Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 3, 2017
OTHER VIEWS
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
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OUR VIEW
It’s not Paris
vs. Pittsburgh;
we’re all in this
South Florida and low-lying
It is pure poppycock and chicanery to
island nations will be the first to face suggest that we can somehow bully
existential climate-change disasters,
our way to a new agreement that will
it’s often said. The Lower Columbia
achieve meaningful goals at less cost
River and adjacent coastlines also are to us.
at risk in important ways. We already
We can put off paying our
are starting to pay a steep price for
share of the bill for climate action,
mankind’s thoughtless pollution of
but the planet will keep counting
our planet’s thin film of atmosphere.
up the interest in the form of
carbon dioxide, methane and their
Saying he was “elected to
represent the citizens of Pittsburgh,
byproducts in the atmosphere and
not Paris,” President Trump on
oceans. Our neglect of Paris goals
Thursday spurned
could add as
the Paris climate
much as another
agreement. He
Individual states in 3 billion tons of
hitched his wagon
carbon dioxide
the U.S. Climate
and ours to a
per year into the
nostalgic vision
air.
Alliance
must
of smokestack
Seawater is
continue forging a intruding far
America,
abandoning not
Hawaiian
sane path, investing up
only the nation’s
beaches.
in the lucrative
vulnerable
Observers see
coastlines and
ominous cracks
clean-energy
fisheries, but also
expanding across
a host of U.S.
industry and curbing Antarctica’s
industries tied to
vast coastal
greenhouse gas
clean energy. The
shelves, which
new, alternative
keep fearsome
emissions.
energy sector
ice sheets out
is quite alive in
of the ocean. In
Oregon.
the North Pacific, great reservoirs
of warm seawater encourage toxic
With this decision, it will be the
algal blooms and make rivers too hot
U.S., Syria and Nicaragua on one
for fish. No single clue is definitive
side, and the world’s 189 other
proof that global warming is already
nations on the other. This isn’t
walloping us. Together they form a
putting America first. It’s grouping
disturbing pattern.
us with a failed dictatorship and
Our CIA, the Pentagon and
a banana republic. Embarrassing.
corporations from Weyerhauser to
And Nicaragua doesn’t back the
Coca-Cola have long studied the
agreement because it views it as too
implications of climate change.
weak. On matters of environmental
Political instability, disruptions
science, no country is a discreet
entity — we all share the atmosphere of supply chains, refugee crises
and illegal immigration are all
and its man-made problems.
consequences of a whacked-out,
These problems have a lot to do
with our country’s voracious appetite whipped-up climate. The Paris
accords are a small price to pay to
for dirty energy in the past century
stay ahead of these calamities.
and a half. We built our industries
Fully withdrawing from the
and consumer economy with
Paris agreement will take until the
carbon-based fossil fuels that took
next presidential election, when the
the planet’s natural processes eons
to lock away underground. Although American people will have another
China now surpasses us as a polluter, chance to decide who best to lead us
as we navigate the dangers ahead.
our own behavior did much to get
In the meantime, individual
everyone into this mess. Instead
states in the U.S. Climate Alliance
of disadvantaging the U.S. “to the
must continue forging a sane
exclusive benefit of other countries”
path, investing in the lucrative
as Trump alleges, the climate
clean-energy industry and curbing
accord provides a pathway for us to
greenhouse gas emissions. Gov.
gradually throttle back greenhouse
Kate Brown re-asserted Oregon’s
emissions while giving us moral
leverage to insist other nations do the commitment to working with our
neighboring West Coast states and
same.
British Columbia in the Pacific Coast
Symbolism counts. We’re the
Collaborative to reduce greenhouse
annoying neighbor with a stinky,
gas emission and develop a cleaner
long-smoldering burn barrel, telling
energy mix going forward.
others they should put theirs out
Not only will we reap economic
before we will. The president last
benefits, we will demonstrate to the
week dangled the possibility he
might negotiate a more advantageous world that the U.S. is still about a lot
more than Trump’s thoughtless brand
climate deal. It took years of tough
of hot air.
talking to achieve the Paris accords.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
The axis of selfishness
T
his week, two of Donald Trump’s
harmony between peoples. From their
top advisers, H.R. McMaster
first moments, children are wired to
and Gary Cohn, wrote the
feel each other’s pain. You don’t have
following passage in The Wall Street
to teach a child about what fairness is;
Journal: “The president embarked on
they already know. There’s no society
his first foreign trip with a cleareyed
on Earth where people are admired for
outlook that the world is not a ‘global
running away in battle or for lying to
community’ but an arena where nations,
their friends.
nongovernmental actors and businesses
People have moral emotions. They
David
engage and compete for advantage.”
feel
rage at injustice, disgust toward
Brooks
That sentence is the epitome of
greed,
reverence for excellence, awe
Comment
the Trump project. It asserts that
before the sacred and elevation in the
selfishness is the sole driver of human
face of goodness.
affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is
People yearn for righteousness. They want to
a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that
feel meaning and purpose in their lives, that their
cooperative communities are hypocritical covers lives are oriented toward the good.
People are attracted by goodness and repelled
for the selfish jockeying underneath.
by selfishness. NYU social psychologist
The essay explains why the Trump
Jonathan Haidt has studied
people are suspicious of any
the surges of elevation we
cooperative global arrangement,
feel when we see somebody
like NATO and the various
performing a selfless action.
trade agreements. It helps
Haidt describes the time a guy
explain why Trump pulled out
spontaneously leapt out of a
of the Paris global-warming
car to help an old lady shovel
accord. This essay explains
snow from her driveway.
why Trump gravitates toward
One of his friends, who
leaders like Vladimir Putin,
witnessed this small act, later
the Saudi princes and various
wrote: “I felt like jumping out
global strongmen: They share
of the car and hugging this guy.
his core worldview that life is
I felt like singing and running,
nakedly a selfish struggle for
or skipping and laughing. Just
money and dominance.
being active. I felt like saying
It explains why people in
nice things about people. Writing a beautiful
the Trump White House are so savage to one
another. Far from being a band of brothers, their poem or love song. Playing in the snow like a
child. Telling everybody about his deed.”
world is a vicious arena where staffers compete
Good leaders like Lincoln, Churchill,
for advantage.
Roosevelt and Reagan understand the selfish
In the essay, McMaster and Cohn make
explicit the great act of moral decoupling woven elements that drive human behavior, but they
have another foot in the realm of the moral
through this presidency. In this worldview,
motivations. They seek to inspire faithfulness by
morality has nothing to do with anything.
showing good character. They try to motivate
Altruism, trust, cooperation and virtue are
action by pointing toward great ideals.
unaffordable luxuries in the struggle of all
Realist leaders like Trump, McMaster and
against all. Everything is about self-interest.
We’ve seen this philosophy before, of course. Cohn seek to dismiss this whole moral realm.
By behaving with naked selfishness toward
Powerful, selfish people have always adopted
others, they poison the common realm and they
this dirty-minded realism to justify their own
force others to behave with naked selfishness
selfishness.
toward them.
The problem is that this philosophy is based
By treating the world simply as an arena for
on an error about human beings and it leads to
competitive advantage, Trump, McMaster and
self-destructive behavior in all cases.
Cohn sever relationships, destroy reciprocity,
The error is that it misunderstands what
erode trust and eviscerate the sense of sympathy,
drives human action. Of course people are
friendship and loyalty that all nations need when
driven by selfish motivations — for individual
times get tough.
status, wealth and power. But they are also
By looking at nothing but immediate material
motivated by another set of drives — for
solidarity, love and moral fulfillment — that are interest, Trump, McMaster and Cohn turn
America into a nation that affronts everybody
equally and sometimes more powerful.
else’s moral emotions. They make our country
People are wired to cooperate. Far from
seem disgusting in the eyes of the world.
being a flimsy thing, the desire for cooperation
■
is the primary human evolutionary advantage
David Brooks has been a senior editor at
we have over the other animals.
The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at
People have a moral sense. They have a
Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly.
set of universal intuitions that help establish
The Trump
doctrine
asserts that
selfishness is
the sole driver
of human
affairs.
OTHER VIEWS
Self-fuel bill recognizes reality of rural life
The Albany Democrat-Herald
I
t could be another crack in the wall of
Oregon’s longstanding refusal to pump its
own gas. Or it could just be a recognition
of the reality of life in Oregon’s rural counties.
In either event, a bill allowing self-service
gasoline in several rural counties has passed
the Legislature and is en route to Gov. Kate
Brown’s desk. The bill, House
Bill 2482, allows people to
pump their own gas at all
hours in counties with less than
40,000 residents.
It is a successor of sorts to
House Bill 3011, which won
approval in the 2015 Legis-
lature. That bill authorized
self-service gasoline at retail
outlets in low-population
counties between the hours of
6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in certain
circumstances. One of the
bill’s backers, Sen. Ted Ferrioli, insisted that it
was not meant as an end run around the state’s
ban on self-service, but it did represent the
first crack in Oregon’s status as a full-service
state.
The Oregon law banning self-service
gasoline has been on the books since 1951,
and the law lists 17 separate justifications for
the ban.
Those justifications include some that
likely have occurred to you: For example, the
ban creates jobs. However, some of the other
justifications seem to be — how to phrase
this? — a little silly. For example, the law
notes that there is a safety issue involved with
gasoline in that it is flammable.
Despite the recent advances in fuel-pump
safety, lawmakers have not been eager to
embrace a full-fledged
effort to repeal the ban on
self-service, even though
some evidence from polls
suggests that younger
Oregon voters might
embrace the opportunity to
pump their own gas. And
a study by an economist
has estimated that the ban
might add 3 to 5 cents
per gallon to the cost of
gasoline in Oregon. But
the overall sense is that the
ban remains popular among older residents
— the type of residents who are more likely
to vote.
House Bill 2482 essentially just expands on
the realities of rural life that helped to drive the
2015 bill. But don’t be completely surprised
if it lays the groundwork for a move to allow
self-service gas throughout Oregon. And then
poor New Jersey would be left in the lurch.
The bill could lay
groundwork for
a move to allow
self-service
gas throughout
Oregon.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and
include the city of residence and a phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.