Picture: William F. Buckley and Minnesota College Republicans, 1986. That’s me on the right with my Wm. F. Buckley Signature Model clipboard and signed copy of Up from Liberalism.

“Complaint is profanation in the absence of gratitude.”
- William F. Buckley, Overdrive

William F. Buckley passed away two days ago. The conservative intellectual was one of the heroes of my youth. In those days – from the late 1970s through the late 1980s – I idolized a diverse pantheon that also included George Will, Bruce Springsteen, Woody Allen, and John McEnroe. Yes, I was odd.

As Will and Buckley’s names indicate, I was a conservative then, though with time and experience I now accept the labels liberal or progressive. Born in 1965, growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs, influenced by a father and other family members who voted Republican, reading U.S. News and World Report, and witnessing the rise of Ronald Reagan, I was drawn to the ideas of the conservative movement, particularly its anticommunism.

The maps in U.S. News left little doubt about the perils of the Cold War: there were the red areas controlled by the Communists and the blue areas of the freedom-loving West. This was, I learned, an epic struggle for control of the world and, ultimately, our own self-determination. Despite all that I’ve learned since then about American injustice and imperialism, I still accept the broad outlines of that outlook on the Cold War, and I do not regret that position. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday the Minnesota House voted to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a state transportation funding bill. The override - a first for Gov. Pawlenty’s administration - means that the state will raise its gasoline tax for the first time in 20 years, raise the sales tax in the Twin Cities metro area to support transit development, and raise motor vehicle license tab fees - all to fund badly needed road and transit repair and upgrades.

Raising taxes during a recession is a painful decision, but today we have many more vehicles driving more miles than we did 20 years ago, and they are heavier vehicles to boot. That means roads and bridges are being pounded and need to be repaired. Other roads have become unsafe and need to be updated. At the same time, we simply have more people, and investment in transit is necessary to end the costly traffic gridlock in the Twin Cities. The increase in the gas tax was long overdue, since gas tax receipts have been eroded by inflation. Our investment in transit is also long overdue. Minnesota is finally maturing into a 21st-century state.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to vote in favor of the bill deserve praise, not vilification. Even the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce supported this bill.

But don’t think we’ve solved our transportation problems with this bill. According to MinnPost’s Steve Berg, “The new law will fill about 25 percent of the state’s transportation shortfall, estimated at nearly $2.5 billion a year.” And so we muddle on.

For more analysis of the vote and issue, in addition to the excellent article by Mr. Berg, see commentary by another MinnPost writer, Britt Robson.

Thank goodness the Upper Midwest has meteorologist Paul Douglas helping to draw attention to the threat from global warming. These words from Mr. Douglas’s StarTribune weather column today really caught my attention:

“Paul, you pinhead, doesn’t our recent arctic streak prove that global warming is a hoax?” With all due respect, no. From -11 last Wednesday to 44 yesterday in St. Paul, 48 in Red Wing, these local, erratic weather spasms are not the same thing as long-term climate trends measured globally over the last generation. Worldwide 2007 was the 5th warmest, last year the 10th warmest for the U.S. since 1895. So what? “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters - disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life - the threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism.” More left-leaning spew from the liberal elite? No. Those are but a few of the conclusions from a secret Pentagon report, recently obtained by the U.K. newspaper, The Observer. “Climate change should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern,” says the lead authors. I don’t consider myself an alarmist or a so-called “warmist”. I am a realist. No, science is never 100% certain about anything, but what is the more acceptable risk, taking some action now and being wrong, or doing nothing, rolling the dice, gambling that a 37% spike in greenhouse gases will have no effect? It’s basic risk analysis.

Wow. I agree with what Mr. Douglas has said here, but I think the report he is citing is not all that recent. The Observer article he cites is dated February 22, 2004. I guess “recent” is a rather loose term.

Still, Paul, thanks for bringing this up. I’m hearing more about “global climate chaos” lately, so the 2004 (or earlier) report is still relevant.

Let’s elevate global warming to a national security concern and deal with it. Those of you concerned about national security, please read the peer-reviewed science (or the work of a journalist who has read it) and get on board this train. It also has room for those of you who want to make and save some money from clean energy and energy efficiency.

My wife and I attended our first political caucus ever. There was a huge turnout, with a long line of cars trying to get into the Northfield Middle School for the Democratic Party caucuses. We had our 3-year old and our six-week old with us so could only stay long enough to cast a ballot for the presidential election. I cast mine for Barack Obama, as did about two-thirds of caucus-goers statewide.

The event would have gone much smoother if the caucuses had been spread over multiple sites rather than located at just one site. The transportation snafu shows that it’s very hard for everyone in a town to descend on one site at the same time using automobiles. Cars work well for transportation, except when a lot of people are trying to drive on the same road at the same time.

I won’t add much to the oceans of political commentary that are already out there, except to hope that Obama can be the nominee for the Democrats. I admire Hillary Clinton’s tenacity, but I’m not much for political dynasties, and I fear she would have a harder time winning in November. One observation: if Obama lost to Clinton in rural areas, is it because rural America is not ready to support a black candidate? Perhaps that’s not a fair assumption, but I suspect it may be true.

It’s been nearly a week now since the Bali climate talks ended in a last-minute agreement that involved compromise on both sides: the sides, in this case, being the United States and most of the world. After being booed and hissed, the U.S. delegation, led by the Bush administration, finally agreed to continue talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that would limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is a summary of the agreement from an excellent Dec. 16 article by New York Times reporters Thomas Fuller and Andrew C. Revkin.

The world’s faltering effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions got a new lease on life on Saturday [Dec. 16], as delegates from 187 countries agreed to negotiate a new accord over the next two years — pushing the crucial debates about United States participation into the administration of a new American president.

Many officials and environmental campaigners said American negotiators had remained obstructionist until the final hour of the two-week convention and had changed their stance only after public rebukes that included boos and hisses from other delegates.

The resulting “Bali Action Plan” contains no binding commitments, which European countries had sought and the United States fended off. The plan concludes that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required” and provides a timetable for two years of talks to shape the first formal addendum to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty since the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago.

I recommend reading the full article for a sense of the drama of the talks and of U.S. foot-dragging regarding substantive, timely action on mitigating global warming. The U.S. was shamed into action, and in acknowledging that I feel a sense of shame about my country.

Here are some more excerpts from the article, including the description of the two-track approach that the U.S. agreed to, in which developed and nondeveloped countries would come to separate agreements on the response to climate change:

Read the rest of this entry »

So much is happening now on the issue of our response to global warming. Here’s a quick overview of a few major developments:

• The United Nations Climate Change Conference is occurring in Bali, Indonesia, December 3-14. The conference will look at changes to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the Kyoto Protocol. Here is a description of the goals of the conference, taken from its web site:

What is needed is a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for a future international agreement on enhanced global action to fight climate change in the period after 2012, the year the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. The main goal of the Bali Conference is threefold: to launch negotiations on a climate change deal for the post-2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations and to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded.

A very important meeting indeed.

• The U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee approved a landmark bill that would call for a 70 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, partly through the use of a cap and trade system. (Environmentalists favor cuts of 80 to 90 percent.) The bill would need the support of ten or twelve Republicans in order to pass.

The legislation is sponsored by Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and John Warner of Virginia, the latter a Republican. Warner’s rationale for taking action, stated yesterday, is good: if we don’t take action on this, then China and India can hide behind us, saying that they don’t need to take action. See a New York Times article for more info.

Contact your senators, folks, and tell them to pass this bill. This is one of the most important issues of our times, and we can’t sit on our hands.

• Here in my state, the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group continues to meet and has approved its first recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a comprehensive list of those recommendations in the media, but the group is not scheduled to conclude until early February. See the Transportation and Land Use Technical Work Group document for more info on that topic.

Yesterday the StarTribune published an opinion piece by a former Republican state legislator from Rochester, Dave Bishop. It reveals another crack in the facade of Republican unanimity on the “no new taxes” policy espoused by our governor, the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, and national leaders such as Grover Norquist. Some Republicans are waking up to the fact that a reduction in tax receipts can have seriously negative consequences - as it does, for example, when inflation eats away at our state gas tax and our transportation infrastructure deteriorates due to a lack of funding.

Starving our government of funding starves our society of needed services in education, transportation, and more. Yes, we need to limit government in order to limit the tax burden, but we also need to have government do what the private sector cannot or will not do. As Mr. Bishop writes, the “starve the beast” view of tax policy is an example of “extreme” conservatism; we might also call it radical.

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Bishop’s brave essay: Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I read an article in the StarTribune about today being Blog Action Day, during which all bloggers are invited to address a common issue of concern - in this case, the environment. That topic comes up regularly in this blog, and I had already planned on addressing one aspect of it.

I was pleased that the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize to the scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore for their work on global warming. During the past year I’ve commented about the most recent IPCC reports (see posts on February 26, May 4, and May 11), which predict disastrous consequences if humanity does not take steps to mitigate global warming. Fortunately, we’re seeing more action on this issue every day. Read the rest of this entry »

Minnesota has recently become an intellectually poorer place with the departure of Richard Cretan for Portland, Oregon. I’ve known Richard since the early 1990’s, when we were introduced by a mutual friend, Prof. Peter Firchow of the University of Minnesota English Department, where Richard and I were both undergraduate majors in the 1980’s. (Our paths did not cross back then at that big place.)

Richard’s wife was recently offered a new job in Portland, and the combination of a good opportunity and the promise of going to one of the most sane and progressive cities in the country overcame their ties to the Twin Cities. So they have said goodbye to many dear friends and many years of life here in Minnesota.

I’ve learned much from Richard over the years, most recently my tendency to put too much trust in the powers-that-be: the mainstream media, the government, the corporate world, the political parties, etc. That trust, for example, led me to mistakenly support the Iraq War at its outset, not heeding Richard’s warnings. More recently Richard has been warning about the weaknesses in our economic system, some of which have been evident in the financial problems related to falling real estate prices and rising foreclosure rates.

Richard recently wrote a masterful post, “St. Paul to Portland, the long way,” that touches on these subjects and more. It’s his farewell to the state. Richard, we will miss you, but we look forward to seeing you in “Cascadia” and back here in the Upper Midwest.

Here’s a quote from Richard’s farewell post: Read the rest of this entry »

In an opinion piece in today’s StarTribune, John Gunyou plays pin the blame on the donkey - or the elephant, perhaps - for the I-35W bridge collapse. Here’s an excerpt from his sharply-worded piece:

It’s increasingly evident the Pawlenty-Molnau administration ignored the advice of bridge experts to take remedial action. Worse yet, the administration still has no viable long-term plan to improve, much less maintain, our state’s critical transportation infrastructure.

After twice vetoing the Legislature’s attempts to put such a plan in place, Gov. Tim Pawlenty offered up a scheme to fund our needs at only 10 cents on the dollar — with 30-year bonds. Worse yet, he wanted to pay off that debt by cutting into already inadequate maintenance resources. That doesn’t build any more roads or bridges over the long run; it simply borrows against the future.