Craig sees light on global warming, almost
By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer
Those folks who once garnered the contempt of most politicians and
industrialists alike -- the bird watchers, the tree huggers, the Snail Darter Samaritans,
the global warming alarmists -- were at it again last weekend in Sun Valley.
Mustered under the banner of the Ketchum-based Environmental Resource
Center, speakers at the Frank Church Lectures series checked off a litany of degradations
to the environment that they see as leading to the ultimate self-destruction of
civilization unless reversed.
But -- aha! -- the gallery of those who sneer at and ridicule
environmental activists has just lost one of its most vocal, most acerbic members, Idaho
Sen. Larry Craig, who as recently as two years ago shrilly cried that global environmental
treaties were "an unnecessary response to an exaggerated threat" that
"threatens our way of life."
Now Craig has thrown in the towel and proclaims that scientists have
convinced him that global warming is a fact not to be ignored.
Theres a catch, however. As an exemplar of the Republican
right-wings refusal to accept change, Craig hasnt experienced a sudden
spiritual reawakening and become an environmental philosopher.
Nope. Craig discovered that farmers -- like Idaho farmers who vote --
might profit from global warming by selling their "carbon credits" to polluting
industries.
By way of explanation: some crops, such as Idaho wheat, suck up carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. So, if Sen. Craig can engineer new laws and help draft new
international deals, farmers in Idaho and elsewhere could find big bucks flowing to their
coffers from industries buying their "carbon credits," and Craig will emerge as
a hero to farmers and even a hero to environmentalists.
Craigs idea of "carbon credits" for farmers wont end
industrial pollution, of course. But as one of last weekends speakers at the
"Globalization and the Environment" conference, former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, of
Colorado, pointed out, environmentalists should welcome Craigs conversion as a small
victory, regardless of his motives.
Craigs conversion clearly is politically self-serving. Yet Wirth
said thats the way environmental wars can be won -- through incentives, not so only
born-again ideology.
One wonders, parenthetically, how long it will take Sen. Craig (and other
Idaho Republicans) to suddenly see the light and announce they agree that Snake River dams
are destroying Idahos famed salmon population?
Answer: when taxpayers rebel against the billions of federal and state
dollars being spent at the behest of Sen. Craig and others on fruitless attempts to rescue
the salmon to avoid breaching the dams.
So, the strategy for dealing with the likes of Sen. Craig and other
Republican extremists is not to try appealing to their moral instincts or to the ideal of
bettering humankinds lot. Thats a proven loser.
Politicians are quick to reverse field overnight when they understand they
can pick up votes, and industry CEOs are quick to abandon opposition to environmental laws
when they see ways to increase profits.
Hypocrisy never bothered a politician pandering to voters or a CEO trying
to please his corporate directors.