When I was younger, I always thought that being the President must have been the hardest job in the world. I can’t say that that opinion has necessarily changed, but I do know that I became somewhat more enlightened before I reached that same conclusion. My 8 year-old self was concerned that there was basically a list of things that the President had to deal with during his term and that he wouldn’t be able to figure them all out. His people would be unhappy as a result. So basically, as my 19 year-old brain can now fathom, this President must have been missing a framework of some sort. My fear was that building policy would mean starting from scratch. But in the modern age, there always seems to be a list of things that ensures success. Finish A. Fix B. Improve C. Everything good is guaranteed by ticking off a few checkboxes.
As one might imagine, the wariness of my youth never went away. Instead of only worrying about building a framework, now I worry that the one we already have in place is flawed or incomplete. This, of course, still leaves us with the problem of making a new list. As such, looking at the main foci of a Greater, Greener NYC leaves me with the same concern. I’m not saying that Land, Water, Transportation, Energy, and Air aren’t great goals to work on, but perhaps there are other headings that could be worked on instead. In fact, if we could succeed, then I’m sure we would be well on our way to a better New York City—just perhaps not the best. Thus, this still brings us back to the President’s Dilemma (maybe I could coin this term!) except with added texture: which of the things on our list is most important to deal with at the moment? It all comes back to intrinsic vs. instrumental value.
I’m starting to feel repetitive. I must’ve mentioned those two terms at least 7 times in the last ten responses for this class. But that’s why we started talking about it from the very beginning, I suppose—the controlling power of instrumental value is one of the foremost problems of society’s mentality. But as such, the goals of Greater, Greener NYC reach a crucial fork in the road in this regard. The reason why we call them is goals is that we hope to get to the proposed level, but it’s not a requirement to do so. This leaves us with the obvious of funding—which of the five headings will be given more money? Which will have more emphasis? It’s inevitable that we will reach some goals faster than others, but the reason for this could necessarily be because we are more concerned with things like building more houses rather than creating cleaner air. Environmentalists might realize that the future is at stake and opt to focus on the latter, but the truth is that one has the potential to make money (in the present!!!) while the other will simply cost money (in the present!!!).
And yet, we’re still avoiding the question of the future. It’s a great point that the interests of the future should be equally as important as those of the present, but the rise and fall of money is cyclically shorter than bouncing back from our environmental impact—if that’s at all possible. Essentially, we should make those headings that pertain directly to the environment more important. The environmental problems we cause are (for all intents and purposes) permanent. The problems we leave for the future will be there for that generation to take care. The short-term interest in fiscal matters cannot be the controlling factor in our decisions. Otherwise, someone is going to have to be there to pick up the pieces.
