Maryland doesn't get to town for thirty-five more days and yet fourteen tents stand as a testament to the mild insanity afflicting Duke students. This isn't basketball fever, rather a virus known as "collective action failure" that plagues Duke, the U.S. and the world. While most returned ugly, Cosby-esque sweaters on Boxing Day, tent number one decided to set camp and begin to wait for the Terrapins. Shortly thereafter more tents appeared upon the green increasing the K-ville's population to over 140 goofy students. Their rooms sit empty while they inhabit temporary housing reminiscent of some refugee camp, except that refugees would much rather sleep indoors. Tenting is fun and worthwhile but Duke does not have a bed-bug infestation forcing students into tent cities.
Escape this prisoner's dilemma. Get back inside where it's warmer and more comfortable. This inability of students to rationally stick to an easier tenting policy as devised by Donald "the Wizzle" Wine reveals a certain paranoia. Disregarding their health students seized the initiative and made their own regulations to govern K-ville before tenting officially begins. Tent number one runs the oligarchy powered by the fear of losing good seats. Slowly this fear will push more students to join K-ville before a sensible time arrives to begin sleeping outdoors in January and February. The missing agreement between students not to start tenting resembles a recent collective action failure in Washington D.C.
President Bush could not unite Congress to fight air pollution with a new generation of legislation under his Clear Skies Initiative so he decided to regulate. Congress and the administration could not agree on whether or not to curtail carbon emissions. The Clear Skies Initiative only regulated nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions. Apparently the eastern United States has gotten tired of receiving pollution from power plants to the west. So like any sensible neighbor, they asked their fellow states to stop letting their garbage float through the air. This sticking point on the biggest greenhouse gas ruined the whole deal and caused Bush to go ahead with even looser regulations than he initially proposed.
New regulations could, according to the General Accounting Office, lead to reduced fines and regulations for polluters. The Rockefeller Family Fund claims that these new policies could increase emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other fun stuff by 1.4 million tons. This would be good since Northeastern sunsets would be more colorful with added particulates, except those same color enhancers afflict old and young people with respiratory problems. But who needs to breath when electricity rates will stay a little lower?
The really disconcerting aspect of this ordeal comes from the discrepancy in estimated reduction and I think this is where the agreement over the need and methods to reduce air pollution occurs. The Bush administration claims that their proposals will reduce emissions by 35 million tons more than current legislation, while their opponents claim the changes will increase pollution by 21 million tons. The 56 million ton difference produced by each side's "experts," while only slightly disconcerting, is less worrisome than the inability of our leaders to sensibly safeguard our health through a legislative agreement.
The White House will not agree with Democrats and moderate Republicans on a sensible way to cut air pollution just as the K-villers do not sensibly agree that now is not a good time to get into line. Both will sacrifice health and well being for gain in certain areas.
The President's policies do not ensure that all areas of the country will equally reduce emissions, since it relies on a cap and trade program that could create "hotspots" of pollution around power plants that do not upgrade facilities by buying emission credits. Furthermore, his Clear Skies proposal that may become regulation will give clear skies only to those areas of the country where power plants cannot afford to buy emissions credits. Even worse though may be the administration's unwillingness to regulate immediately (within the next ten years), as its restrictions on mercury, a favorite snack for fish, will not come into effect until 2015--after an additional 528 million tons of mercury enters the environment courtesy of coal power plants. The primary rationale for not implementing tougher emissions standards lies in the fear that such rules with cause a spike in energy prices that will hurt economies. This does not hold, however, as the current regions with high electricity rates also tend to have the strongest economies.
The President's hesitancy to reduce mercury and inability to touch carbon dioxide must be his way of saying we can afford more neurological and respiratory disorders, not to mention environmental problems in order to allow power plants to economically adjust to the regulation while keeping rates low.
This national failure to agree upon the future of our collective health day by day becomes increasingly threatened by more pollutants. Cameron "Crazies" aren't simply mad for basketball, they're insane for relinquishing indoor comforts in the face of winter while suffering a collective action failure. Leave your tents standing, get inside, safeguard your health and enjoy your beds until regular tenting. As for the Clear Skies Initiative, the White House and Congress should agree on a more immediate cap and trade program that ensures that power plants cannot buy their way out of decreasing emissions, while lowering emissions as much as possible. No one likes to ingest mercury. Health should always come before profits, electricity rates and lobbyists. If you haven't got your health what have you?
Kevin Ogorzalek is a Trinity senior. His column appears every other Thursday.
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