As politics and the environment become more and more entwined, they will become the framework for every other issue out there. Do you think the healthcare reform issue has nothing to do with the environment? What about the financial crisis? Is it a stretch to say that both of them are actually about the environment? Perhaps, but consider:

1.    Healthcare: Taking care of each other is about community, and community is what America does not have. Individual rights? Yes. Patriotism? Yes. Community? Not so much. And that’s what makes it ok to argue that creating a public option is not a good thing for people.

2.    Healthcare: The way we eat, how we grow what we eat, and the endless list of drugs that we take to deal with the results of what we eat will all be affected by the necessity of growing less water-needy crops and the required move away from monoculture. We will have to eat healthier whether we want to or not.

3.    Finances: Each crash happens because people are trying for extended, unlimited growth. Making money out of nothing. Then it falls apart. That’s the economic theory that has been destroying the earth that turns out to be exactly how America thinks about everything. We are growth oriented, not sustainable. Like a teenager hitting middle age, we have to see that we can’t just go forever, it’s time to take care of ourselves.

And you can see the environment  turning up in even the most recent political stories. This weekend, the GOP has two prominent senators standing up against including climate change in yet another government program. This time, John Barrasso (R-WY.) and James Inhofe (R-OK) are stepping out early to ask for more information about a plan the Obama administration is toying with to include climate change as a factor in national environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act.
I mean, really? What they are asking for is essentially a paperwork filibuster, in that they will do their best to stall out the process with paperwork until the Obama administration can’t or won’t push for it anymore. Inside their letter is the core of most objections to climate change regulations and a direct tie to what I was referring to in #3 above:

"We firmly believe that NEPA should achieve environmental goals without unnecessarily obstructing economic development. Requiring analysis of climate change impacts during the NEPA process, especially at the project-specific level, will slow our economic recovery while providing no meaningful environmental benefits."

Yep. Legislating based on climate change objectives will hurt the economy AS WE CURRENTLY GAUGE IT. Rather than fight tooth and nail to keep the old measurement system going, why don’t we come up with a new way to measure? Like the triple bottom line, that takes the effect of any enterprise on People, then Planet, then Profit all into account as part of its success or failure?
It will be revolutionary but practical moves like that that will make the political difference in what is sure to be a decade-long transition from our current gridlock to eventual mainstreaming of climate change rhetoric. It will become the framework of politics- another reason why Obama is ahead of his time.