I had a hunch that our collective psyche wasn’t all smiles, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. 10 out of the top 10 are used to treat either depression or anxiety (or both). And looking at the total number of each prescription used, a shocking high percentage of Americans must be on one or more of these drugs. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not well.

What could be causing such a widespread incidence of these mental diseases? Without bothering to actually read any of the medical/scientific literature, I have a few guesses:

The American Dream is dying. There was a time not so long ago when some honest hard work and perseverance was a ticket to the comfortable middle class. For most of us, that’s just not true anymore. We’ve watched as real wages hit a plateau in the 1980s and haven’t increased much since. We just lived through a catastrophic real estate boom & bust that cut us twice: first the middle class watched their single largest investment lose half its value, then we were forced to bail out the big banks that exacerbated the crash with our tax dollars. Ouch. Now we’re on the verge of the Baby Boomers retiring and all we hear from Washington is that Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke, and our debt is going to crush our economy. Not a good time for the dreamers.

We’re surrounded by hucksters, fraudsters, charlatans, swindlers, and flimflammers. Big business can’t be trusted. The “health care” industry is screwing us. Politicians are slimier than ever. The financial seems to be robbing us blind while securing billions for themselves. Even the legal community is looking less-than-trustworthy with increasingly politicized judicial appointments, elections, and decisions. Legitimate journalism is dead. The Catholic Church can’t be trusted with children. And government regulators are failing their basic mission while we pay the price. The very fabric of our civil society seems to be tearing at the seams–no wonder we’re all depressed and anxious.

Our role as a super-power may not last. We helped the Allies win WWI and WWII. We beat back the spread of Soviet Communism in the Cold War. And we’ve spent the last few decades since serving as peacemakers for the world. But now we’re engaged in two intractable wars in a part of the world that isn’t fond of Western influence. We’re trading barbs with two armed-and-unstable regimes. Our efforts at building peace in Israel/Palestine have all but failed. At the same time, China has increased both its wealth, stability, and influence in the world. Our long-standing allies in Europe and the UK have cooled somewhat. And our public display of political tomfoolery has drawn international mockery. We’re still the #1 world super power today, but how long can it last?

We’re trashing our planet and can’t find the will to stop. Whether it’s the long-term impact of global climate change or the immediate and visceral display of environmental ruin in the Gulf of Mexico, we’re failing spectacularly at our role of environmental steward. What’s worse is that we know exactly what the problems are but can’t find the will to change our ways. For previous generations, environmental disasters came in large part due to ignorance. As the environmental movement came alive in the 1970s, we made dramatic and real improvements in the way we treated our waterways, our atmosphere, and wildlife. Since then, we’ve continued to learn more about the dangers of unchecked CO2 emissions but we’ve done virtually nothing to change the equation. Worse, our (untrustworthy) business, political, and journalism communities have gone to great lengths to confuse and obfuscate the truth.

It’s enough to make you feel downright depressed.

And in case you missed a part of that, here’s the full transcript:

And finally we should create a competitive climate for investment in renewables and alternatives that are economical and doable, and none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that the scientists, some of these scientists were some playing political games. I sued the Feds over this, I sued the Feds over this as Governor for some bogus listing on the ESA, just about got run out of town, of course, by the environmentalists, but now we feel a little bit vindicated because we’re realizing through Gore-gate that there was some snake oil science involved in the data collection there.

The great energy innovation that will replace conventional resources is just not here yet. But it will be some day, and until that day we need our domestic resources to meet our needs and that alternative, when it’s discovered it will be here and it will be Americans who find it. Americans will invent this next source.

Because we invented the modern oil well. We invented the telephone. We invented the airplance and the personal computer. We put a man on the moon. We invented the Internet, unless that was just another Gore-gate thing too.

But it is American ingenuity that made this country the envy of the world. We have the ingenuity and it will be Americans pioneering a new era in energy. We have the resources, we have the ingenuity, we have the best workers in the world. Now all we need is the policital will.

So, in other words, there’s nothing stopping us from achieving energy independence that a good old fashioned election can’t fix.

Never mind that zero climate change models predict the disappearance of winter in the northern hemisphere any time soon.

Never mind that climate change models explicitly predict increased precipitation like we’ve seen all year.

Never mind that the handful of errors discovered within the thousands of published studies represent immaterial corrections to the underlying models.

We’ve completely lost the distinction between science and politics; reason and faith; logic and emotion. Given the catastrophic economic and environmental consequences predicted by climate change models, it’s terrifying that so many Americans are willing to dismiss it outright as a scam or conspiracy. We need a national plea for reason.

There are two explanations for how we got to this unfortunate position:

A) A world-wide group of nefarious characters (lead by Al Gore) have created the largest and most convincing conspiracy in world history to convince thousands of scientists and most political leaders throughout the world that climate change is real and a major problem.

B) The very powerful industry lobby for carbon-intensive companies and their representatives in congress are waging a successful disinformation campaign to create doubt and obfuscation among the American public about the validity of climate change science.

Which of these two seems more plausible?

One of these groups is backed by billions of dollars in resources, an army of lawyers, PR firms, lobbyists, and sympathetic politicians.

The other group is infamously inept at PR, has no unifying organization to speak of, and defers to the norms of scientific inquiry that errs on the side of caution when publishing results or predictions.

One of these groups has spent the better part of a century investing in technologies, infrastructure, and business models that will do not fit in the carbon-constrained world required to slow the effects of climate change.

The other group predicts a future in which we must radically change our technology, infrastructure, and human habitation models to fit a carbon-constrained world.

One of these groups appeals to the large swath of Americans who are falling behind due to a shifting global economy and see their standard of living stagnating or even decreasing.

The other group finds broad appeal internationally and strong support within the American upper-class who are educated and affluent enough to allow a graceful transition to a carbon-constrained world.

Only one explanation can survive a serious test of logic and reason; unfortunately the opponents of climate change don’t care much for either.

Once the seed of doubt is placed, the critics then scare us with dire predictions of a possible future. Dealing with climate change would require significant changes to the way we live, it would require significant investment in new infrastructure and technologies, and would alter the institutions we’ve been familiar with for the past century. Therefore, the theory goes, we should do nothing.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume there is a legitimate debate within the scientific community (remember, there’s not). I’ll even be so generous as to assume a 50/50 split. If that were the case, how should we respond?

The costs of unmitigated climate change are immense. The path we are on leads to massive population displacement, food shortages caused by flooding and draughts, accelerated species extinction, and (eventually) economic and civilization collapse. Yes, collapse.

What about the costs of attempting to stem the tide of climate change? These, too, would be large. The standard of living for developed nations would be altered forever. Air travel would no longer be available to the public. Nor would personal automobiles. Meat would be a luxury instead of a staple. Our cities and towns would contract and the massive suburban developments would transition back to agricultural land. The number of farmers would increase 10-fold (at least). Many industries would cease to exist and those that remained would look completely different. Our national wealth would have to go into buying things like wind turbines and solar panels instead of HDTVs and fancy cars. Make no mistake, life would be very very different. But we would have a real fighting chance at staving off the total collapse of our civilization.

When presented in these terms, is there really any question of which path to take? I’m so tired of hearing about the “energy tax” and the costs of transitioning to a carbon neutral energy mix. Money won’t buy you much if the global economy fractures under the strain of climate change.

[ . . . ]

Easter Island (the place with the giant stone heads) was once covered in thick forrest. Poor resource management and fanatical obsession with erecting the giant stone heads lead to 100% deforestation of the island. At some point, some one cut down the very last tree left standing. What do you suppose that felt like?

Soon, we all will know.

To encourage the switch to clean renewable energy Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012, to discourage the use of coal power; the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

To provide some context, North Dakota is a state with dwindling population and abundant cheap coal. There are a number of coal-fired power plants that export electricity across their borders to the more populated (and less coal-rich) Minnesota.

Continuing the article,

State officials in North Dakota are mounting a legal battle against Minnesota. State officials argue that this would unfairly discourage coal-powered electricity sales in favor of renewably powered electricity.

Really, North Dakota. No shit.

Fortunately for their state, North Dakota is also blessed with an abundance of wind resources. The same high voltage lines that carry dirty coal electricity could be used to export wind power instead.

There’s two ways they can play this:

1) Use the tariff as a direct financial incentive to agressively build wind farms and increase local employment

Or

2) Spend millions of tax dollars fighting the tariff in court and continue down the dead-end of coal power plants.

I wonder which path North Dakota will take?

I define the term thusly :

Willful ignorance of subject matter experts and scientific data in favor of emotion-driven populism, especially in the practice of lawmakers and professional policy makers.

While it’s easy to hang the rise of professional ignorance on the Republican party in its current form, this is a cross-party problem that was around long before Palin and Bachman rose to public popularity. To be sure, the issue of mammograms for 40-year olds was “resolved” by a democratic amendment explicitly stating that medical professionals would be  ignored when setting health care policy. Splendid!

The goal of health reform is to reduce health care costs. Eliminating medically unnecessary treatments (such as routine mammograms for 40-year old women) is a very obvious way to cut costs. Yet when presented with the opportunity, our brave legislators proudly ignore science and reason in favor of an emotional knee-jerk reaction. Do I smell truthiness?

The quintessential example of  professional ignorance comes from our ongoing national debate over energy policy and climate change. It’s perfectly reasonable (expected, really) to have a vibrant debate over a subject to central to our daily lives. But as Alexis de Tocqueville observed,

“When we can’t agree on what the facts mean, what we have is vibrant debate; when we can’t agree on what the facts are, what we have is cognitive anarchy.”

When professionals in all levels of power reject overwhelming scientific evidence to justify their policy positions, we have a problem. We can’t possibly make wise policy decisions if we don’t start from a common view of the facts.

For better or worse, this trend of ignorance will subside. Either by natural forces (i.e. climate change) or by human forces (i.e. the collapse of the dollar) we will be educated and discover our folly. But maybe, just maybe, we can all agree to act like adults for awhile and reject ignorance.

(Fingers crossed.)

You don’t need a science degree to understand that this is not sustainable.

I’ve noticed a strange trend in the public dialogue (particularly in the U.S.) about sustainability. Most people take the fact that living sustainably is difficult in our society and use that to discredit the very premise that sustainability is important or a legitimate concern.

In short, we’ve all got our heads in the sand and we’re proud of it!

Take, for example, gasoline prices. Burning gasonline is a highly unsustainable activity. Not only are we running out of oil, but the contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating global climate change. In other words, we should probably find a way to burn less gas. In spite of this, politicians are scheming for ways to drive down prices and thereby encourage burning more gas. Huh?

It’s never going to be easy to convert our high-energy lifestyle to a low-energy mode. It’s never going to be cheap. But we had better start now while we still have a little bit of capital left to spend! (Oh wait, I think we just lost that this week as well.)

SustainLane is a new website that uses contributions submitted by citizens around the country to rank cities on 16 attributes of sustainability. By these measures, Milwaukee ranks #12. This is an improvement from #16 two years ago.

Given the empahsis on sustainability in the city and at the state level, I would expect this ranking to improve year over year. We might not catch Portland, but I bet we could make the top 10 in the next decade.

For reference, here are the current rankings for 2008:

1. Portland, OR
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Seattle, WA
4. Chicago, IL
5. New York, NY
6. Boston, MA
7. Minneapolis, MN
8. Philadelphia, PA
9. Oakland, CA
10. Baltimore, MD

On Milwaukee!

ThinkProgress has a whole writeup on the odious Bob Lutz.