Climate Change, Women’s Rights, and Campaign Finance Reform

Here’s a conversation I’m having with a friend on the unlikely combination of climate change and women’s rights that I thought readers might find interesting.

Friend: Check this out.  Really??? Don’t these congressional statements do more harm than good?

Craig:  That most certainly could be.  Your point, if I read you correctly, is that wild, unproven statements diminish the credibility of the source, and that the logic here isn’t exactly something that would impress Aristotle.  Having said that, it’s probably true that all regressions in society: more barbarism, harsher conditions, worse economics, etc. – hurt women more than men, and tend to push women in a direction of greater subservience to men.

Friend:  Polls show that a large portion of the public doesn’t believe that climate change is real. Many others believe that it exists, but don’t care. Proponents of action to address climate change have a difficult, uphill job in capturing public support. Statements like this one—by people who are supposed to be authoritative—can’t possibly help.

Conflating climate change with prostitution requires flawed logic that makes the congress look stupid, and demeans the subject. Third-world prostitution is caused by POVERTY. Poverty has numerous causes. How about government corruption? How about poor education? How about poor management of international trade? How about poor agricultural technology? How about religion and public policy banning education of women? Not to mention 10 other issues that we could list.

It’s frustrating to watch these arm-waving knuckleheads trying to support important action by resolutions like this one. The high-level statement (about as deep as most voters go) is “global warming causes prostitution.” To most people, it’s a curiosity that’s easily dismissed. Or people say. “So? I don’t care..just lower my gas price and I’ll drive by them.”

Craig: Oh, I agree with most of what you’re saying, in particular that voters will dismiss this easily, and that lawmakers rely on grandstanding, outrageously specious logic and misdirection to gain attention.  Here’s the situation, a dwindling spiral, as I see it:

• We need better-intentioned lawmakers
• But we can’t have better-intentioned lawmakers without better- informed voters
• Voters will remain ignorant without radical reform in the processes by which they are informed
• We can’t reform these processes without better-intentioned lawmakers
• Etc.

Thus, I go back to MoveToAmend.org, which will go a long way to eradicating the influence of Big Money in our elections. This will benefit not only the energy/environmental movement, but everything else whose success threatens Big Money: e.g., reforms in Wall Street regulation, healthcare, gun control, tort compensation, agribusiness regulation, etc.