Jimmy Carter Was Right

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Jimmy Carter called for a comprehensive, long-range energy policy that emphasized conservation. Too bad no one listened

"One of our most urgent projects is to develop a national energy policy," said President Jimmy Carter in a televised Oval Office address on February 2, 1977. It was his Report to the American People on Energy. He had been president for just 13 days.

Noting that America was "only major industrial country without a comprehensive, long-range energy policy," Carter championed a program that would "emphasize conservation."

"The amount of energy being wasted which could be saved is greater than the total energy that we are importing from foreign countries," Carter said. "We will also stress development of our rich coal reserves in an environmentally sound way; we will emphasize research on solar energy and other renewable energy sources; and we will maintain strict safeguards on necessary atomic energy production."

Just think for a moment where we might be today if Americans had answered Carter's call to action. But alas, for the ensuing three decades, at least when it came to energy -- our policy, our usage, our investments, our waste -- we were asleep at the wheel. And for a good lot of us, that wheel happened to be connected to a gas-guzzling SUV.

And all the while, oil companies kept drilling for more of the stuff to which we became so addicted. Profits were huge. Thanks to our unchecked addiction, ExxonMobil posted a staggering, record-breaking net income of $40.61 billion in 2007. (That's more than the nominal GDP of over 100 countries, including Tunisia, Guatemala and Kenya.) Now, that addiction (and all the other addictions that oil fed so well) has led us directly to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- the greatest ecological catastrophe to befall the nation in its 233-year history. And it was man-made.

"Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," said President Obama during his Oval Office address last night. "And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it's not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years."

An addiction that led to an epidemic? Sounds positively Caligulan.

Obama pointed out that "for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked, not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor."

Democratic senators are planning to meet tomorrow to discuss the agenda that will cover the remaining time of the 111th Congress, which will come to a close on January 3, 2011. Will they show the political courage to vote for comprehensive legislation to address climate change?

Worryingly, some of them have said they will hold their vote unless such legislation caters to some offshore drilling interests. In the meantime, anthropogenic climate change -- tied closely to America's fossil fuel usage (Obama noted that "we consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil") -- continues to take a devastating toll on the global environment.

In 2004, a group of international researchers published a bleak study entitled "Extinction Risk from Climate Change" in the journal Nature. The authors predicted that millions of species will become extinct due to climate change by 2050 -- a quarter of animals and plants living on land alone. Up to 37% of the species in the biodiverse regions they studied could be wiped out, primarily because of the effects of all the carbon dioxide we're releasing into the atmosphere. These aren't just numbers. These are living creatures, and the vast majority of them have been around -- and doing perfectly fine, thank you very much -- long before Homo sapiens turned up. Now they are disappearing at a rapid clip, while humans reproduce at an unsustainable rate.

"Polar bears drowning as the sea ice they need to survive melts away," writes Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen in a recent email. "Sea turtles, pelicans and other wildlife coated in oil, poisoned in their homes as the result of America’s addiction to oil...Last year, Big Oil spent millions of dollars lobbying against climate change legislation and for more drilling off our coasts."

"I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party -- as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels," Obama said last night.

"Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -- and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development. All of these approaches have merit and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction."

Well, unless the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the wake-up call that environmentalists are hoping will end up being the disaster's silver lining, Obama may have no choice but to accept that last approach. Inaction is exactly what followed Carter's call for an environmentally sound, long-range energy policy over 33 years ago. "There is no way that I, or anyone else in the government, can solve our energy problems if you are not willing to help," Carter warned Americans in his address. But no one listened to him.

We weren't willing to help back then. What about now? Are we addicted to oil, and if so, can we admit it and change our daily behavior. Will we consider more seriously the things we choose to do and buy and the size of our carbon footprint? If we wait another 33 years to do something, what will be left of our environment? What species can survive three more decades of humans sleeping at the wheel?

image: screenshot from President Carter's Report to the American People on Energy, February 2, 1977 (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)