Mother Earth, Brother Newt

After the Office of the President went eight years without tackling many of our contemporary crises, there’s a lot to be done. It makes you wish Hillary had won and installed an exclusively female cabinet—on account of women’s ability to multi-task more effectively than men, I mean. 

And one would hope women have more than that going for them. Just look at how Limburger and The Newt—two men—reacted to a Washington Post/ABC poll indicating 57% of respondents supported a government-created “health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.”

Limburger called it “fraudulent”; The Newt, “rigged”. Their major complaint was that more donkeys were questioned than elephants. Well…you see boys, we have a representative democracy and as the donkeys control the White House and both ends of the legislature, one could logically infer that, at this moment in our esteemed history, more people prefer riding donkeys than elephants.

But fine, fine. I’m all for fairness. Next time the pollsters should have as many elephants as donkeys on their call lists. Wait! The respondents were called at random and self-identified as donkey, elephant or muskrat (independent)? Back to the drawing board, boys…

Meanwhile, the fate of the world could be decided in a mere six weeks. The UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen is fast approaching and the American legislature has had their collective (mostly-male) eye on the healthcare ball. Without having emission reduction targets set by Congress prior to the Conference, it will be difficult for American diplomats to agree in earnest to any binding caps on CO₂ output.

Europe, for its part, has taken the lead, announcing its willingness to cut 95% of CO₂ emissions by 2050. However, it has not announced how it will achieve its more modest goals for the 2020 deadline.

The world needs a woman who can simultaneously care for the health of people and the planet, a woman like Mother Earth.