The U.S. House of Representatives was created in part as an outlet
for the immediacy of a people’s passions; other governmental institutions at
the federal level provide a check. The term of a House representative is only 2
years, whereas that of a U.S. senator is 6 years and that of the U.S. president
is four. So presumably societal or even global problems
requiring immediate action find pressing representation in the House, whereas
the perspectives of U.S. senators and presidents, being limited to six and four
years respectively, are not long-term-oriented enough for problems that could
blow up in decades. To register in the crowded minds of House representatives,
a long-term problem yet in need of immediate attention must trigger the
immediate passions of the constituents unless the representatives value
principled leadership (i.e., acting in the best interests of the constituents
and the country). Yet passions demanding immediate action tend, I submit, to
involve anger. Climate change is thus excluded, and the long-term forecasts do
little to impress upon a people how urgent rectifying action really is. Even if
the scientific reports of current
conditions emphasize extant dramatic changes (not to mention future
forecasts with disastrous implications for humanity generally and particular
regions, immediate passion is not sufficiently stirred for the U.S. House at
least to prioritize addressing the problem.
A report published in January, 2019 indicates that the world’s
oceans were then already 40% warmer than a U.N. panel had projected in 2014.[1] Although
the data was not yet in to be included in the report, 2018 was expected to the
warmest on record for ocean temperatures.
Considering that the oceans had been providing “a critical buffer”
in having “slowed the effects of climate change [in the atmosphere] by
absorbing 93% of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases” that were from human
uses (presumably including the methane released as the permafrost melts), the
reported acceleration of
ocean warming should have sounded over the lands as a clarion call for
immediate action.[2] The most important implication from
the report is that the oceans would absorb far less of the extra heat from the
atmosphere if the oceans’ temperatures get high enough, which likely would come
sooner than projected, the atmosphere would then show more and more of the immediately
noticeable increased heat in the atmosphere. Although losing much or
all of the “absorption drainage” by virtue of the seas would likely register
very starkly into immediate effect as people spend time in the atmosphere—and
thus likely trigger immediate governmental action, awareness of the implication
before that point is likely too indirect to
register on the awareness of constituents.
Even though Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed in
retirement—long after they had sparred like dogs—they agreed that a viable
republic (and we could add climate) requires an
educated and virtuous citizenry (as it elects the elected government officials
in a representative democracy). So universities in the U.S., unlike the E.U.
and Asian countries, require that students wanting to become a lawyer or
physician first get a degree in another school of
knowledge, such as in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. To be sure, such a
broad education admittedly helps in being able to make inferences, such as that
when the oceans cut back drastically in what the amount of the extra
atmospheric heat they can absorb, the atmosphere will warm up rather quickly.
Still this is not enough to result in a “wake-up call,” for the proportion of
college-educated adults in a given population has not been high enough. In
other words, too many voters are not likely to connect such dots and thus will
only be motivated to urge immediate governmental or global action with
enforcement powers when the atmosphere has gone into “hyperdrive” in terms of
warming that can be dramatically felt. Pain, it seems, like anger, can register
as an immediate passion of the people whose representatives in at least
short-termed offices will be motivated to act upon.
In a general sense, even designing one governmental institution, such as the U.S. House of Representatives, to give immediate passions influence in government is not enough for problems such as climate change to be treated as priorities. The fault extends ultimately down to human nature—how our brains are hard-wired and socially conditioned—so it may be said that the design at least of the U.S. Government is faulty with respect to human nature. In the U.S., a culture wherein the instant gratification of consumerism and quarterly earnings reports are given undue influence at the expense of self-restraint and a longer-term perspective and motivation, a problem like climate change wherein the immediate baleful effects are mitigated by the oceans falls between the cracks. This, I contend, is a major flaw in that the constitutional design has a gaping hole into which problems that are dramatic primarily in the future fall. Both in business and government, systemic design should be redesigned to give due emphasis—and even more so as to counter both the short-term-oriented American culture and human nature—to problems whose immediate effects mask the disaster coming in the future. It is as if an earthquake were reported and yet officials in cities on a coast would not recognize the obvious implication that a tsunami could come so an alarm should sound immediately rather than when the gigantic waves could be seen.
In a general sense, even designing one governmental institution, such as the U.S. House of Representatives, to give immediate passions influence in government is not enough for problems such as climate change to be treated as priorities. The fault extends ultimately down to human nature—how our brains are hard-wired and socially conditioned—so it may be said that the design at least of the U.S. Government is faulty with respect to human nature. In the U.S., a culture wherein the instant gratification of consumerism and quarterly earnings reports are given undue influence at the expense of self-restraint and a longer-term perspective and motivation, a problem like climate change wherein the immediate baleful effects are mitigated by the oceans falls between the cracks. This, I contend, is a major flaw in that the constitutional design has a gaping hole into which problems that are dramatic primarily in the future fall. Both in business and government, systemic design should be redesigned to give due emphasis—and even more so as to counter both the short-term-oriented American culture and human nature—to problems whose immediate effects mask the disaster coming in the future. It is as if an earthquake were reported and yet officials in cities on a coast would not recognize the obvious implication that a tsunami could come so an alarm should sound immediately rather than when the gigantic waves could be seen.
1 Lijing Cheng et al, “How Fast Are
the Oceans Warming?” Science 363
(no. 6423), January 11, 2019.
2. Kendra Pierre-Louis, “Ocean
Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds,” The New York Times, January 10, 2019.
