Returning to Priorities

This past Tuesday, Tom Steyer, environmentalist and billionaire, came to speak at assembly about climate change and his life as head of a company working to prevent it. He shared a story about how he won the support of the people of California by realizing that the masses do not want to hear an environmentalist talk about the environment and why it should matter to them. He then proceeded to give a lovely speech about why it matters to him and should matter to us.In his speech, he proposed that each generation faces one great challenge that it needs to overcome. He speculated that "Nobody remembers the Great Tariff Debate of 1873", but that everybody knows who won the Civil War. Mr. Steyer claims that the great challenge we face of this generation is climate change, and making sure to prevent it. He is fundamentally wrong.There is no one "great challenge" of an era. When we look back at the revolutionary era of the United States, everyone knows about the fight for Democracy and liberty. Very few people know about the more important debate that would bring us to where we are today: the debate over the power that the central government would have. Climate change is undeniably important, but we need to prioritize. Having a government that works efficiently is crucial to our success, and the track we are on now will lead to disaster.Our economy is vital to the wellbeing of our country, and should be our first priority. As Mr. Steyer said at assembly, "People will vote for jobs", and the oil industry provides 9.8 million of them (according to energytomorrow.org). If you want people to care about the environment, fix the economy first. Global warming won't kill us in the next 10 years, but a crashed economy might.On speaking to Mr. Steyer after assembly, I did find one thing I agreed with him on, which could benefit both our economy and the environment: his policy of "Pay for Pollution". In this proposed policy, companies that pollute the atmosphere, land, or water would pay a fine depending on the amount of pollution and the harm it would do to the earth. Companies will always find the cheapest way to do things if they are allowed to. The hope would be that this plan would incentivize companies to find ways to reduce pollution, simply because it would cost them less.In conclusion, Mr. Steyer is a brilliant man whose economic skills I strive to imitate. But he is wrong in this sense. As someone who worked with money for the majority of his life, he should understand the impact of removing money from the oil and natural gas industry. He, along with us all, have a right to be concerned about the impacts of such projects as the Keystone Pipeline, and protest the warming of our atmosphere. But it is essential to know that no changes will ever occur without first fixing our government, our debt, and our economy.