments in the fossil fuel industry, indigenous people mounting court battles, and community groups violating international trade agreements to move to renewable energy sources. The book is a snapshot of where the climate movement currently stands.

While Klein has her point of view, she depicts the complexity of a global network of fossil fuel companies seeking to extract hydrocarbons scientists tells us must be left in the ground. While the resistance may not have found its full moral voice, Klein’s book makes the case it won’t be long and recounts the significant inroads indigenous people and communities near extraction sites are making.

When we talk about taking climate action, Naomi Klein’s work should be part of our conversation.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Work Life Writing

Working to Write

Passport and Notebook
Writer’s Tools

I work to write.

It became clear at CRST Logistics I couldn’t combine writing with a career the way William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and every college teacher who took ink to paper did.

I transitioned to being a purveyor of writing and speaking. It has been tough to consistently secure enough income to support the new métier.

Yesterday I finished the season at the orchard. Freelancing for the newspaper slowed down. It is time once again to set writing aside and work on that necessary task – generating cash to pay expenses.

What do I want to do? Whatever I can to cover ongoing expenses, pay down debt, and enable my writing.

While not a neophyte in the art of the job search, I have a lot to learn. The work I’ve done in retail and as a correspondent may not be around the way it has been.

A recent article at Business Insider lists jobs that are at risk of being automated. The list includes not only retail salespersons and newspaper correspondents, but loan officers, receptionists, taxi drivers, security guards, fast food cooks, bartenders, financial advisers, and musicians. These are all position I might have considered. Suffice it this job search must identify more sustainable work than what these professions offer.

“A significant factor in the decline of the quality of jobs in the United States has been employers’ increasing reliance on ‘non-regular’ employees,” Steven Hill wrote at Salon, “(It is) a growing army of freelancers, temps, contractors, part-timers, day laborers, micro-entrepreneurs, gig-preneurs, solo-preneurs, contingent labor, perma-lancers and perma-temps.”

I embrace such a lifestyle, yet creating a sustainable portfolio of such work has been challenging. Careful attention to budget and managing expenses is essential and is the easier part of the process. What is hard is recognizing the life-cycle of a specific engagement and properly planning for a continuous revenue stream.

“Where I landed after a career in transportation was with a portfolio of activities, some paid and some not,” I wrote in a presentation for the Solon Public Library, “I value all of the work I do and have to make choices on how I spend my time. My life is a systematic and thoughtful process of continuous evaluation and improvement.”

I need to get better at it.

The transition of newspapers, like what is happening at Gannett, is ongoing and incomplete. More and more, the local paper has articles written by reporters further up the organizational structure, blocking out space for freelancers. I enjoyed a good run writing for the Iowa City Press Citizen, but there hasn’t been a story offered in a month. The lesson learned is it is okay to take work to build experience, but as a freelancer the thread to the newspaper can be dependent upon a particular editor. Mine left a while back.

In a world where companies increasingly do away with full time employees using apps and algorithms to manage a pool of part-time workers, being a fulfillment person in such a system has its vagaries and downside. To make such jobs work requires a personal infrastructure to take care of basic needs separately from companies who offer employment. For many years this was exactly what companies wanted – a flexible, variable labor expense that could be ramped up during peak demand and ramped down during the slow times in a business cycle. I developed a support structure where part-time or temporary jobs can be plugged in, but underestimated the continuous need for business development.

During a recent interview for a retail sales position, I was asked my salary requirements. I need between $20,000 and $24,000 per year to pay expenses and may have priced myself out of the job. The reality is we must make our own opportunities or subjugate our lives to what has become a new form of indentured servitude. Instead of booking passage to prosperity in a new world, today such workers struggle to get by in a society that seems interested only in making a buck from you’re here today, gone tomorrow labor.

I worked for great people during much of my working life. Going forward, knowing my potential manager before taking a job will be an important consideration. This learning came from constant experimentation and reflection on the jobs I’ve held since re-purposing in 2009. It’s no secret a significant reason people leave jobs is they don’t get along with their manager.

Yesterday I multi-tasked at the orchard, something we do when the end of season draws near. In addition to helping customers find apples to pick, I prepared samples of eight varieties of apples. Customers, other employees and I had many engaged conversations about apples, their parentage and uses – it’s great work if you can get it. It was the last day of the season and my manager invited me back next year.

Since I work to write, I said yes.

Categories
Living in Society Social Commentary

Five Things About Iowa City

Iowa City Old Capitol
Iowa City Old Capitol

By design, we built our home not in, but close to Iowa City when we moved back to Iowa from Indiana. The intention was to be within commuting distance of jobs in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. Over the years I’ve worked in all three, so the idea has been validated.

Iowa City is a UNESCO City of Literature. With my long interest in culture, it was inevitable to have some relationship with Iowa City. That is, as long as I considered myself to be an Iowan, which these days is not a given.

The University of Iowa dominates the culture of Iowa City, providing a diverse mix of people and an economic engine some take for granted. There’s sports as well, although I’m not a fan and haven’t been to a Hawkeye game for more than a decade and that was mandatory for work. I lost interest in the Hawkeyes during the Ray Nagel years.

There are things to like about Iowa City and here’s my short list.

County Seat – It is convenient to live near the county seat. I enjoy paying my property taxes in person and voting at the auditor’s office. I have come to know many elected officials and encounter some of them at the county administration building when I’m there. As a community volunteer, and as an elected official, I’ve consulted with elected officials and staff, and the proximity has been valuable.

Change – Iowans are moving from rural to urban areas and Iowa City has changed in a way to support incoming and transient people. Changes in downtown over the years have been arguably for the better. I remember people running down Wilfreda Hieronymous for her urban renewal developments. I was living in an apartment above a restaurant just before the wrecking ball tore it down to make way for her Old Capitol Center. People hated it. I hated it because of losing the $85 per month rent on a three-room apartment across the street from Schaeffer Hall. In the long run the development of downtown has been a good thing.

Personal History – I demonstrated against the Vietnam War on the Pentacrest the spring of 1971, and saw George McGovern campaign there in 1972. We married at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Gilbert Street and Iowa Avenue. Our daughter was born at Mercy Hospital. I had my last conversation with an uncle on the west steps of Old Capitol. I’ve come to know and love spending time at the intersection of Market and Linn Streets, meeting with friends at the ever-changing coffee shop there. We still buy the occasional pie from Pagliai’s Pizza when I’m in the city before dinner time. These and a hundred more memories are an attraction.

High Culture – Iowa City attracts writers and musicians from around the world and there are opportunities to have a moment with them. I ran into James Van Allen on Market Street, Frederick Exley at the dental clinic, and Donald Justice at UPS. Over the years, I attended readings and events with John Cheever, Saul Bellow, Margaret Atwood, James Laughlin, Hunter Lovins, Edward Albee, William Styron, Toni Morrison, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and many more.  I heard guitarists Andrés Segovia, Duane Allman, Albert King, Freddie King, Luther Allison, Jerry Garcia, Bonnie Raitt, Greg Brown, Christopher Parkening and others. The convergence of creativity is unique in the land of the sleepy ones.

Old Things Giving Way to New – With each passing year the Iowa City I know is fading. Old buildings have been torn down and construction is everywhere. The public discussion about historic preservation is a unique, peculiar and engaging endeavor. There is controversy about money and incentives given to developers – when hasn’t there been? Development has been part of Iowa City’s history for as long as I can remember.

Iowa City is making people and corporations rich, while attracting new poverty and crime. Urban sprawl seems uncontrolled. On the outskirts of the city, distinct neighborhoods with singular cultures are nascent. It is a sign of life in a turbulent world.

When I visit Hamburg Inn No. 2, I remember No. 1. I park on Brown Street and walk to town on the grid of streets laid out in the 19th Century, remembering what was here, considering what will be here. Eventually the old grid will give way to something new, and I don’t mean large multi-use properties that currently are in vogue. It is hopeful and energetic – engaged.

I would be loathe to give up our current home to move to Iowa City as so many retirees are doing. There is a cottage industry in people my age seeking something in the county seat. Despite the attractions, I’m not ready to move there, at least not yet.

Categories
Writing

Getting Started on Local Food

Betty's Fresh Produce
Betty’s Fresh Produce

The local food movement is a growing group of individual operators struggling to make a living and an impact in a turbulent world.

It is a nascent system directly tied to our consumer culture, dependent upon disposable income and open mindedness in meeting humankind’s most basic need.

I spent six years in our local food culture and can say food we consume is not all local, and needn’t be. At the same time there are benefits of a local food system beyond better taste, eating fresh, and knowing the farmer who produced the groceries.

In our home fall canning leads to a pantry full of soup, tomatoes, hot peppers, sauerkraut, vinegar, apple sauce, pickles and sundry items from the garden and farm. The freezer gets filled with bell peppers, apples, broccoli and sweet corn. It is food – as local as it gets – driven by what is fresh, abundant and on hand.

Along with home processed goods are bits and pieces from all over the globe, each serving a purpose in our culinary lives. Putting ingredients together in a personalized cuisine is where the local food movement will live or die.

More people seek processed or precooked food because of a perception there is too little time for cooking. If adding kale to a smoothie seems easy, making a stir fry using kale is less so. Contemporary consumers want a quick and easy path to making meals and snacks, and don’t have the patience it requires to add new recipes to their repertoire. Cuisine as an expression of local culture has been tossed out the window by many.

Having worked in the local food system, whether at home, on a farm, or in a retail store, has been an important part of my life since retiring in 2009. It is a way of life to grow food for direct consumption or sales. Local food is also a jumble even if farmers and consumers want it to be more organized and systematic.

One operator runs a community supported agriculture project where members pay in the spring to help avoid a farm loan then share in the luck, good or bad, of the farm. Another sells chits which can be used to buy the face value of any goods at a local outlet framed as a “store.” Another grows specific crops to sell to restaurants, absorbing any financial risk. All of this leads us to a point where an onion isn’t only an onion anymore. And it’s not about the onion but the culture.

If someone could organize a local food system, there may be a living in it. That misses the point. Local food systems are intended to cut out the middlemen in the food supply chain. At the same time, faced with a need for scalability, most operators could potentially use the help of local food brokers.

While some of the figures of a sustainable, local food movement – Alice Waters, Joel Salatin, Fred Kirschenmann, and others – are well known, a sense of coherence or agreement on basic terms seems missing among local producers. It is as if operators would rather work inside the bubble of what works for them personally as long as it does work for them. In a way that is not much different from how corn, soybean, egg and livestock producers view their operations.

Where we go from here is uncertain. Something I hope to discover in the pages of this memoir of my experience in with our food system.

Categories
Living in Society

Hillary Post-Jefferson Jackson

HillaryClinton-HardChoicesBeginning with the first debate on Oct. 13, it has been a fast and wild ride for Democrats.

Hillary Clinton held her lead in the polls, and Bernie Sanders appears to have reached a ceiling of support. Vice president Joe Biden won’t enter the race for president. Webb and Chafee bowed out. The Benghazi hearing turned to Clinton’s advantage due mostly to the Republican bubble combined with the fact that most viewers understand the political nature of the investigation. As I write, 6,000 ticket holders are ready to grace the HyVee Hall in Des Moines on Saturday to hear speeches and have some fun before the real work of organizing the caucuses begins with the end of year holidays.

What about Hillary Clinton?

I re-read my reasons for supporting Hillary, and find no need to switch. At the same time, some intertwined questions give progressives pause. Is she too close to Wall Street? How will she handle international trade and its relationship with the environment, labor and working Americans?

As the Democratic choice is reduced to one between Clinton and Sanders, the contrasts between them are what matters most.

Bernie Sanders has called for breaking up the big banks like he is beating a drum. In May he introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate “to break up the nation’s biggest banks in order to safeguard the economy and prevent another costly taxpayer bailout,” according to his campaign web site.

“No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis,” Sanders said. “If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

Clinton doesn’t go that far. Instead she supports reforms that would close loopholes in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill and strengthen enforcement against financial wrongdoing. Read the details of the plan here.

The difference is this. In order for Sanders to break up the big banks, he needs the cooperation of the Congress. For that to happen, the “political revolution” mentioned in his every speech must happen first, along with correction of Republican gerrymandering after the 2010 census. That’s a tall order for the Sanders agenda and if he has truly hit the ceiling of support, less likely to happen.

When we consider Clinton’s plan for reform, it has its challenges as well. Both President Obama and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon lobbied the Congress to reinstate banned federal subsidies for derivatives trading in Dodd-Frank. The plan Clinton announced would repeal these perquisites, returning to the original intent of Dodd-Frank. She too will need the support of the Congress to make that happen.

Skeptics point to Clinton’s treasure trove of campaign donations from Wall Street and question whether she will actually execute the reforms she proposed. Clinton pointed out that as a U.S. Senator she represented Wall Street in the Congress, literally, so the point is well taken. This question is less about her relationship with Wall Street and more about whether or not the electorate will engage in the general election and bring needed change to our government regarding Wall Street and across the board.

Both Sanders and Clinton oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership, based on what is known about the recent agreement (which has not been finalized). Progressives fear TPP will be another step toward globalization with consequences for the environment, labor and the way of life for many Americans.

The impact of globalization has been devastating in the U.S. as large businesses got larger and manufacturing moved to countries with lower labor costs and less stringent environmental regulation. Because of wage stagnation, middle class people have been compelled to purchase low cost goods produced in other countries, thus encouraging a cycle that isn’t in our best interests. Patterns set during the post-World War Two era were broken up with harsh consequences for workers and their families.

Bernie Sanders has voted against trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA and the TPP. He has also voted yes on withdrawing from the World Trade Organization. Hillary Clinton shares her husband’s legacy which includes NAFTA, the World Trade Organization and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. These entities epitomize the hopes for increased trade with globalization. They also brought along environmental degradation and substantial changes in the U.S. workforce experience.

Between Sanders and Clinton, who has the better policy?

The answer seems less than clear. There is little agreement and less understanding among members of the electorate about the relationship between trade, globalization, environmental degradation and labor. There are no simple answers when people want simplicity in a complex world.

What we know is the interests of Wall Street align, for the most part, with interests in globalization. We are back to the basic difference between Sanders and Clinton in implementing change during a potential administration. Sanders calls for a revolution, and Clinton does not. Sanders assumes down ticket wins to support his positions will happen as a corollary to his “revolution.” Clinton takes the world as it is and intends to improve it.

Given Hillary Clinton’s long involvement in globalization as a path to economic prosperity, one asks whether her views have changed since her husband’s administration and how. She repeatedly said she is not planning for Bill Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s third term, but rather her own first term.

Answers have not been forthcoming. Globalization has been indirectly referred to in this campaign. There is no trade section on Clinton’s campaign website and the issue is much deeper than her skepticism about the TPP.

These issues matter, and remain at the core of the differences between Sanders and Clinton. Globalization is also at the core of concern about jobs, the environment, and a U.S. middle class lifestyle that has been under assault beginning with the Reagan administration.

Going into the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson dinner, Clinton looks to be the nominee more than she did when she entered the race. It is up to progressives to look past the horse race and press her on these issues.

Categories
Writing

On Not Being Vachel Lindsay

Writing About Apples
Writing About Apples

On June 23, 2009 I made my last business trip in a career with many of them.

Arriving in Chicago on the corporate aircraft, we drove to the Loop to explain the account transition precipitated by my retirement to our largest customer. The meeting took place at their corporate office in the Wrigley Building. We could see the recently completed Trump Tower Chicago through the windows. It had become time to change the skyline of my life.

I had taken to dozing off during staff meetings and lost interest in getting along with the other members of the management team. It was time to make my exit. I hoped to do so with some measure of grace and didn’t know what would be next.

Now, I do.

After years of experimentation, volunteering, and a portfolio of part-time and temporary jobs, I have begun to write in earnest, and intend to make something more than 500-1,000 word posts for publication in newspapers, on blogs, and in other outlets.

The first subject will be a memoir about the evolution of my understanding of local food over the last six years. The goal is a 25,000-word essay that can be combined with other short pieces into a self-published book. Book sales will become a way for people to contribute financially to my work at events.

As I embark on this adventure Vachel Lindsay is on my mind. His journey did not end well. I hope to do better.

Equipped with a reasonably sound memory, a sheaf of recent writing on food, labor, farming, gardening, cooking and agriculture, I’m ready.

At a thousand words a day, the essay should be complete by year’s end. Hopefully people will find it unique and worth reading. If I’m lucky, it will be a contribution toward expanding the local food movement.

Categories
Living in Society

Iowa Caucus Notes

Caucus-goer
Caucus-goer

Going into what is arguably the biggest political event of the year for Iowa Democrats — the Jefferson Jackson dinner on Saturday — the Feb 2 caucus is coming into focus.

Despite a field of six plus Joe Biden, the contest has never been about more than two candidates, front runner Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. That is not expected to change.

If Biden enters the race for president, he will suck the oxygen from candidates Martin O’Malley and Larry Lessig. Lincoln Chafee isn’t running an Iowa campaign and Jim Webb bowed out earlier today.

In any case, if Biden runs, O’Malley gets very few or no delegates. If not, O’Malley has a chance to hoover up those dissatisfied with Clinton and Sanders as the alternative and maybe get viable. In 2008, the Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd groups attempted viability this way to no avail, at least in my precinct where the caucus was 95 Obama, 75 Edwards and 75 Clinton.

There are two tickets out of Iowa and Clinton and Sanders have them booked. Not much can happen to alter that outcome.

It is not certain, but Hillary Clinton will likely be the party’s nominee for president and win the 2016 election, at least according to Las Vegas odds makers today. There may be some local variations. Sanders may take Johnson County, and other Iowa liberal centers, but lose the state to Clinton. I wrote my expectation Sanders will win back yard New Hampshire some time ago. Having been through a 50-state campaign before, Clinton is the odds-on favorite beyond Super Tuesday.

There is work to get out the caucus for our candidates. There are some Democratic issues remaining to be addressed, not the least of which is activating voters who care less and less about belonging to a political party. It’s hard to see how the Jefferson Jackson dinner will be a breakout event for any candidate as we slog toward the caucus and the 2016 general election.

Categories
Work Life

Walmart, Work and Value

Working in the Barn
Working in the Barn

The consensus in social media was Walmart’s substantial stock decline on Wednesday – in advance of lower earnings projections – couldn’t have happened to a better group of jerks.

The jerks are the five individuals and groups who together own half of outstanding Walmart stock – the Walton family.

When people talk about re-distributing wealth, in part, they mean taking it from the Waltons, even though it was not just members of the one percent that got hit as Walmart stock is part of many portfolios owned by small investors and retirement funds.

The $14.7 billion valuation loss came after the CEO Doug McMillon briefed a group of financial analysts that earnings would decline sharply between now and 2018 because of a substantial investment in human resources which includes employee training, raising the average wage to $10 per hour, and adding more middle managers to improve the customer experience. The company also plans a significant investment in technology to be more competitive in e-commerce.

That Walmart would point to their February decision to raise the wage of its associates as a contributing cause of the lower earnings projection was called out by union members.

“Walmart should be ashamed for trying to blame its failures on the so-called wage increases. The truth is that hard-working Walmart employees all across the country began seeing their hours cut soon after the new wages were announced,” said Jess Levin, a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

It’s a fools game for unions to use Walmart as a proxy argument for the need for union representation, something that should stand on its own merits. The discussion about wages and needs of low income workers is not about wages. It is more about valuing work in our society. Whatever one thinks of the pay and benefits at Walmart, they provide jobs – more than 2.2 million of them globally.

A complicating factor is 260 million people per week shop at Walmart globally. The average U.S. Walmart shopper is a white, 50-year-old female with an average household income of $53,125. Walmart is a mainstay of an economic system where people rely on low prices as wages have been stagnant.

At the same time Walmart’s stock value declined, some view it as a buying opportunity. On whatever rocky shoals the company finds itself, the fact remains that as a mature business four percent of the global population shops there every week. It isn’t going anywhere. The Waltons’ stake seems likely to rise in value again, and there is no serious activity underway to take anything from the Waltons.

Walmart is a target because it is the largest private employer in the U.S. Fairly or not, the company is used as a proxy for what’s wrong in our economic system. Focusing attention on Walmart is a diversion from what should be our target. It has less to do with Wall Street and everything to do with valuing work people do everyday with low or non-existent pay.

As long as we complain about Walmart and fail to take action to respect workers, the Waltons will be fine, and the rest of us no better than we were before they rose to the one percent.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Frost Forecast and Harvest Soup

Canning Soup and Jalapeno Peppers
Canning Jars of Soup and Jalapeno Peppers

The garden season officially ended today with gleaning that filled eight crates with tomatoes, apples, celery, Swiss chard, kale and hot and bell peppers.

I delivered a second 200-pound load of apples to the CSA for shareholders and the food pantry. While there, I picked up some potatoes, garlic, lettuce, a large squash, sweet potatoes and some onions.

With a hard frost expected early Saturday morning, I made a harvest soup with vegetables. Five quarts of it are processing in a water bath as I type.

Times like this, a list of ingredients suffices. Not as a recipe, but as a record of what went into the soup.

Fresh and canned tomato juice
Onions
Carrot
Celery
Potatoes
Kale
Swiss chard
Large winter squash cut into cubes
Bay leaves
Sea Salt
Orange lentils
Dried red beans
Pearl barley
Prepared organic vegetable broth

The draft toward winter is inescapable. Snow will soon be flying and subzero temperatures not far behind — and the comforting warmth of harvest soup.

Bangkok Peppers
Bangkok Peppers
Categories
Environment

The Senator and the Sierra Club

The exchange between U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Sierra Club president Aaron Mair during an Oct. 6 Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing was a brief flash in the news cycle. Was it also a debate about climate change?

The subject was to have been the impact of federal regulations on minority communities. The junior senator from Texas turned it into something else — a desultory grilling of Mair in which he brought out some old sawhorses from the climate denial tool shed. Here is the exchange:

Sierra Club board member Donna Buell posted this on Facebook after the hearing:

Donna Buell FB Snippet 10-09-15

Mair was quick to reply on behalf of the Sierra Club:

View the entire two-hour hearing if you have the stomach for it here.

Cruz asserted in an Oct. 7 press release he “proved, contrary to liberal assertions that man-caused climate change is ‘settled science,’ that there is still a healthy and vigorous debate about the causes and nature of climate change based on the data and scientific evidence.”

So does Cruz picking a fight indicate debate? Decidedly not. In fact, as Mair pointed out in his video response, Cruz’s claims during the hearing have been debunked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency over which Cruz has oversight in his role as chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

What’s this about?

It is about the attempt of right wing politicians like Cruz to hijack reasonable discussion among people with differing opinions in favor of a personal agenda.

On Oct. 12, I was part of a Sierra Club panel of presenters in which I suggested attendees could continue the discussion Cruz and Mair started by bird dogging Cruz in Washington, Iowa Wednesday morning.

Miriam Kashia, a veteran of the Great March for Climate Action, raised her hand and said, “I’ve done that.”

She reported the incident in an Oct. 13 guest opinion in the Iowa City Press Citizen,

Then, during a media interview with Sen. Ted Cruz speaking about the terrorist threat, I jumped in and asked him, “What is your response to the fact that the Pentagon tells us that climate change is the biggest threat to America’s security?” His response, “You don’t have the right to ask any questions, because you’re not a member of the media.” The media, meanwhile, was not doing its job.

Statements by Cruz and his ilk so often go unchallenged. People agree with him, and in Texas helped elevate him to power in 2012. His supporters are vocal and much of what is said serves the conservative agenda or it doesn’t get heard. I don’t doubt there is a Cruz community that buys into his world view, even though it appears to be based in something other than reality.

What becomes clearer each time people like Cruz are examined is nothing is behind the verbiage but vapidness. Sarah Beckman pointed this out about Cruz in an Oct. 13 post on Iowa Starting Line.

If you spend enough time with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, you start to get the feeling that there is something “off” about him. His long pauses, his forlorn looks out into the audience, his deep crescendos and trailing whispers, his odd pop culture references. They all paint the picture that Cruz is maybe not as honest and authentic as he lets on while campaigning.

Never is Cruz talking about what we have in common, about how we can live better with each other, or how we solve the greatest problems of our time, like mitigating the causes of global warming.

Elections matter, and when the electorate elevates people like Cruz to positions of power over NASA, NOAA and the government’s scientific bodies, we are doing ourselves no favors.

If readers plan to move to Texas to sort out this mess, and elect someone who will enter the arena to fight for all of us, then God bless. I don’t see that happening.

Cruz gives us reason enough to engage in politics. Leaving important political work to others helped produce Senators Cruz, Ernst and Grassley, and the troubled time in which we live.

There is a better way, and it’s up to us to find and follow it.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa