Diamond-Cut Life

Happy Martin Luther King Day! It seems serendipitous that the civil rights leader’s birthday falls on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration.

I like Jesse Jackson’s recounting of Dr. King’s final birthday, and I can only agree with him that Dr. King, if alive, would be beaming at this moment in history.

Concerning president-elect Obama’s “We Can” motto, I think that he and all of us need to apply it first and foremost to dealing with global warming. We need to cut our carbon emissions 60-80% and build our economy around energy conservation and renewable energy, rather than try to shore up the obsolete economic model we’ve got, which was founded on the notion of cheap, unlimited fossil fuels. President Bush’s policies, based on denial of global warming, have been disastrous.

Obama’s gift for political moderation is emotionally appealing, but the condition of our planet and climate dictate sharp change, not moderation. If Obama truly respects science as he says he does, he will see that, and be aggressive rather than moderate in reducing carbon emissions. For today and tomorrow, though, as we inaugurate Barack Obama, let’s just happily celebrate what one clever person has termed “The End of an Error.”

Photos courtesy of  Nelson Piedra and jmtimages, respectively.

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