The Hard Things We Elect Them To Solve

Sen. Claire McCaskill said last week that the Senate wasn't going to tackle the Clean Energy Jobs and American Protection Act this year because it would be "really, really hard." [1] If the Senate doesn't handle it this year, will they deal with it in an election year? I think everyone working in progressive politics has heard the 'it's an election year' excuse for why something terribly important can't be done.

While McCaskill's comment in particular was frustrating, she has a lot of colleagues in the Senate who obviously feel the same way. So I'd like to talk about some of the hard things people who aren't Senators are facing that the CEJAPA legislation could begin fixing.

Earlier this year, a report came out on how the bottom 15 percent of the work force was having its wages stolen [2] to the tune of $2.9 billion per year in, if you can believe it, three US cities. Workers in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City are getting almost $3 billion dollars per year stolen from them by their employers. Workers can try to fight wage theft [3], but they can lose their jobs in the process, and face having to fight court battles against employers who lie and falsify records.

This means billions taken out of the pockets of people with what economists call a high marginal propensity to spend. In other words, a lack of good jobs has stripped our society of worker protections, upward pressure on working conditions and owed wages that would otherwise have been boosting our struggling economy in these difficult times.

Spurred by that story and knowing that real wages have not increased for the typical worker in over 30 years, I looked at the difference between the typical worker's economic value and median household income [4]. Half the households in the US in 2006 made at least $15,185 (or about 24 percent) less in total, pre-tax income than the value added to the economy by one average worker.

That's not going to have gotten better in a climate of shattering unemployment, poor access to health care and increasing hunger [5] among American households over the last two years.

Speaking of climate, scientists' concerns over the state of our planetary life support system are growing. While the scientific community was hopeful even three years ago that we could hold warming to 2 degrees Celsius, a global temperature increase that would already mean the loss of the Arctic sea ice and heat waves that might end corn production in the US Midwest, more of them are seeing signs that a business-as-usual approach will get us 6 degrees Celsius in global warming [6]. If 6 degrees of warming happen, not only will many coastal cities go under water, but the North American and Eurasian temperate zones could become uninhabitable [7].

As some 350.org [8] activists wrote, "There is no Planet B."

In keeping with the generally expected trends of more extreme weather, the US now faces serial regional droughts predicted to get much worse [9] and already interfering with our energy supply [10], the UK is worried [11] more flooding will follow the record downpours [12] they're experiencing, Australia is still on fire [13] as the dry heat waves that sparked fires earlier this year [14] and last year continue. Right now, climate disruption is having a brutal effect on the world's poorest 1 billion people [15], mostly women, mostly farmers, who are seeing their livelihoods and community standing erode further as erratic weather makes it harder to feed their families.

Not only do each of these stories mean countless personal hardships, but the economic devastation they represent guarantees that they will be followed by yet more such tragedies, more families unable to provide for their basic needs or get life-saving help for loved ones.

When we are well and prosperous, we are each other's trading partners. When we are poor and desperate, not so much.

Which is why countries like the US who are disproportionately responsible for global emissions have an ethical obligation to try solving the humanitarian crises they face inside their borders without worsening the ones they contribute to outside their borders. Stepping up clean energy jobs programs [16] that train people for family-wage careers in wind [17] and solar technology shouldn't be seen as just a good idea, or a nice idea, but a necessary one. Policymakers also shouldn't be distracted by expensive fossil fuel boondoggles [18] like doubling down on our reliance on natural gas, but should look to recreating a functional electrified rail infrastructure (pdf) [19] which will become a progressively cleaner means of transportation as the electric grid transitions to alternatives.

The world can't wait, and neither can Americans who need good jobs and fair pay. Our leaders need to step up and correct these problems responsibly, which they were hired to do by a public that is increasingly too sick, broke and tired to keep hounding them about it all the time.

The Senate needs to do its duty by the planet and their voters. They need to start cranking the gears down on emissions and get America back to work with all possible speed.