THERE are signs that the federal government in Washington is getting increasingly out of touch with the thinking of the 50 states that make up the republic. However indifferent state governors and legislatures are about the ocean rising to overwhelm Vanuatu, or what is happening to the monsoon in South Asia, they all agree that the air over 鈥渢heir鈥� skies should be clean.
With each state acting in its own interests, that should lead to the general good across the nation as a whole, according to the prevailing Republican view of how a free world works. But somehow it isn鈥檛 turning out that way.
Recently, the White House announced it would toss out long-standing rules that required old coal-burning power plants to retool with cleaner technology whenever they made improvements. Environmental groups, and a number of states, see the overhaul as a licence for power plants to pollute more, not less, and several are suing the federal government as a result.
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At the same time, states are now going their own way on air pollution. California is passing laws to favour more efficient automobiles, and its laws are far stronger than federal ones. Even Texas, spiritual home of the oil baron, has a law encouraging investment in wind power. And New Hampshire has passed a law that clamps down on dirty power plants, the very type given a reprieve by the new White House rules.
In the meantime, the Bush administration has convened its own experts to decide how to 鈥渇urther study鈥� global warming. In February, Bush said the US would need another 10 years to think about what to do on the subject. At a recent meeting, his science adviser said it might not take that long. But just how long might it take? More research is needed on that one.
HIGH above the Earth now is the International Space Station. It weighs the better part of 200 tonnes, with over 400 cubic metres of habitable space 鈥� one-third the final total 鈥� and some 900 square metres of solar panels. The six crews, which between them have been aboard for more than two years, have consumed 6000 meals and 4000 snacks.
Yes, things are going swimmingly for the oft-maligned space station, except for one tiny problem. Nobody on Earth seems to care. Oh sure, NASA cares, but parents love their progeny, no matter if they are underachievers. But that鈥檚 about it. The public doesn鈥檛 seem to care. The media have relegated space station news to the tiny articles that fill space at the bottom of a column, and then only if the sales people have not sold enough ads to fill the page.
This low profile is not all bad for the space station, though. The fiscally conservative Republicans now in charge of Congress are vowing to cut wasteful government programmes, but no one has said a peep about the space station. The White House is likewise silent. Even scientific societies that used to rail at the billions of dollars being spent on the space station for a so-called science project that no scientist seems to want have hardly uttered a word about it.
The space station seems to have arrived at that status of one of those irrelevant public figures who occasionally are thrust into the limelight to open a shopping mall. This month the crew participated remotely in the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center in New York. Next thing you know they鈥檒l be panellists on television quiz shows.
