What Leadership Can Do

Today's view of an endangered landscape, Vermont

Bill Clinton did come to the U.N. Climate Change Conference, and after his speech, which you can see on the BBC link that follows, the conference - which had been headed for failure - turned around and last-minute agreements were reached. Even the U.S. delegation shifted its position after Clinton spoke: the stark contrast between the reaction to the prior U.S. walkout and the reaction to Clinton's clarity and concrete recommendations must have been quite obvious to them. Is this going to save anything? No. But it's a lot better than where we were headed last week.

I got choked up watching Clinton. I've always admired his ability to speak off-the-cuff about complex topics, to explain facts without talking down to anyone, and to connect with an audience; this was a vintage example. But these were tears of frustration too, at the pathetic communications and weak, misguided, and immoral thinking we've had to endure for the duration of Bush's presidency, and, even more, that a person who makes as much sense as Clinton really couldn't get a lot of his ideas off the ground and through Congress. I have my disagreements with him too,and have also come to see the limited power of the presidency when the rest of the branches of government are not willing to cooperate for the good of the people.

In what I'm writing these days, I was just quoting a retired bishop who said that the capacity of a good leader to create positive change was less than the capacity of a poor leader to create damage; i.e. good leadership was good but had limited effect, while bad leadership could really wreak havoc. That's an interesting observation. I'm not sure if I agree with it. But we are certainly witnessing the latter half of his statement coming true on a huge scale.

Scroll down the BBC article, click the video link under Clinton's picture, and listen to his speech. It's a breath of air and sanity that will make you realize what a toxic atmosphere we've been existing within. In his insistence on shifting the focus from the abstract to the practical, he makes suggestions we can all act upon and take to our local governments. It's easy to poke fun of Montreal for some of their more romantic "green" efforts - like planting new trees to offset the environmental damage caused by the increased airplane traffic to the city as a result of this conference - but I'm proud that the city government is already committed and out in front on this issue.

Comments

[p.]

Good leadership goes only as far as good followers will let it.
This is a bad thing and a good one at once, because a visionary might be able to persuade his troops to begin to do something wonderful, only to lose them when they lose confidence amid all the changes (it's way too late to think of examples at the moment); and yet he (or she) might coax people to accept good ideas to a point and at least make some progress. Also, many great ideas are awful when taken to an extreme, and it's not a bad thing for an essentially conservative public to drag its heels a little till the consequences become visible.
But BAD ideas, in bad hands, make a mess that it will take decades to clean up.
(I think a certain holder of high public office was selected for his reliability and marketed like so much toothpaste, and now we're getting toothpaste leadership, abrasive and gummy at once, and stains that will have to be scrubbed from the sink.)

Good night!

[Heather]

I was working at the Global Warming Conference when Clinton gave his speech. I can tell you the vibe (I am not a bit "New Age"- this was very tangible)completely changed in the building. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience. Unfortunately, the BBC can't convey the atmosphere during the speech or the very tangible charisma of Mr. Clinton. I am fairly certain that this speech moved forward the negiotations quite a bit. This is more based on impression than actual fact, but this is an impression I trust.

Motivation, properly has on more than one occassion won great battles when defeat seemed almost certain.

[leslee]

I'm waiting to see if Clinton can be as good an ex-president as Carter. He has the capacity, even if not in as good health and probably a lot less focused (he knows a lot about a lot of things, but needs to channel his considerable energy and charisma into a particular focus). I hope he can do that.

[Frank]

Wow!!! That was excellent and very inspiring. I have really missed Clinton since he left the presidency. Thank you for the link.