And the Truth Is...

Paul Ryan’s apparent “mis-statements” in his speech to the Republican National Convention are disturbing and revealing. It’s hard to believe that he was able to tell the story about the GM plant in his own hometown in a speech that had been carefully (presumably) written and reviewed by a reliable team, and then even more carefully rehearsed, without someone, sometime, saying, “Hey, that didn’t happen! You can’t use that story!”

Hard to believe, but not in politics.

Some 2000 years ago a Roman governor named Pontius Pilate faced a particularly dicey decision about executing an innocent man because the polls on the street indicated the public wanted him dead. When Pilate’s detainee started talking about truth, and claimed that those who are committed to the truth listen to him, Pilate sneered the question, “What is truth?” (Read the Gospel of John 18:33-38 in the Christian Bible for the original story.)

Pilate sneered (better, spat out) that question because his political instincts were perfect: whether you are seeking to slay the innocent or to defeat your opponent, precious “truth” must not stand in your way. As he spoke Wednesday night, Mr. Ryan was apparently deafened to the voice of that man who stood before Pilate. Yet he makes loud claims to be one of his followers.

Years ago I heard some wag suggest “the homiletical theory of truth,” which is: “A statement or story is true in direct proportion to its usefulness in preaching.” If it works, present it as truth, even if it isn’t. And the better it works, the truer it surely is. Preachers in pulpits and politicians behind podiums are subject to very similar temptations when it comes to truth-telling. And the claims of politicians who sound like preachers require our most critical scrutiny.

UPDATE: I turned off Mitt Romney after he told us Paul Ryan loves his mother. Maybe he does...but that doesn’t excuse his lying about his home town...also makes me wonder...but it’s unkind to wonder that...

Hot Enough for Ya? Do the Math

I subscribe to a periodical called Orion (“Nature/Culture/Place”), which identifies itself as striving for “a broad philosophy of nature rooted in a deep attentiveness to the world that makes a new relationship between people and nature possible, and that brings responsible inhabitation of the planet within reach.” That’s an awkward summary of Orion’s purpose, according to the editors in the current issue (July/August 2012).

Basically I like reading Orion, but often its writers make me squirm. The issues and choices before the human race regarding our relationship with and in the natural world are overwhelming and urgent...but I don’t want to have to change a thing about how I live. I want someone else to do what must be done to save our planet from us. I want Orion to leave me alone

Bill McKibben’s column in that current issue is a real squirm-inducer. Entitled “A Matter of Degrees: The Arithmetic of a Warming Climate,” it states that scientists calculate that if the earth’s average temperature increases two degrees Celsius, we will enter “the guaranteed-catastrophe zone.” Then McKibben puts some other numbers before us:

• “Scientists also agree that to stand a reasonable chance of avoiding the two-degree rise, we can’t emit more that 565 gigatons of CO2 over the next forty years.”

• “Some analysts in the UK” have added up how much carbon all the world’s fossil fuel companies and countries (like Venezuela) have listed as reserves...that is, what they have found and plan to dig up and burn. They figure we have our hands on enough oil and gas and coal to generate 2,795 gigatons of CO2.

• “Exxon Mobil, for instance, boasts that it spends $100 million every day looking for more gas and oil–that is, in spends $100 million a day looking for carbon that scientists say simply can’t be burned. In 2008, it spent just $4 million on renewable reserves–for the entire year.”ˆ

McKibben is a responsible guy, so I have to believe there’s validity to his numbers, though he does not give sources. And I trust that if there are serious doubts about any of those numbers, Orion’s readers will let its editors know and in turn they will let us know. (And readers of this blog are encouraged to comment with figures they think are correct, and I will post them in a subsequent blog.) But even if he’s 50% wide of the mark, the numbers are the stuff of nightmares.

I’m a good guy...I drive a Prius. Then I read that a meat-eater who drives a Prius is responsible for more carbon than a vegetarian who drives a Hummer. I’ve been cutting down on my meat consumption for years, but I’m not there yet. My Iowa agricultural roots run deep–some of which I nurture in my little vegetable garden and through our CSA membership.

Best of all, of course, would be not to drive at all. But how long would it take me (and the rest of our family) to get to a long-awaited get-together in Maryland this week if we all had to take public transportation? Maybe forever.

So I blame others, especially our political leaders and candidates who are virtually silent on the issue. Their relentless pursuit of the title “Job Creator” never allows them to talk seriously about what kinds of jobs doing what for whom and with what compensation? Republicans have their heads in the encroaching sands of growing deserts, rarely considering evidence, scientific or otherwise, that challenges their ideological purity. Democrats are little better, their leadership timid before the sound-bite style of campaign messaging so effective in a disinterested public. I’d vote Green if I wanted Republicans to win, but I don’t so I won’t.

So I lament our politics, and I like the frackin’-cheap natural gas (from under Ohio, yet!) that heats my home. It’s enough to make me squirm.