At first President Obama thought of the crises that confronted him as creative opportunities, and from asides in his books, you could tell what “crisis” meant for him—not just the problem of the environment, or poverty, or civility, but also the decline of moral excellence. This deeper concern has all but vanished from his rhetoric, and he has cast the more obvious challenges in conventional, slightly left-of-center terms.
I agree with the President that we have to get the car off high center before we can hope to steer it in a new direction. But the national conversation leaves you with the impression that it’s going to be pretty much the same old direction, except that we’ll step on the gas and on the brake at the same time.
That’s the optimistic view—accelerating consumption and braking global warming. The darker view has it that we’ll accelerate till we crash and burn. The rosier prospect, however, will bury the deeper crisis more deeply yet. There will be fewer emissions, but consumerism and sullenness will continue to speed up.