In the spirit of the agonizing Prince Hamlet deciding if “to be or not to be” is the question, the Environmental Protection Agency cannot resolve whether or not to regulate greenhouse gases.  After an April 2007 Supreme Court decision ordering the EPA to determine if greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles and stationary plants were harmful to human health and if so, to regulate them under the Clean Air Act, President Bush ordered the EPA to work with other cabinet departments in taking steps toward reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next decade.  Thus, the EPA’s position as of December 2007 was thus to offer a report to the White House affirming the health hazards and to recommend regulation of greenhouse gases.  Between May and December, though, administrators were debating whether to announce that greenhouse gases were harmful to health and welfare or just welfare in order to avoid the “potential for confusion, criticism, suspicion,” and seem apocalyptic.  Hey, EPA, here is a hint: if a person’s welfare is endangered by an unprecedented amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, the public will probably want the full skinny on that.

However, the road to regulation seemingly stopped there.  The White House refused to open the e-mail after learning the gist of the file.  And the Council on Environmental Quality (an executive office) and Dick Cheney’s staff deleted six pages of Centers for Disease Control director Julie L. Gerberding’s testimony to the Senate which emphasized health effects of climate change.  Furthermore, EPA director Stephen Johnson released a statement about two weeks ago saying that the EPA would seek comment on whether to regulate greenhouse gases but he did not lay out a regulatory framework for doing so.  But, this week the EPA reported that it is “very likely” that more people, especially the elderly and poor, will die during hotter periods in the coming years and that we can expect more powerful hurricanes and a shrinking fresh water supply in the west.

The EPA’s capriciousness seems to be a psychological struggle between two factions: whether to side with those who want to reduce greenhouse emissions, albeit through great monetary investment, to hasten the decline of our dependence on oil and save lives (we’ll call this the “good” side); or to side with those who want to leave regulation for the next group of politicians, who are unwilling to alienate powerful friends in the oil and coal industries, and generally to spend as little money as possible in the short term (the “bad” side).  Why in the world should an agency that supposedly protects the environment be more concerned with protecting the economy?  Aren’t factors like war, the mortgage crisis, and skyrocketing fuel costs impacting the economy more than tighter automobile efficiency standards ever will?  Furthermore, the Bush administration supports voluntary regulation of emissions by Big Oil and Big Coal as a solution.  Who are they kidding?  In the past, it took Congress and the Supreme Court to enforce labor rights and desegregation; none of that was voluntary as long as business interests and profit were concerned.

To be clear: the globe as a whole is getting warmer.  I am not queer for saving polar bears but in terms of the fossil fuel supply and emissions from increasing fuel use, CO2 does need to be regulated.  Some would say, “Listen, CO2 is not a pollutant because you’re breathing it out right now, Mr. Polluty McHypocrite.”  Well, I think it is safe to say that between the six billion people on the planet and their 600-plus million cars, billions of homes, and thousands of factories and mines, that the environment was only budgeted for human respiration.  With every product of civilization—high rise building, SUV, coal-powered plant—the environment becomes marginalized by humans.  Those who are against spending money to regulate the greenhouse pollution now will be spending much more to cool themselves in a few years when the summers grow longer and hotter.  It is absurd to think that the earth does not have some defense mechanism against pesky humans who are polluting her atmosphere and oceans—hurricanes, heat waves, and wildfires are not acts of God; they are a demonstration of the action-reaction concept.

Other than self-interested denial, I really do not see why regular citizens are averse to having greenhouse pollution regulated other than the increased cost of energy.  Big Business will assuredly pass the bill on to consumers when they are forced to regulate emissions but really, can we for once solve a problem as it occurs as opposed to when it really starts to affect civilization?  The United States has, as far as civilized, industrialized nations go, the unfortunate tendency to drag its feet on issues that don’t involve going to war—civil rights, Indian rights, worker rights, segregation, slavery, social services, women’s rights, and the environment.  We finally got the first half of the list taken care of decades or centuries after a resolution would have been properly dignified; the last three issues are still (unfortunately) up for debate.  It is a shame that the types of interests that have the most influence in this country—the wealthy, who want to limit the poor’s right to medical care, housing, and food; men, who wish to limit a woman’s right to choose; and humans, who seek to limit the environment’s right to be left untouched—cannot have sympathy for the little guy on a problem which really affects us all.

EPA administrator Johnson should feel ashamed for bending to the wishes of an administration that has allowed citizens to die in Iraq, in New Orleans, and soon all over the world as a result of self-interested policies.  Are humans really better than any other creature in the environment?  Are men better than women?  Are the rich better than the poor?  Probably not, but as long as there is oil to be drilled, fetuses to agonize over, and problems to be blamed on the dregs of society, fear of change will continue to impede our progress towards a better life.

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