​Virality can refer to the rapid spread between people of a microorganism - or of information.  One kind is dominating our attention today: the physical transference of disease.  But another - the electronic spread of harmful information - should also be addressed.  Today we read that rightwing haters are vilifying lead scientific defender Anthony Fauci[1] for failing to sycophantically echo his president’s false assurances about the coronavirus.  Conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh (reaching an estimated 25 million listeners on radio) and Sean Hannity (most-watched host on cable news) labeled the advice of public health experts a hoax, a plot by Democrats to injure Trump.  The spread of this noxious idea slowed the adoption of policies to stop the transmission of disease.  Claire Felten and Arthur Nelson wrote for the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2019 that:

Online misinformation may be new, but the way information spreads across online networks is remarkably similar to the way disease diffuses across people-to-people networks.[2]

Viral diseases and mis- and disinformation are not classical environmental issues, but like pollution they are harmful invasions of our common space, bodies and minds.  These harms are also interlinked in many ways. For example, increased air pollution reduces lung functioning, increasing the likelihood that the coronavirus will be deadly.  Rightwing myths that government employees loyal to their statutory mission are part of a Deep State subverting our freedoms, or that environmental rules are bad for business, have fostered support for the Administration’s dismantling of agency programs, including the pandemic prevention team Obama created[3], and the EPA’s efforts to clean up our air, water and land.  We need intelligent governance to protect us and that requires access by the public to accurate information so that the public can have real representative government that works for the common good – the original intent of the founders of our republic.
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Internet companies have made some moves to institute controls on information damaging to public health, for example deleting false statements from Brazil’s president.[4]  But these controls are being developed by private companies behind closed doors and will be mitigated by their commercial interest.  At the 13th Internet Governance Forum attendees agreed that “self-regulation by the Internet platform cannot be a solution because it is dependent upon the platform’s business purpose (namely profit). On the other hand, stronger regulation by governments often is, in practice, a means to repress freedom of expression and prevent political opponents from critiquing the establishment under the pretext of fighting fake news.“[5]  But a functioning democracy could craft controls that accomplish needed limits while respecting free speech rights.  More public attention to this issue could prompt this.

For too long we – all humans of today, plus all other living things – have been victims of monstrous misconceptions, roaming like vicious dragons over the lands of this green earth, scorching it and terrifying everyone.  These are the misconceptions bred by the compulsion to make money at all costs.  The placement of the profit imperative at the top of the priority pyramid has led otherwise sensible people to reach into the underworld and pull poisons from hell and pour them into our seas, skies, and soils, where they have burned in rapid and slow fashion to the ruin of more than anyone could calculate.

But as in the stories, of Hercules, Sigurd, Rustam, Indra, Marduk, Gilgamesh, and so many others, we also know that the reign of the monsters can end, if someone will stand up to them, and use the right tools.  For the purpose of simplicity that tool is often a sword, but it can be a mirror (Perseus),  a bird  bringing knowledge of a chink in the dragon’s armor (the Hobbit), or an oxygen-destruction device (Godzilla).  Today, we – all citizens – have been given a tool – the Green  New Deal – and it will work if we decide to use it.

The virtue of this tool is that it is infinitely flexible.  At this point it is fashioned as a Congressional Resolution, and its features are recognitions and aspirations.  For the tool to work, to be sharp enough to slay the dragon of our addiction to money generated by poisonous fuels and the illusions of comfort and convenience it produces, we only have to perceive that such a program is needed – and support its goals.  Hope has arrived in the form of a sensible posture towards our present and future prospects, and it can be manifested by acceptance.  The dragons of greed, pollution, cynicism, selfishness, blindness and rank irresponsibility can be defeated and their day cast aside for the light of reason, which can perform the action of a hero if we give to it our mindful attention and assent.

That such a resolution is before Congress, with 69 proponents in the House and 12 in the Senate, is a sign of the maturation of the environmental movement.  Modern environmental consciousness began as something to worry about, and then we got tired of worrying about it, so fretful that it would cost too much to address that a mindless destruction of environmental protections gained political support, an emotional catastrophe of mythical dimension, an abandonment of the project of developing social responsibility, a reversal of the positive trend towards sensible civilization.  But while the teardown was building strength, first under Nixon, then under Reagan, then under the second Bush, and now under he who is not here named, in case after case it was being proven that environmental investments are actually good for us. 

One big win, hardly gaining any public attention, was the billions of pounds of toxics use eliminated from commerce by the pollution prevention movement, saving companies billions of dollars at the same time.  The next big win was the energy efficiency movement, and then we had the success of solar, and wind, and now energy storage.  We stopped major forms of pollution and didn’t hurt ourselves or the economy.  Yes, some suffered from the loss of dirty jobs.  But that didn’t have to happen – had we invested in helping people through the transition, that story could have turned out differently.  The point is that there has been far too little attention to the fact that it makes sense to transform to clean and safe technologies and practices.  It makes business sense, it makes moral sense, it stands to reason, it stands up to challenge.  The Green New Deal Resolution[1] uses that truth like a sword.

It proceeds from the recognition that investing in making our planet safe and not poisoning the bodies of every living thing can also create millions of good jobs while improving infrastructure, buildings, agriculture – everything we do.  It is not wishful thinking, mythical exaggeration or ludicrous hope that recognizes this.  Investing in the great transformation of our built systems so that they exist sensibly within the biosphere only makes sense, and it is a dark mystical delusion that motivates opposition to the dawning of this new day.  In many of the myths, dragons are not just breathers of fire, but have powers of mind control.  You don’t want to let them look in your eyes or you will become transfixed.  That is what has happened to modern civilization.  It has been fixed to the spot that the dragon wants us to stay in.  But this is a hero-story that every citizen can enjoy.  All we have to do is open our eyes and hearts to the fact that we don’t need to continue poisoning ourselves, and the sword of truth will bring a new day.   


[1] See the complete resolution as introduced in the House Feb. 7 by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: file:///C:/Users/rick/Documents/Courses/The%20Green%20New%20Deal%20resolution.pdf or see Ed Markey's summary: https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-and-rep-ocasio-cortez-introduce-green-new-deal-resolution.

On January 9th the Oregon Court of Appeals in Chernaik v Brown [1] rejected the request by plaintiffs for declarations that

 the atmosphere and other natural resources are trust resources that the state has a fiduciary obligation to protect.

​There are two great questions at stake in this case.  One is whether the government has a responsibility to protect that which sustains our life on earth and the other is whether a court must tell the other parts of government to take action.  Influencing how this is answered is how we think about freedom.

​The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy characterizes the “wager” of seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal as the idea that we should assume “that God exists because it is the best bet”.  If we are wrong, and God does not exist, we have hardly been harmed and may have lived a virtuous life as a consequence.  If we are right, we may enter heaven.  Today, just before the mid-term elections in the United States, we are facing a great gamble seen in two very different ways.  On the right are those who believe we must restore what they consider “traditional” values.  On the left are those who believe we must restore democracy.  The environmental citizen tends to be located on the left, because the Administration has been dismantling environmental protections. What arguments can this citizen employ to convince those who are considering supporting the Administration?  Perhaps a version of Pascal’s wager can help.

Instead of a belief system that pictures an afterlife, judgment, and a system of belief or observance that passes muster, picture the world as it is and humans as they are.  Substitute World for God. Living things require clean water and air, not to be faced with rapid extinction, and for the oceans and the air not to be heating up.  They need to not have poisonous chemicals in their soil and food.  On the right, many question whether these things are really happening, or whether they are happening to the extent claimed, and they point to the damage that such beliefs can cause (lost jobs, costs, inconvenience).  On the left, many reply with facts that are simply not believed.  Maybe those who are willing to gamble with our health, and with ecosystems, can apprehend a Best Bet argument.

If the left is correct, and the very life systems of this planet are indeed threatened, and failing to act is indeed harming us very substantially, acting means saving the world.  If the right is correct, failing to act will prevent some irritating rises in price and having to make some adjustments in our lives, such as not being able to emit as much, or having to use products that don’t work quite the same as the ones to which we have become accustomed.  On the one hand, world salvation: on the other, perhaps some small gain (and even this is disputed by those who point to the many benefits of greening economies).   

Even though the US president announced withdrawal from the world’s agreement in Paris to slow emissions of greenhouse gases, sixteen states, hundreds of cities, and major corporations spoke to the world from California at the recent Global Action Summit, saying, to paraphrase the New York Times account, “we can do this” (https://www.globalclimateactionsummit.org/).  This summer, the Supreme Court allowed the Children’s Atmospheric Trust case to go forward (See the briefs in support of the Juliana plaintiffs, for example, https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/lawlibrary/).  When the federal government deported the parents of children separated at the border, the ACLU went to court and Central America to reunite the families.  As leaders have failed to tackle the public health problem of guns, high school students have spoken up.  For those who ask, where are our leaders?, there are many among us.  Political will for responsibility is not at this time flowing from the center, but it resides in the body politic.

How do we tap the reservoirs of good will that Obama noted?  We have many tools at our disposal to move forward – we have a body of environmental and public health law that can, with some adjustment, gently shift our systems into balance, if we gather the will to use it.

To help, we have the memory of the meaning of the Constitution, giving us a government of the people for what we love.  But for those who need something more concrete, we also now have the bright and very real analogy of the new clean energy vision – a world in which we are efficient and smart,[i] and our system knits many free sources we all own together in a resilient grid.[ii]  This is analogous to how we can link the distributed energy of conscience and have a more resilient and efficient political system.  When energy (electricity or reason) flows both ways, and isn't only dispensed from a central location, power is less susceptible to capture.