Samain Stent Moon
“The United States has an abundance of natural resources and is not going to keep them in the ground,” Mr. Griffith said. “We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability.” Wells Griffith, Trump’s international energy and climate advisor, NYT, Dec. 11, 2018
Sacrifice is an interesting word in this quote. It imagines money and safety too important to sacrifice. Griffiths can’t understand what environmental stability means. If he did, he would understand that the real result of his stance is the sacrifice of humanity itself for temporary pleasures.
This sort of logic I’ve heard before, recently, in a Trump report that said since climate change was inevitable reducing car emissions wouldn’t make any difference. So, jettison them. This attitude is not new, of course. It’s been the world’s de facto position toward carbon emissions, plastics, water shortages. Today is more important than tomorrow.
It is a problem with be here now. If we only focus on the now, then Flint’s lead laced water coming tomorrow is somebody else’s issue. If we only focus on the now, then rapid temperature rise and radical climate change is far off, not ours. So wrong.
Anyone with children or grandchildren knows this. The Iroquois looked seven generations ahead. We can’t get past the Dow Jones movement this week.
This is evil. Griffith’s may be banal, as Hannah Arendt thought of Eichmann, but he and his kin seem committed to a permanent solution for our own species. Why? Short term political advantage.
Sad that any human can make these calculations. Angry that we’ve elected an administration that does.
