Editorials

The pursuit of something great

Thomas Jefferson didn’t include it in the Declaration of Independence, but perhaps he should have.

In that document, he gives some much-deserved ink to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What if instead, he threw in an extra sentence about accomplishing — or at least attempting to accomplish — “great things”?

Granted, the phrase “great things” is awfully vague and esoteric, but that’s kind of the brilliance of it. It can mean all things to all people, and it should most definitely be included amongst our inalienable rights as citizens.

The main obstacle standing in the way of accomplishing “great things”? Rarely is it some ominous outside force, even if so many citizens would like to claim that it is.

Nope, the No. 1 obstruction between most people and “great things” is a non-stop list of excuses—most of them of the three-word variety.

There’s no time. I’m too tired. What about money? Nobody is listening.

And, of course, the granddaddy of ‘em all — I’m too old.

Those three words seem to derail more “great things” in this area than anything.

Thankfully, this area is blessed with hundreds of wonderful residents who realize that, yes, age is just a number.

In the Oct. 20 edition of the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell (the current king of American nonfiction) submitted one of his finest articles. “Late Bloomers” asks the question, “Why do we equate genius with precocity?”

Generally, this culture will attach greater significance to works of brilliance if it’s attributed to a shockingly young creator. Mozart, Picasso, Pascal (mathematics), Orson Welles, even athletic phenoms like LeBron James and Tiger Woods seemed to cause a greater commotion with their accomplishments, due to their youth.

However, are their feats of genius any “better” (for lack of a better word) than those achieved later in life?

Gladwell points out that some major works of art (Twain‘s “The Adventures of Huck Finn,” Defoe‘s “Robinson Crusoe,” Hitchcock’s “Psycho”) were created late in the artist’s career.

Some might argue those works were the result of years — even decades — of those brilliant men honing their crafts. In those cases, that argument seems valid.

But Gladwell opens his article with a story about a man named Ben Fountain. For most of his professional life, Fountain worked in real estate and lived an average, ho-hum life. Eventually, he decided to quit his job to become a writer at age 48.

Sounds insane, right?

His short-story collection, “Brief Encounters with Che Guevara” was published by HarperCollins and became a critical sensation — and it had nothing to do with his age.

While his success wasn’t immediate (“For every story he published in those early years, he had at least thirty rejections. The novel that he put away in a drawer took him four years,” Gladwell wrote), Fountain elected to ignore every excuse he could come up with and instead focus on achieving “great things.”

That doesn’t mean everyone should quit their job and become a writer. Far from it. Instead, people should look at Fountain’s story as an inspiration to stop looking for every reason why not.

Look at what’s happening around Green Valley these days. Between the MedianGreen project and the countless charity endeavors local residents have built from the ground up, there are clearly a lot of “great things” going on in Green Valley.

Dingell’s carbon plan serves economy best

Congress seems to be moving toward a law that will sharply limit carbon emissions.

Given that that’s the case, such legislation should be balanced to have minimal impact on economic growth and job creation.

That’s one of the reasons we are hoping Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich, prevails in fending off a challenge from California Rep. Henry Waxman, who hopes to unseat him as chairman of the House Commerce and Energy Committee.

Dingell has placed on the table a reasonable carbon cap-and-trade proposal that would employ market strategies for reducing greenhouse gases.

His legislation would cover roughly 88 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, bringing them to 6 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below those levels by 2050.

The bill would create a market for carbon credits. Limits would be placed on the amount of carbon a business could emit, and those that kept emissions below the limit could either sell their credits to others on the open market or bank them for the future.

Dingell’s plan places the country on a steady path toward bringing carbon emissions under control, and makes the likely bet that between now and 2050 new technologies will emerge that will accelerate the ability to capture carbon from tailpipes and smokestacks.

Waxman, by contrast, proposes a far more aggressive timetable and stricter limits. He signed on to legislation that would ban any new coal-fired power plants built without a carbon capture system, an unrealistic measure that would send energy hungry industries fleeing overseas.

The Californian would also come down far harder on the automobile industry. He supports imposing California’s proposed tailpipe standards on automakers, adding an extra $65 billion to the industry’s research and development tab.

Critics of Dingell, including powerful environmental groups, accuse him of being overly interested in protecting auto jobs.

But Dingell has considerable experience balancing economic growth against environmental protection. He crafted the Clean Air and Clean Water acts to do just that.

America is headed into a severe economic downturn. Unemployment hit a 17-year high last week. This is not a time to be strangling industry with overly burdensome environmental regulation.

Dingell has proposed reasonable action against carbon emissions. Some jobs will surely be lost if it is enacted. But not nearly as many as if Waxman gets his way.

It’s more than just hometown loyalty that causes us to root for Dingell in this fight.

The veteran congressman understands the need for both a clean environment and a healthy economy.

Attacking the climate change problem with a steady, rational plan is far better than adopting panicky legislation that reduces carbon emissions by destroying jobs.

Reprinted from the Detroit News. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.