This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Darth Vader
The sky is falling. Again.
Someone in a position of authority has decided that the way a large sector of the economy is doing business is harmful to the public health, national security and the future of civilization.
So he is using his power under the law to tell that industry to cut it out.
You know, like our government did when it outlawed slave labor, child labor, deadly conditions in mines and factories, meat that was one-third rat poop and paints and fuels that delivered lead into your grandfather's central nervous system.
And all Utah's elected officials can do is moan about the burden President Obama's order for power plants to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide they pour into the air is placing on the poor, defenseless Bambis who own America's power plants.
"Less freedom for American businesses and American families," said Utah's Rep. Chris Stewart.
"This misguided and unpopular approach," said Sen. Orrin Hatch.
You know, like defenders of the wealthy status quo did when the government outlawed slave labor, child labor, deadly conditions in mines and factories, meat that was two-thirds rat poop and paints and fuels that delivered lead into your grandchildren's central nervous systems.
These are the statements of people who care more about the bottom line of larger corporations than they do about the contents of your lungs and bloodstream. No surprise, that, as your lungs and bloodstream don't contribute to their campaign or hold open the possibility of a sweet lobbying gig after they retire from office.
What is really stupefying now, as it has been at least since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, is the image that supposed pro-business conservative politicians have of American corporations. They see them as tender flowers that are certain to collapse, and take large swaths of the nation's economy with them, if they are ever challenged to change.
Mouthpieces for industry champion the benefits of "creative destruction" when jobs in the, say, textile or steel industries are exported, or when autoworkers lose their union-secured, pension-guaranteed jobs to robots.
But they literally cower at the prospect of the American people, acting through their elected government, demanding changes that are much less disruptive than what the titans of industry routinely fling at one another.
Generate the electricity we need with less coal. Or, failing that, with more coal, burned in a way that releases a lot less CO2. Diversify the power grid so that, instead of being dependent on all that coal and natural gas, we work in enough solar, wind, hydro, geothermal to cover our needs.
Anybody who has been watching Neil deGrasse Tyson's wonderful "Cosmos" TV series knows that we already have a lot of that technology. Some of it is a century old. It's just that developing that technology would benefit different people than those who have tied their own future, and their campaign contributions, to the fossil-fuel status quo.Leave it to the engineers, like the geeks who figured out how to keep three Apollo 13 astronauts alive with air and power designed for two, and we could probably do all of that. But ask the executives, and their kept politicians, and the answer is always the same. It can't be done.
It would be easier if elephants like Rocky Mountain Power weren't so frightened of the mice who are putting solar collectors on their roofs, frightened enough to demand higher fees from those solar households for threatening to undermine, one house at a time, their government-guaranteed monopoly.
Maddeningly, it is "socialists" like Barack Obama who are confident that American businesses are up to that challenge. Especially if the government puts a big thumb on the scale and, through limits, carbon taxes or other means, accelerates the day when it makes economic sense to do things the new way instead of the old way.
And it is the champions of the free market who have zero faith in the talent and inventiveness of the next generation of Edisons, Teslas and Jobses to hear the demands of their government, their fellow citizens, their planet and a buttload of future customers and make things we need at a price financial and environmental that we can pay.
It is what George W. Bush called, in another context, the bigotry of low expectations. And there is nothing free-market about it.
George Pyle, a Tribune editorial writer, hopes this column has not raised the expectations of his readers for future efforts.
Twitter: @debatestate