"I should hang my head in shame," Theodore Roosevelt said, "if I were capable of discriminating against a man because he and I have different shades of skin." The firestorm of protest he had caused when he invited to dinner in the White House his friend, reknowned Black educator Booker T. Washington, was mentioned by Senator John McCain on election night. It would take a hudnred years yet before "each black man and each white man [is treated] on his merits," this, in Roosevelt's view, being the fair and just, "wise and honorable and Christian thing to do."
President-elect Barack Obama spoke in words quite evocative of his predecessor's vision and oratory. He named "a planet in peril" as one of the three most urgent challenges confronting us. The climb from economic abyss, wars and looming planetary catastrophe will be steep and the work hard, requiring willingness of many calloused hands. The government will be with the people in tackling the problems ahead and, together, we can be ever hopeful of solving them.
Two decades ago James Hansen, chief climate scientist at NASA had sounded the alarm about risks from human-induced climat warming. Signs of planetary distress, predicted and confirmed by hudnreds of meteorological scientists that make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have since kept rising: storms of extreme intensity, abnormal floods, droughts and melting mountain glaciers threatening water supplies, heat waves killing thousands, spreading deserts and parched lands causing social unrest and regional wars, and legions of environmental refugees.
Dr. Hansen returned to Congress, for testimony on these matters, in June this year. The science now, so his message, reveals a climate emergency, indeed a "planet in peril." The earth, he said, is on the verge of "disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control." Averting the triggering points for catastrophe is still possible but "will require a transformative change of direction in Washington," and decisive action swiftly.
From what he was wont to call his bully pulpit, President Roosevelt often exhorted the nation to resolutely resolve any urgent challenges of the time, all working together, "heart, hand, and head." Although "we face great problems within and great problems without," he said in 1903, "we cannot if we would refuse to face those problems. All we can decide is whether we will do them well or ill. We are into the arena into which great nations must come. We must play our part, must not flinch from the great problems that there are to do but take our place in the forefront of the great nations and face each problem of the day with confident and resolute hope."
With this election, change in leadership is coming to Washington. On dealing with climate change, the President-elect can point to a record of commitment and consistent, positive voting in the U.S. Senate.
It is to be hoped that wise statesmanship will make that commitment effective, here and, in concert with other nations, globally.
A Country Rag