It is often the case that there are underlying trends that are at odds with what we see on the surface. For at least 20 year, for instance, the right wing fundamentalists dominated the legislative debate about homosexual rights, and yet somehow, below the surface, gay marriage (of all things) picked up an almost unstoppable momentum. What seemed unthinkable now seems inevitable.
The Congress is about to take up climate change legislation, and the odds are that any bill it produces will be inadequate for the job. In the meantime, there may be a sea change going on in the nation at large, as more and more people whose salaries to not depend upon misunderstanding global warming start to step forward and say that enough is enough.
The Chamber of Commerce has, for reasons that defy logic, been a global warming denier for years. It is an issue upon which one would assume it should be agnostic, since it supposedly represents the interests of all businesses, many of whom would make piles of money should we effectively address this issue. After all, if it will indeed be an expensive problem to address (which is probably not the case) that money has to fill someone’s pockets.
But the good news is that the Chamber is now playing defense on this issue. Major corporations are leaving the organization. True, at the moment, they are corporations led by people whose salaries very much depend on them believing in global warming, but now Nike, which has no direct financial interest in the issue, is half joining them, by resigning from the Board of Directors. Just as in the past, the forces of ignorance may get all the surface attention, but the forces of reason may be winning below.
Unfortunately, the world could wait for acceptance of gay marriage. It’s not at all clear that it can wait long enough for the good guys to prevail on this one. Still, it’s good news to see that the Chamber is now denying its denials.
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