Last Friday, I participated in a blogger conference call with Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, for which the topic was the environment, their book This Moment on Earth, and the city they are visiting today -- Portland, Oregon. Blogger Reverend Chuck Currie of the United Church of Christ in Portland recorded the entire 20 minute interview and put it up on Street Prophets, which I urge you to take a listen to. Rick Albertson has a great summary over at the Democracy Cell Project and you can also read a moving diary by Sandnsea on her impressions. I want to concentrate largely on the idea of leadership in stopping global warming, and the gauntlet the Kerrys throw down to challenge America to change.
Chuck Currie started off by asking John and Teresa whether faith had influenced them in fighting for the environment, and I thought their answers give us an idea of all the different ways we can come to this issue (I have transcribed portions of the interview):
John: All of what I do in public life is impacted by my faith. ... Everything that I believe I am in public life, which is an advocate for children, an advocate against poverty, an advocate for preservation of creation, an advocate for fairness and justice. You name the issue, (and) it really comes to me out of my early teachings as a Roman Catholic. We were taught to look beyond ourselves and I think if you read any of the teachings of Jesus Christ ... what He taught was to be concerned about those things. You read Sermon on the Mount, you read Matthew, you heed the words of the Book of James, about works defining your faith, and that's really how it extropolates into my life.Particularly, when you look at Genesis ... you will see a very clear charge to us with respect to our responsibility to nurture the garden and to preserve creation. I think it's a major part of my faith.
After Sen. Kerry expounded on how some are also influenced by a moral responsibility from a secular standpoint, Rev. Currie asked the same question of Teresa. Look at how differently she approached it:
Teresa: For me, it wasn't so much faith that did other than the general moral responsibility that John speaks about. What really impacted me initially was a child's observation powers as I followed my Dad (and I talk about that in the book), and it was the understanding in Africa where I grew up about the relationship between survival and obeying and following laws, common sense laws about nature and animals and malaria and mosquitos ... But what I did learn and watch in patients of my Dad is when they didn't do what they were supposed to, they'd get sick or die.
She goes on to talk about how she never understood what biodiversity really meant until she went to the Amazonian Forest with her late husband John Heinz, Al Gore, and many scientists and experienced the interplay of nature:
All of a sudden, everything I expected to see in that forest, the great birds and songs, the noise -- (well) it was still, it was quiet until 5 o'clock in the morning you see life start out very quietly, and you go with the scientists and you see what it all means, and then you begin to understand the relationship -- almost like the Gothic Cathedral and of the amazing quietness of life, how those forests, which are about 120 or more feet -- I remember walking up a ladder to get to the top of the canopy, and (the forest) sits on six inches of soil only.
At this point in the conversation, it did seem like time stood still, and that we were all transported to a different part of the world in a quiet space of the jungle where every small creature had its place in creating that interplay Teresa spoke of. She ended:
That's a very humbling, very transforming lesson, so I did not come from a prosribed religion or proscribed morality, except from observation and learning, and I think a lot of people get it that way, too.
After a few follow-ups from Rev. Currie, I had the opportunity of asking a question of my own back in our modern, fast paced world:
Beachmom: Portland has such a great public transportation system which is attractive and successful, but how can that be duplicated in other cities like, for example, Atlanta, where I used to live, which has a terrible traffic and air pollution problem, but there doesn't seem to be the political will to change that?
I was impressed to hear how much the senator knew of my former home town:
John: Well, you're right. I've been down to Atlanta. Atlanta made a special effort, which we write about in the book, during the Olympics, and frankly, became a great case study for what you can do when you make an effort to get people out of their cars and off the roads, and the pollution went way down during that period of time.
I can vouch for that, Senator, as I was there at that time, and the city was actually a nicer place to live in during those few weeks when the world came to visit us. On page 64 in the Kerrys' book, indeed a stunning figure hit me -- asthmatics who had to go to their doctors during that time period went down 40%! That amounts to saved lives. Unfortunately, after the Olympics it went back to business as usual. I need not remind many of you that Newt Gingrich represented a district in Cobb County, a county that refused to join the MARTA system, afraid, apparently, that the city (i.e. poor minorities) will come to their county and commit crimes. Funny, the crime rate went up without MARTA anyway, and the people there are stuck riding on buses or sitting in their cars two hours a day commuting into downtown. Sounds to me like a total lose lose situation.
Senator Kerry then became very animated of what kinds of major changes need to take place, and the question of leadership on the federal level, the only entity which has the real power to transform a nation. The history he invokes here is very powerful, and I think as we all discuss global warming and what needs to be done, these historical references are a way of capturing the American people's imagination:
John: I believe the federal government needs to take the lead and provide significant incentives to induce the kinds of behavior that we would like to see as a national goal. Historically, the great efforts of our country were achieved in partnership -- Dwight Eisenhower put huge sums of money behind the interstate highway system, because he saw it as a national security need, and we developed the railroads, we developed electricity in America because we decided it was important for every home to have electricity. So the government put about $5 billion into the infrastructure and guaranteed that every home was going to be reached, and we did, and that's how America developed.
This is excellent in framing the issue as the development of America as a great nation in addition to Al Gore's evocation of World War Two in An Inconvenient Truth. Had our government not decided that electricity was vital for every American, do you think we would have achieved the status we have as a dominant superpower? I think not. Sen. Kerry goes on to discuss what we face:
I view this as a similar kind of challenge to the nation. Getting our air cleaner, reducing carbon is essential for the survival of the planet. That's not an exaggerated phrase. It's a real thing, and the science is increasingly alarming, and the scientists themselves are increasingly alarmed, because the things that they've predicted are happening faster, and happening to a greater degree than they even predicted. So when people see that kind of feedback coming from Mother Earth herself, you better stop and take notice. I think that the national leadership has got to put some money on the line as an inducement for people (at the local level) to be able to engage in certain kinds of projects.For instance in Los Angeles, they are engaged in doing the beginnings of a subway system. That costs a lot of money. We ought to be doing a high speed rail system -- East Coast and West Coast, at least ... They are congested enough and it's critical enough that we should be doing it. Why should Shanghai, China have a Maglev train going from their airport to downtown Shanghai in twelve minutes, and we're struggling in the United States just to hold onto Amtrak, which is a curvial, twisted line that's never going to be modern. This is absurd.
And the absence of leadership in all of this is really damning.
He examines even more examples of what has been done in cities. Finally, Senator Kerry ended the conversation with the true message of their book -- and that is hope. That individuals on their own brought about change, so imagine if more of us than ever got involved along with businesses and government, than it can be a win-win-win situation. Teresa also noted that many critics may bring up China -- which is building one coal plant a week with no emissions control -- what's the point in doing anything with that reality. Well, she said WE MUST LEAD AS AN EXAMPLE. Only then will we have the authority to reach out to the Chinese and convince them to change their ways, too.
I want to thank the Kerrys for taking time out to talk to the bloggers. This is in addition to Senator Kerry's diary last week, where I counted twelve substantive responses he left to Kossaks posing questions and comments, in addition to a tip jar (nice touch, Senator). Teresa will soon be embarking on a Blog Tour involving many blogs including my own home blog VB Dems. I think this matters that they have reached out to us so much, and shows how much faith they have in this new brave world of blogs, that we may be the spark to launch the transformation needed to bring our planet back from the brink of catastrophe.