[Originally published in the Herald of Randolph.]
Americans are in a bind. We are bogged down in an incredibly costly adventure in Iraq. Our dollar is crashing. Our national and foreign debt is skyrocketing. We are mired in personal debt and losing our homes. Inflation is increasing at an unusual rate. We have a worldwide petroleum shortage bringing us frightening prices at the pump and the furnace. And we face mounting prices for the food we need. There’s not a whole lot of good news out there.
In the midst of all this, we face the existential threat of global warming, a judgment which is now supported by the vast majority of scientists worldwide and even by President Bush, one of the earliest nay-sayers. Americans who continue to deny this are living in a fool’s paradise, prayerfully hoping it isn’t so and driving SUVs and Hummers.
White House supporters tell us that we are going to solve all our problems by finding and pumping more crude. Yet they all admit that this tactic will have no effect for at least 10 years, and probably not much even then. Neither they, nor the Democrats have a solution for tomorrow.
There seems to be agreement, even among those who would drill in our waters and in Alaska, that we can’t pump our way out of the shortage. So what are we to do? Are we going to turn coal into oil? The Germans did a lot of that during the Second World War and, God knows, we have a lot of coal. Are we going to start producing shale oil? There are apparently gazillions of barrels available there. Of course the problem with all of this is that these are carbon-based fuels that, when burned, contribute mightily to global warming.
So, it would appear that to solve both our energy needs and the global warming issue, we will have to do something else, something new, something different.
T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oil billionaire and conservative Republican, sees the problem and has a passionate solution. He is investing heavily in solar and wind energy.
General Motors arbitrarily scrapped its first electric, the EV-1, in 1999, before the advent of new, more efficient batteries. This car was produced from 1996-99 to comply with California clean air standards. The cars, all of which were available solely on lease, were recalled in 2003 and crushed, as if to remove all the evidence. Now, GM says it will have a new, plug-in hybrid model, the “Volt”, in showrooms in 2010.
Right now, we are spending trillions of dollars on imported petroleum from abroad, using dollars that have been devalued by our profligate spending in Iraq, by our tax cut program, by our relentless consumption of imported goods and by our incredible energy consumption.
Some of that money indirectly supports terrorism aimed against our interests. Most of it is coming back here and buying America lock stock and barrel. With real estate foreclosures rampant, Asians, Europeans and Middle Easterners, people with strong currencies, are snapping up American properties. The same is true of our stocks and bonds and government instruments. America is for sale!
Even if you can’t stand him, Al Gore is right! So is T. Boone Pickens and at least one GM executive. We need to invest heavily in alternative, non-carbon based energy innovation. We need to become self-sufficient.
Americans are clever. We always have been. We can solve the technical problems involved here and in doing so, we will create products and technologies that will be in high demand around a globally warming world, items that will fix our balance of payments problems and put us squarely on our international and national economic feet again. This will happen only if we get going right now.
Winston Churchill once said, “Americans always do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else!” That’s remarkably perceptive. The absolute worst thing that could happen to us, given this Churchillian observation, would be to see the price of crude go down in any meaningful way. If gas dropped to $2 a gallon, we would never put a penny into alternative energy research, prolong our petroleum pain and ultimately cook ourselves off our globe.
In fact, as some have suggested, we probably would be well served if the Federal Government put a floor under the price of crude. Let’s say, they would never let it be bought here for less than $130 a barrel. Any income they made in the process could be channeled into research on alternative fuels while the reality of that price would keep private investment focused on the research process and American drivers pushing industry and government for viable alternatives to their SUVs and Hummers.
Americans probably look at our current energy plight as wholly negative. In fact, it bears with it the seeds of our national and international economic and political redemption. America really needs to get on with it.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. A long-time resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.
