Progressive Democrats Don't Support Clinton

The latest poll of progressive Democrats, sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America, again echoed what progressives have been saying for years: the Clintons are not progressives, and to many are not even liberals. This latest poll drew over 15,000 votes from registered PDA members. Hillary drew a lackluster 9%, which Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards topped the list at 41% and 23% respectively.

What does this mean? The media has all but anointed Hillary as the "likely nominee" but their polls do not reflect the potential impact of progressive, activist Democrats-- a big part of the base that will turn out in large numbers for primaries and caucuses. While Kucinich obviously can't win the nomination, the strong support for his agenda (and Edward's neo-populism) suggests the eventual nominee will have to pay attention to progressive issues and likely will not be able to win with a records on Iraq (and now Iran) as poor as Clinton's.

So look out Hilary. I'd love to vote for a female candidate (and in fact supported one in 1984) but you're not it. The centrist DLC strategy that elected Bill is certainly politically viable, but it's morally bankrupt. I'm saving my caucus vote for a candidate that actually reflects my values-- not one that once sat on the board of WalMart.

We're all to blame for toxic toys

Here's my latest column from the St. Cloud Times.
---------

Don’t blame China for recalls
By Derek Larson

Published: December 05. 2007 12:30AM

H.A. and Margret Rey likely never anticipated writing a book called “Curious George Gets Recalled,” but that’s what happened Nov. 8. About 175,000 stuffed Curious George figures were pulled from the market when excessive levels of lead were found in one version of the popular toy.

The inquisitive monkey was just the latest in an unprecedented spate of toy recalls — more than 25 million units this year — that are disrupting holiday sales and creating headaches for parents and retailers alike. The vast majority of the items recalled for lead or other chemical contamination were made in China, provoking a backlash against Chinese toys in general.

But the real source of the problem is not an evil Chinese plot to poison our kids. It’s the American companies’ desire for ever greater profit, the consumers’ demand for ever cheaper products, and the corresponding unwillingness by either to pay for quality or the services needed to ensure product safety regulations are enforced.

Low cost

China is capable of manufacturing just about anything and at virtually every level of quality. State-of-the-art, high-tech factories in China can engineer and produce goods that are certainly equal to their Western counterparts when asked to do so.

But a big part of the attraction to Chinese products for retailers is their very low cost, which unfortunately does not come without a price.

That price may simply be lower quality, a reasonable trade-off with certain items. Who doesn’t need a disposable paintbrush or spare screwdriver now and then? But as we’ve seen in recent months, sometimes that cost is less apparent and can take dangerous forms, such as toys contaminated with lead, or as we saw last spring, pet food additives tainted with toxic chemicals.

Tough laws

The toy industry is quick to point out that the United States has some of the world’s strongest regulations when it comes to toy safety, which is true. What the industry does not mention is that those regulations are poorly enforced.

Indeed, recent congressional hearings have disclosed that just one employee of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for all toy safety monitoring and the agency has seen its staff cut by almost 60 percent since it was founded more than 30 years ago.

Without U.S. inspectors in the Chinese plants, the odds are good that we will continue to see recalls.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, along with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, has called for new regulations and increased inspections, which should be part of the solution. But the problem will likely not be solved until American consumers recognize that safety comes at a cost, as does quality. We can’t have both cheap products and cheap government if we want to avoid future recalls and threats to our children’s safety.

There are some signs that the marketplace is developing a solution in advance of the politicians. Since this summer, dozens of Web sites have sprung up offering American-made toys guaranteed to be free of lead or other toxins. Some of these have clearly anti-Chinese marketing plans, including “The Not Made In China Store” and Maple Landmark Woodcraft, a Vermont-based manufacturer of wood toys.

Business is good. Maple Landmark says it has been overwhelmed by orders despite doubling its staff and will not be able to deliver orders before Christmas. Meanwhile, toymaker Hasbro will launch a national ad campaign reminding consumers that none of their toys have been recalled for lead or other toxic contaminants, unlike those of competitor Mattel.

This may all be sorted out by Christmas 2008, mostly likely with a combination of new regulations and a significant federal investment in enforcement in China and product testing here in the United States.

Meanwhile, here’s a simple metric you can use when selecting toys for kids this holiday season. Make a list of the following three adjectives: cheap, safe and Chinese. When it comes to toys you should be able to find items with any two of those qualities.

If it seems like you’re getting all three in one package, ask yourself if it’s true.

Perhaps those blocks from Vermont might be a better buy after all.

Earn free rice for the hungry-- and improve your vocabulary!

I stumbled upon a new web site today that is just plain addictive: FreeRice
It offers a simple but addictive vocabulary exercise that's pretty much like the old Reader's Digest "It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power" feature, but with a catch: each time you select the correct definition, ten grains of rice are donated. It's funded by advertising and implemented by the UN's World Food Program; since its launch on October 7th over 263 million grains of rice have been donated-- almost 16,000 pounds!

A Space Race for Energy?

Here's my October column from the St. Cloud Times


There needs to be an energy race

By Derek Larson
St. Cloud (MN) Times

October 3, 2007

Fifty years ago Thursday, on Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world by announcing the launch of the first artificial satellite. Beating the American Vanguard program into orbit by five months, the object known worldwide as Sputnik launched the space race and a technological revolution.

In recent interviews with The Associated Press, Boris Chertok, a 95-year-old veteran scientist who worked closely with Sputnik project director Sergei Korolyov, noted the frantic pace of the effort was also marked by poetic moments. Though a more complex, conically shaped scientific satellite was already being planned by another team, Korolyov had a specific vision for the symbolic first mission. "The Earth is a sphere, and its first satellite also must have a spherical shape," Chertok remembers him insisting.

Even the launch team failed to grasp the importance of its accomplishment when the initial beep was received from space. "At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done," Chertok recalled. "We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok. Only four or five days later did we realize that it was a turning point in the history of civilization."

Though the space race was a product of the Cold War, deeply rooted in militarism and ideological conflict, the technologies and educational advances it produced were instrumental in shaping the second half of the 20th century.

Greater crisis

Today we find ourselves in the midst of another, greater crisis than even the Cold War: Our immense appetite for energy and dependence on fossil fuels are changing the Earth in ways we do not yet fully understand.

What is certain is that our use of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Now that the scientific consensus on climate change has finally been presented as such by the media, the public has begun to realize that addressing the problem need not mean the end of modern civilization, but simply requires us to be smarter about our energy habits. Changing how much energy we use and where we get it are the two keys to a sustainable future.

What America — and consequently the world — needs today is a new space race focused on alternative energy sources and increased energy efficiency. As the world's largest consumer of energy we have a responsibility to lead others toward a sustainable future.

But the levels of commitment, investment and expertise directed toward this critical task has been inadequate. Patchwork quilts of state incentives and inconsistent federal support have left alternative energy projects in a perpetual boom/bust cycle that has stalled research and development. Cheap energy, made possible by misguided government subsidies and a reliance on dirty coal-fired power plants, has made our citizens oblivious to the real costs of their actions.

Urgent matter

If our children are to enjoy a lifestyle anything like ours we must act now, demanding more from our political leaders and taking the lead ourselves when they fail to do so.

By launching an energy initiative on the scale of the space program, the United States could become the world leader in energy innovation. Within a decade we could expand our economy, dramatically cut our carbon emissions, eliminate all oil imports from the Middle East, and begin to swing the balance of trade with Asia back in our favor by selling our new technologies to countries like China.

The space race demonstrated some of the things Americans do best: We can rally behind our leaders, mobilize the world's largest economy toward a common goal, develop innovative technologies and change the future for the better. The opportunity is here again today. What we lack is the vision and leadership to make it happen on the necessary scale.

As Boris Chertok noted, Sputnik marked a turning point for human civilization. We could make another, if only we had the will to face the challenge instead of pretending it didn't exist.

Mixed feelings about Sen. Larry Craig

Here's my September column from the St. Cloud (MN) Times

Senator's story is a shame, for many reasons

When he leaves office September 30th, Idaho Senator Larry Craig will become a footnote in history. "“Who was Larry Craig?"” people will ask, and the reply everywhere outside his home state will be simply "“the senator caught playing footsie in the men’'s room."” The sad thing is that it’s not clear that he actually did anything wrong at MSP last June. It'’s the suspicion that he'’s gay that cost him his seat. In the die-by-the-sword world of Republican politics there’s little room for a “family values” conservative with a secret in the closet– even if that secret is simply a wish to hide an embarrassing misunderstanding with an undercover cop.

There are few enough reasons to leap to Craig’'s defense. He is among the most conservative members of the Senate, a man who has spent a career working against the interests of average Americans and in support of extremist positions that benefited the few at the expense of the many. His long voting record provides ample fodder for analysis, which progressive interest groups have scored as follows:

0% from the Alliance for Retired Americans for opposition on senior issues

0% from the League of Conservation Voters for his votes against the environment

0% from the American Public Health Association for his votes against health care

0% by SANE for his votes against peace policies

0% from the Human Rights Campaign for his votes on GLBT issues

15% from the AFL-CIO for supporting workers

20% from the National Education Association for supporting public schools

25% from the ACLU for supporting civil rights

In contrast, Craig’s ratings from the American Conservative Union, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Christian Coalition, the CATO Institute, the NRA, and the anti-tax National Taxpayers Union are all above 75%. He has been an outspoken supporter of school prayer, privatizing Social Security, an expanded death penalty, school vouchers, gun rights, and President Bush’'s policies in Iraq.

Despite his history of opposition to progressive policies across the board, many liberals find themselves uncomfortable with the situation Craig is in. Seeing his political positions rejected in an electoral defeat would have been cause for jubilation. Watching him dragged down in a sleazy media frenzy has been far less satisfying, especially because it’s just not clear what he did wrong. Granted, there may be a problem with men having sex in the restrooms at MSP. But is setting up a sting, using undercover cops to lure lonely men into confessions, a wise use of public resources? Are we really at a point where foot tapping is grounds for arrest? Where even the intimation of homosexual behavior can be criminalized? Should we be destroying people'’s careers by making private behaviors so public?

People will soon forget the details of this affair, just as they'’ve long forgotten Craig’'s role in the 1983 House page sex scandal, where two other members admitted to having sex with seventeen- year-old male pages. Dogged by rumors of homosexuality through much of his political career, Craig has been an ardent proponent of “family values” and backed a successful anti-gay marriage amendment in his home state in 2006. But there’'s much more to Craig than his sexual orientation, whatever it might be. In an ideal world it just wouldn'’t matter and voters would judge him on his political positions rather than rumors about his private life. Of course, our political world is far from ideal.

Pleading guilty to misdemeanor lewd conduct is hardly the worst crime ever committed by a sitting US senator. One need only listen to the posturing of Craig’'s Republican colleagues in the Senate, racing to outdo one another in condemning him, to understand that the issue is not the crime but the implication that he may be a closeted gay man. In his political world there are few worse crimes, and that’'s the true shame in this story. That, and that possibility that he is indeed a gay man who spent his career vilifying people like him for political reasons, and then threw that career away because he was unable to openly admit his true identity.

August column: Farm Bill matters to all of us

Farm bill matters to all of us
By Derek Larson

Published: August 01. 2007 12:30AM

If there's one thing liberals and conservatives should agree on, it's that we all need to eat.

The politics of compromise were on display last week as the House passed a farm bill that drew few headlines outside the agricultural press despite its almost $300 billion price tag.

But all Minnesotans should be paying careful attention to this legislation. The final bill will shape our agriculture and food policies for the next five years and offers a chance to reform outdated subsidy programs that give away tax money to agribusiness millionaires.

Unfortunately the House bill is a collection of half-steps that represents more missed opportunities than it does reform, and regular Minnesotans will end up paying for it.

If your first response is "I'm not a farmer so why should I care?" remember this: American farms are the safest, cheapest and most reliable source of food we have. Recent news about tainted food imports from China underscore that reality.

But federal farm programs also have tremendous economic impacts on Minnesota, pouring money into local (especially outstate) communities that ultimately pays wages, buys equipment and supplies, and helps keep small towns afloat.

Minnesota's cut

With about 80,000 farms in Minnesota, more than $1 billion in federal subsidies were paid in 2003-04, going primarily to corn, soybean and wheat producers.

The payments and policies established by the farm bill also affect food costs. One need only look to the rising cost of milk as an example, attributed by most to the skyrocketing price of corn due to ethanol production spurred by the federal energy bill.

Prices for beef, chicken, sweetened and processed foods, and anything else that uses corn as a significant input will likely increase as a result of this attempt to bolster energy production from farmland.

Critics of current farm policy are quick to point out that commodity subsidies distort markets and often end up in the pockets of wealthy agribusiness operators rather than helping small farmers.

Subsidies make it possible to profitably grow corn in amounts far in excess of market demand, at least until last fall's energy bill created incentives for ethanol that doubled corn prices.

Without those subsidies other crops — or perhaps no crops at all — would be planted and we'd have less high-fructose corn syrup to fatten our children on.

And who gets the lion's share of the subsidies? Three-quarters of farms in Minnesota report less than $100,000 in annual sales and 48 percent are less than $10,000.

But half of Minnesota farmers receiving the largest subsidies have sales in excess of $500,000 a year, and most of the subsidy payments go to the top 10 percent of farms, with an average payment of $46,000.

The bottom 80 percent averages just $3,630. Our tax dollars are going primarily to subsidize the largest producers of the least-needed commodity crops, corn and soybeans, rather than helping the small farmers who produce food for local consumption and employ thousands of our neighbors.

House bill

The House bill includes some limited attempts at reform, but the agribusiness lobby succeeded in reducing most of them to tokens.

Modest cuts were made to the overall commodity support system from the 2002 bill, but loopholes allowing nonfarmer investors to reap massive subsidy payments were left intact.

An income cap of $1 million was established for subsidy eligibility, though the Bush administration and a bipartisan group of reformers called for a more reasonable $200,000 limit.

Our tax dollars will still keep the price of commodities artificially high, still encourage production of unnecessary crops by unsustainable methods, and the bulk of subsidy payments will still end up primarily in the hands of wealthy agribusinesses rather than supporting the small farmers who support our local communities.

The process isn't over yet.

The Senate will take up the farm bill in September, offering another chance for reform. Hopefully they will seize the opportunity to fix the broken subsidy system while maintaining the good things that the farm bill includes — nutrition programs, school lunches, support for conservation and wildlife habitat, energy security investments, and yes, a helping hand to Minnesota farmers when (and if) they need it.

Chinese source of poison pet food suddenly closed

A Seattle Times news article reports that the Chinese factory implicated in the melamine contamination of north American pet food supplies has been closed by its owner without warning. Years of complains from citizens in Xuzhou who suffered from its pollution were ignored by the Chinese government, but when American FDA inspectors were dispatched to investigate the contamination incident the factory was shuttered and bulldozed almost overnight.

The investigation suggests that spiking protein products with melamine is a common practice in China, intended to boost the value of exports by misleading buyers (melamine give false readings in protein content tests). Thousands of pets died from this single incident. How long will it be before the USDA realizes that we cannot trust food imported from China? And how are American consumers to trust the FDA when it cannot even reliably inspect the domestic food supply?

My latest newspaper column: carbon offsets

Count your carbon, then offset it

By Derek Larson, Times Writers Group
St. Cloud (MN) Times

Published: May 02. 2007 12:30AM

In recent months media coverage of climate change has been so widespread that it's begun to make up for the decade of silence that helped make the United States one of the few industrialized nations not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. While the rest of the world wonders how Americans can abide the willful ignorance of their national leaders, meaningful responses to the threat of climate change are emerging on the state, municipal, corporate and even individual levels. As the old saying goes "when the people lead, the leaders will follow."

So where are the people leading? To state programs that regulate carbon and establish markets to trade emission permits. To cities that have committed to reducing their emissions and are investing in public transportation and alternative energy. To corporate plans to develop cleaner technologies and venture capitalists backing alternative energy startups. And certainly not least, to regular citizens who are doing their part to address climate change by learning about their carbon impacts and taking action to reduce them.

Individual efforts

The basic steps for individuals concerned about reducing carbon emissions are well known and essentially boil down to "use less gas and less electricity," because transport fuels and household energy use account for the lion's share of our individual impacts.

The next step is to learn about the carbon impact of your regular purchases and shop accordingly: Buy locally grown foods rather than produce from California, U.S.-made goods rather than imports from China, and products from companies with sustainability practices instead of those from environmental black hats.

If you've taken these essential measures and are still frustrated by the lack of action from Washington, there are two more things you can do: Call your senator and representative to demand federal action on climate change, and consider buying carbon offsets.

Offsets

So what's a carbon offset? Quite simply, it is a way to negate the impact of carbon emissions you can't avoid.

We all need electricity for light and fuel for heat, most of us need transportation, and it's hard to get through a Minnesota winter without buying some food from other regions. All of these activities produce carbon that helps make the United States the world's largest contributor to climate change.

Carbon offsets are essentially a way to purchase "negative carbon" by supporting activities that reduce carbon which would have been generated by others. They are marketed by dozens of companies, both for- and nonprofit, and support an array of solutions from wind farms to methane digesters, reforestation projects to solar installations.

Determining your carbon footprint is easy. Sites such as www.carboncounter.org and www.carbonfund.org will help calculate emissions.

For example, Carbonfund's calculator estimates a family of four living in St. Cloud, with gas heat and driving 15,000 miles per year in two vehicles averaging 25 mpg, would generate about 22 tons of CO2 from those activities in year. The cost of offsetting those emissions would be about $110, less than $10 a month, and the money would be invested in activities that permanently prevent the same amount of carbon from being emitted elsewhere.

It's simple, cheap, and — for now — the best way to reduce the impact of activities we can't avoid, such as lighting and heating homes and driving to work or school.

Congress and industry both favor establishing a market that will set carbon prices through a national cap-and-trade system, so the cost of carbon offsets will be reflected in the prices of everything we buy. But until that day arrives, individuals can explore carbon offsetting themselves simply by Googling "carbon offsets" or though such resources as "The Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers."

Before long our leaders will wake up, pull their heads from the sand and pat themselves on the backs for solving the climate crisis. The least we can do then is say "I told you so."

"I told you so" is getting easier to say to FDA

Today the FDA reported that millions of people have likely consumed chickens that were fed melamine-tainted pet food after the recall. How can anyone trust the FDA if they allow poison pet food to be recalled and then sold to chicken farmers as feed? Apparently the unregulated Chinese producers have intentionally added melamine to their protein products because it gives falsely high readings of protein content, which means higher prices. Heads should roll at FDA and consumers should treat any food imported from China as suspect...but there's no way to know where tainted Chinese ingredients might end up without the FDA doing its job.

See CNN's report Feds: Millions have eaten chickens fed tainted pet food

Reluctant "I Told You So" on Poison Food

Back on April 4th my newspaper column on the pet food scare warned that the tainted melamine could end up in the human food supply, and suggested the FDA has been lax in its oversight. Today's news wire reports say it's happened...though not as directly as I'd imagined. Through an even more ridiculous route, the tainted pet food was recalled, then apparently sold to hog farmers to fed it to their stock. Those hogs were eventually slaughtered and the pork that went to market is tainted with-- you guessed it --melamine from China.

It would be funny if it wasn't so scary. How long will it be before low-cost, unregulated, and uninspected food imports from China end up killing someone's child? It's time to overhaul the FDA and get it off the corporate agenda and back into the role of protecting our citizens.

Kurt Vonnegut is in Heaven Now

K.V. died Wednesday, leaving a gaping hole in the American literary landscape. Like many of his 30- and 40-something fans, I discovered his novels at some point in high school, probably because I was a sci-fi junkie and had read Harrison Bergeron in junior high so recognized the name. Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle quickly became part of my social circle's in jokes, and we were delighted when our band director had us play an oddball experimental piece called "The Purple-Roofed Ethical Suicide Parlor" that we of course immediately recognized as being based on his short story. The first email in my box today was a note from a high school friend, mourning the loss of one of our literary heroes. (Though K.V. thought him a fascist, the only previous death to his me this was was Robert Heinlein's when I was in college).

The obits and tributes are flowing around the net today, with none so surprising (and oddly heartwarming) as the discussion at fark.com, where the typically snarky attacks were replaced by the online equivalent of a group hug and a river of tears. KV clearly made his mark...perhaps the most poignant comment was something along the lines of "I've only cried at the deaths of two celebrities in my life: Mr. Rogers and Kurt Vonnegut.

So our favorite humanist has gone to be with god. We wish him well.

So it goes...

Pet food scare serves as warning

Here's my latest newspaper column. Media coverage of this issue has picked up since I wrote this Monday morning, but there have been few connections made to the human food supply despite the obvious dangers.


FDA Must Improve Inspections
St. Cloud (MN) Times

Published: April 04. 2007 12:30AM

Friday's release of a document called "Important Alert No. 99-26" by the Food and Drug Administration went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.

Its primary purpose was to block the importation of wheat gluten produced by the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology company in Peixian, China.

But a bit of investigation suggests it should also raise frightening questions about globalization, government regulators and the safety of our food supply.

Pet food

The story behind the alert began in December with the decision by Toronto-based Menu Foods to buy low-cost wheat gluten from China for use in pet food.

Menu Foods then blended the gluten, which is used as a thickener, into at least 95 products for such well-known labels as Mighty Dog, Iams, Eukanuba, Ol' Roy and dozens of store brands sold nationwide.

By February, veterinarians began to receive calls from people whose dogs and cats appeared listless, were losing weight and were exhibiting other symptoms diagnosed as acute renal failure.

Late that month, Menu Foods fed its products to several dozen cats and dogs in a trial, and March 2 the first of those test animals died. Eight more soon followed.

Some reports claim Menu Foods had received complaints that its products were sickening pets as early as December, but by March it was clear: There was something toxic in the food.

Once the source of the kidney failure was linked to pet food, several labs set to work identifying the cause.

Eventually a urea-based product called melamine, a common ingredient in plastic resins, was found in samples of wheat gluten used in the pet food at concentrations as high as 6.6 percent — so high the crystals were visible to the naked eye.

How it got there is a mystery, but it has been traced to wheat gluten produced in China and imported by Menu Foods.

Vulnerable consumers

This might have remained a human interest story with an emphasis on grieving pet owners if not for three factors.

First, the contamination forced the recall of about 60 million cans of pet food valued as high as $35 million, affecting millions of pet owners.

Second, although the FDA has reported only 16 official animal deaths related to the food, they had received more than 8,000 consumer complaints by Friday, suggesting the real toll may be much higher. (Self-reports by owners on one Web site alone have already tallied almost 3,000 deaths.)

Third, and most frightening, was this statement from FDA spokesperson Stephen Sundlof last week: "There are really no differences in the regulation of animal food and the regulation of human food... The same people that inspect human food plants also inspect pet food plants."

If that system failed our pets, how long will it be before it fails us as well?

So a story about grieving pet owners has become a tale of the dangers of global markets, where tainted food from poorly regulated, low-cost foreign producers can end up on our tables.

It's also a story of our failed food inspection system, long known for being understaffed, underfunded and far too beholden to the companies it is intended to monitor.

But in the end it's a story about our vulnerability as consumers, forced to accept the word of corporate mouthpieces and government regulators that someone, somewhere, is looking out for us.

Back in the days when food came from local farms any outbreak of disease or case of contamination would necessarily be limited and easy to trace.

But today's processed foods include dozens of ingredients, often from far-away factories and spread among hundreds of products.

It's the FDA's job to make sure that system is safe, but if it took months of mystery and thousands of animal deaths to discover the tainted pet food, how well is the system working?

While most of us ignore the vague terrorism alerts that occasionally raise us to "threat level orange," Important Alert No. 99-26 should have more people seeing red.

Climate Jury In-- Time for Action Has Arrived

Here's my latest column from the St. Cloud Times...
---------------------------------

Climate report must inspire action
By Derek Larson

St. Cloud (MN) Times

Published: February 07. 2007 12:30AM

Have you heard the one about the priest, the rabbi and the ostrich who walk into a bar across from the United Nations? No?

Well perhaps you've heard the one about the 600 scientists from 40 countries who wrote a report on climate change that was reviewed by 620 more experts and 113 governments before it was released Friday?

If not, you should have.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may well represent the tipping point in the world's response to the threat of global warming. Six years in the making, the IPCC study has laid to rest the idea that the jury is still out on climate change (most scientists have been decided for years) and, with luck, the report will spur action.

The report comes when signs of awakening are coming from all sectors of society.

Evangelical Christians have organized to address the issue. Business leaders have called for new regulations on carbon emissions. Recently under new management, Congress is holding hearings on climate change and investigating charges Bush administration officials muzzled federal scientists and punished researchers for revealing results of climate-related work.

And while the president's Iraq policy rightly drew the most attention during last month's State of the Union address, the fact that he uttered "global climate change" prompted headlines nationwide.

Slow to change

Have you wondered why most of the world has accepted what credible scientists have been saying about climate change for years, while here in the United States our president tells us that "the issue needs more study?" The answer is really quite simple: politics.

Back in 2003, Republican strategists realized they were losing the environmental debate. That spring, Republican consultant Frank Luntz wrote a memo to party strategists arguing that "voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly... Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

That's exactly what the president and his allies in the oil, gas, coal and electric power industries did. Exxon-Mobil spent $16 million from 1998-2005 creating organizations to foster the impression that scientists were still debating climate issues.

A nation awakens

Oddly enough, this scenario has played out before. In 1962, an unassuming marine biologist named Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring," a damning indictment of the pesticide industry. The unabated and unnecessary use of pesticides, she argued, would culminate in a world devoid of birds and a spring without birdsong. More pressingly, the same products that industry claimed brought "better living through chemistry" were already sowing cancers and other horrors in humans.

Carson was savagely attacked by the chemical industry, accused of being a hysterical woman, a lesbian, a Communist and an unqualified spinster. Carson died of breast cancer less than two years after her book was published and did not live to see the environmental movement she helped give birth to flourish.

But "Silent Spring" was translated into 35 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, changing history not because it offered radically new ideas, but because average people read it and finally began to question the industry's claims that pesticides' convenience came without side effects.

It is possible the IPCC report could become the "Silent Spring" of the 21st century. Now that its findings have been released, any remaining debate about whether climate change deserves our attention should be limited to the reactionary fringe. What remains for the rest of us is much more important. Deciding what to do about it, how quickly and at what cost will be the defining tasks of this generation of world leaders, and they need our help. Hopefully they won't pass the job on to the next generation unfinished.

RIP Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins has lost her battle with breast cancer. An appreciation and several old interviews can be found on the NPR web page. Her brave and witty voice will be missed.

You can learn more about breast cancer and help support research for a cure with these organizations.

Give 'em hell Molly!

-Dr. DRL