4A - Thursday, December 3, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com l e fitic4t*pan 4:3atig Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu GARY GRACA ROBERT SOAVE COURTNEY RATKOWIAK EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position oftthe Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views ofttheir authors. Missing the election Students should care enough to vote in MSA elections his year, students returning to campus after Thanksgiv- ing break might have been surprised to discover that the Michigan Student Assembly was holding its fall election - if they noticed at all, that is. According to the Daily, only 3,565 out of 39,671 students voted. That's a shame, because after a semester of contentious MSA issues that affect the lives of students, the cam- pus population should have felt compelled to vote. Responsibility is twofold - MSA must do more to remind students of the election and encourage participation, and students must demonstrate to the University administration that they care about the way this campus is governed by holding the assembly accountable in elections. What American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy." - Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), commenting on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearing for his second term, as reported yesterday by CNN. ADRIAN CHOY | E-MAIL ADRIAN AT AWCHOY@UMICH.EDU * Wine+ time comics dlwdt sehck with jokes cdbsst sh'owe re el+ies5,We r e w i h t-' ick r We coulA+ryjtoci fog c codle e demo rope a liketks be eas'a 0 Chill out on global warming The MSA Compiled Code sets timetables for the elections, which are held each fall and each winter semester. Due to a con- flict between these timetables and MSA's delayed selection of an election director, the assembly was forced to push back the election to the day after Thanksgiving break. in addition, MSA was unable to get a link to the online voting site placed on the desktops of all campus computers as it had planned. The result was an election that garnered roughly 9 percent student turnout - a slight drop from last fall's 9.6 percent - despite an expectation of higher turnout from MSA leadership. The day after Thanksgiving break was certainly a less-than-ideal time to hold the election, resulting in decreased last-min- ute campaigning on the Diag that typically serves to remind students to vote. Though it's true that MSA was in a bind over when to hold the election, the assembly should make sure this doesn't happen again in the future by picking an election director earlier, if necessary. And the fact that the voting links on campus computers never materialized doesn't exactly speak well for voteroutreach efforts, either. That said, students shouldn't be waiting for flashing neon lights that give them step- by-step instructions on how and when to vote. Students should feel a responsibility to express their opinions of MSA's actions and whether or not they approve of its members and leadership. MSA can hardly be expected to listen to students' needs or fight for students' interests when it is only accountable to 9 percent of campus. And MSA will be more empowered to stand up to the administration if they have student votes to back them up. After all, this semester was an impor- tant one for the assembly, which dealt with several issues directly relevant to students. The revelation that for years MSA has been appointing students to the Department of Public Safety Oversight Committee rather than holding campus-wide elections as required by state law is something students should be speaking up about. This commit- tee is intended to be students' strongest check on the University police system, and its mismanagement over the last decade should be getting students' attention. And the fact that the University administration looked the other way with regard to this committee only strengthens the need for students to vote. That's not to say that students only have reasons to be upset with members of the assembly. Their support of state Sen. Liz Brater's (D-Ann Arbor) Good Samaritan bill - which would protect students from getting minors in possession in instances where they need to call for help on behalf of friends who were drinking - was instru- mental in assuring the bill's passage. The point is that good or bad, MSA is making decisions that effect students and ones should care about. But the assem- bly won't have a reason for its decision to reflect campus's sentiments until students vote in MSA elections in considerably larg- er numbers. ust before the onset of a win- ter that some forecasters pre- dict will be one of the coldest in decades, a new scandal is rocking the global climate change debate. Last month, an unidentified com- puter hacker broke into a server con- taining private emails from the Climate. Research CHRIS Unit at Britain's KOSLOWSKI University of East Anglia. The con- _ tent of the emails, many skeptics of climate change claim, is a smoking gun, proving the existence of a conspiracy by lead- ing British and American climate researchers. Certain emails seem to point to the researchers' deliberate misrepresentation of climate data and desire to suppress conflicting opin- ions. The scandal is fueling the fire for those who argue that climate change' caused by humans is at best, shoddy science and at worst, a giant hoax. The University of East Anglia has launched an investigation into the matter. Phil Jones, director of the Cli- mate Research Unit there and author of several of the leaked e-mails, announced Tuesday his intention to voluntarily step down from his posi- tion during the inquiry. In a time when human-initiated global warming is supposedly Gospel truth and passing legislation meant to battle climate change is one of the primary concerns for governments around the world, this scandal adds a touch of doubt to the issue's purport- edly airtight science. Governments and organizations, including the Uni- versity of Michigan, should use this doubt as an opportunity to ensure that fear is not the motivation behind their environmental programs. I've been a man-made global warming skeptic for years. I could go on and on about how warming isn't necessarily a bad thing, and how sunspots - dark spots on the surface of the sun - probably impact our cli- mate more than humanity's green- house gas emissions. But before you boo me for ignoring "science," killing polar bears and dooming my progeny to some apocalyptic future, I want to concentrate on a factor which all too often motivates the fight against cli- mate change. That, of course, is fear. Every year, Al Gore, Ted Danson or some other politician or celebrity warns us that we only have 10 years left to save the world from environ- mental destruction. We're fed images of glaciers melting and animals suf- fering. We're told to drive hybrid cars and use compact fluorescent light bulbs or else rising temperatures will raise sea levels and cause widespread famine. We're made to fear this loom- ing climate crisis, and that fear is supposed to motivate us to conserve, buy and vote in accordance with what the so-called experts tell us. I'm completely in support of reducing pollution, conserving our resources and protecting Earth's creatures. It's our moral responsi- bility, it makes economic sense, and it's just nice to live in a clean place. But using fear to push this agenda is wrong. Fear causes us to make hasty, expensive decisions, to make sacri- fices we don't need to make, to ignore legitimate counterarguments and concerns and to rely on government to placate our worries. If you believe that we only have 10 years until the Earth fries, you should be afraid. But if you're like me and believe that gradual, continual mod- ernization ofoutdated forms of trans- portation and energy creation will ensure a lasting harmony between people and our environment, you should allow this latest climate scan- dal to remind you howsome are using fear to push action. organizations like the Univer- sity have spent millions of dollars on "green" projects. Administrators believe the impact and the example set by these initiatives are worth the investment. I may not agree that the results of these projects justify the expenses, but I can respect the Uni- versity as long as it makes educated environmental policy decisions. If fear of a climate crisis is the motiva- tion behind the University's actions, however, I cannot maintain that respect. Climate changetc hysteria WOn't do us any good. Some might say it's best to havesa healthy dose of fear in order to avoid a scenario in which the climate drasti- callychanges and it's too late forus to make a difference. Even if such a dev- astating change is bound to happen, I have yet to encounter any evidence that we could do something to stop it. Others might argue the East Anglia climate scandal is just a big misinter- pretation. Still, we should realize just how much passion, terror and rage the climate change issue inspires. In order to appropriately address our environmental concerns, we need to detach from our fear of destruction and take a long, smart look at the big picture. On climate change, we need to chill. - Chris Koslowski can be reached at cskoslow@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emily Barton, William Butler, Ben Caleca, Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Emma Jeszke, Sutha K Kanagasingam, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Laura Veith SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU Arguments against minaret ban oversimplified the issue prejudiced. We should always be wary of latent human rights violations, but they are often the symptoms of an underlying pathology. Danny Fries MICHELLE DEWITT | Who cares if Tiger is in trouble? 0 TO THE DAILY: LSA senior To call Rick Durance's response to the Swiss minaret ban a poor attempt at capturEnviron ing the empathy of every bleeding heart on Eninr campus would be an understatement (Minaret ban in Switzerland is unjust toward Muslims, apprecialL 12/01/2009). It is not wrong to question this decision, but his manner of questioning it is TO THE DAILY misguided. The Daily dic The minarets are used to give loud religious the members of announcements of prayer times to a public that promotingclean is not uniformly Muslim. It is quite a triumph a photo of them that the Swiss decided to use the most demo- reassuring to se cratic solution rather than simply ban these working individ announcements outright. How can Durance environmental, claim that this is a "travesty of democracy" hope to see mor when it is democracy in its purest form? The With the inte injustice was not the banning of the minarets, in Copenhagen but rather the use of the minarets as a platform that we spread for public announcement. our campus. A While Durance claims that any number of is making sure t religious and intellectual freedoms have been letter-writinga infringed upon, he should keep in mind that that environme the Swiss are only responding naturally to what doing will help I they feel are infringements on their own free- rebuild our econ doms. A better way to address the ban would be to question why the Swiss voted for it, rather Karla Cordero than dismiss the results of the vote as unjust and LSA sophomore ental coverage is 3d, needed F: id an excellent job of covering f Repower America who were energy on the Diagby running on the front page Nov. 20. It's e the Daily covering the hard- duals who devote their time to advocacy at the University. I e coverage in the future. rnational climate negotiations starting Dec. 7, it is important awareness of these issues on younger generation of voters their voices are heard through and other media. The work ntal activists on campus are keep Michigan beautiful and to omy for future generations. Those of you who risked your safety and sanity at shop- ping malls in the early morning hours of Black Friday may have missed the most significant news story of last weekend. No, I'm not talking about nuclear weapons in Iran or the effect of holiday travel on the environment. I am talking about Tiger Woods's mysterious car accident. Talk about a hard-hitting news story. With all of the media coverage of the incident, he must have been seriously injured, right? No, not really. He hurt someone else, then? No, he just hit a fire hydrant and a tree. Are the rumors that his wife found out he was having an affair and attacked him with a golf club true? Though anything is possible, these have yet to be confirmed. So, why should anyone care about this? They shouldn't. Woods's so-called "indiscretions" are irrelevant. The media onslaught that came in the wake of this event forced me to question society's priorities. The sad truth is that Woods is not the first professional athlete to be cor- rupted by an affair z- rumored or factual - and he cer- tainly will not be the last. Though intriguing, the sexual escapades of a professional golfer really aren't the public's concern. But when the American media gets their hands on something this juicy, they just can't help themselves. The societal obsession with celebrities seems to be in overdrive lately. There is no such thing as a low profile. If you are even remotely famous and you dare to sneeze in public, someone is going to talk about it. I get the feeling thatthe producers ofmorningtalkshowswakeupeveryday praying that Octo-Mom is pregnant, that Balloon Boy actu- ally flies away in a balloon and that Adam Lambert humps another man's face in public. I'm pretty confident that Matt Lauer would sacrifice his first-born child to go through the spectacle of Michael Jackson's death all over again. America loves a scandal, and Woods's situation is the best kind: The fall from grace. What is interesting about an attractive, young, wealthy, champion athlete, philan- thropist and low-key guy? Nothing. But toss a banged-up Escalade, an alleged affair with a stripper and an alleged- ly angry wife into the mix, and now we have a story. There is no reputation too clean to tarnish. With hard work and perseverance anyone can be made to look like a total jerk. By looking at the incident from this perspective, it's absurd. But America still tunes in. Public attention has been focused on Woods even more intently than when he's playing golf. Woods released a statement apologizing, taking responsibility and asking for privacy, but of course the prying still hasn't stopped. Everyone wants to know more and they need to know now. And the media is aware that whoever reports this information first, wins. But with all the craziness going on in the world, the preoccupation with Woods is a shame. There are many important and significant things happening on the planet right now. Conflict in the Middle East, the global econo- my and the environment - these things are relevant and require our attention. Time magazine, in its November issue, termed the past 10 years the "Decade from Hell." It's true that life in America hasn't been fun lately. But buying into the media-induced distractions of celebrity gossip won't make life better. We need to focus on the realities that affect our day-to-day lives if we are ever going to fix them, no matter how unpleasant they may be. Incidents like Woods's might provide us with distrac- tions, but they are distractions we can't afford right now. Students, especially, need to be wary of falling into the bottomless pit that is the celebrity obsession culture. Much of the task of making the world suck less will very soon fall to us, and knowing how many seasons of VHl's Tool Academy that Jamiee Grubbs - Woods's alleged mistress - appeared in probably won't be relevant. Michelle DeWitt is an LSA sophomore. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity and accuracy, All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu.