In the 1980 televised campaign debate, Ronald Reagan, a former movie star delivered his well-rehearsed and scripted mocking of President Jimmy Carter's wonkishness with his now famous line "Now, there you go again." And, oh how that quip was repeated over and again, almost taking on a mythic moment in American politics.
Well, observing the status quo here in America in 2010, I sadly tell you how much I wish that if only, if only President Carter could have had a second term to "go again". What a different world this would be.
Today's Los Angeles Times' Sunday Editorial provides another late-in-coming and long overdue acknowledgment of President Jimmy Carter's prescience with regards to our nation's energy crisis. I am heartened that little by little, here a little and there a little, that history is having a fresh, second look at this truly decent man, at his foresight, and at the consequences we now face today for losing him as our national leader in 1980 to Ronald Reagan.
I know something deep within me: Jimmy Carter didn't lose in 1980. America lost in 1980. The world lost in 1980. And we can't turn back time. But how today I wish I could say, "There he went again." But I can not.
How different our nation would be today had this man had a second term, and how different the world would be today. But that was not to be.
On July 15, 1979, President Carter took to the television and told the American People the following: "What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important." His speech was then roundly ridiculed in the American media and, sadly, yes by the majority of Americans. But Carter starkly had told us that the energy policies of the United States were "a clear and present danger to our nation." But Carter didn't just warn Americans, he also put forth bold, positive objectives for the nation. He pointed to an obtainable future for our country free from the toxic chains of oil and an early plan to get there.
Carter's speech was roundly lampooned and parodied. And of course, his words and proposals inflamed the oil industry wrath toward him. He dared take on their privilege, power and purse. And they made sure they would destroy him.
Looking back to the time of Carter's bold, wise and yes, patriotic speech is is very painful. Painful? Why? Here's why:
In order to "look back" to 1979, one must look back through the lens of the march of time that followed his speech, and that followed his exit from the White House.
Looking back to 1979, one must reel back through our American Family Album:
Any "looking back" begins right now, in 2010, with the catastrophic BP "spill" in the Gulf of Mexico and its still undetermined long-term toll to the fragile environment of our Southern shoreline.
Looking back must be through the lens of the three unnecessary foreign wars that cost the lives of millions of innocent women, men and children, that cost thousands upon thousands of live of American soldiers, that saddled Americans with trillions of dollars of debt, that cost America its reputation in the world, and more.
To look back to Carter's speech in 1979, one must also reflect on the horrific events on September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. And the consequences of 9/11? The Patriot Act, the Homeland Defense Department, the trashing of FISA, the spying on Americans, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib. The list goes on and on at what we've lost and what price we have paid.
President Carter's tough talk to the American People on July 15, 1979 was more than a prophetic warning, but more importantly, it also pointed us toward tangible solutions, even way back then when renewable energy was still in infancy stage, when the notion of "conservation" of energy was considered by the majority of our people silly. Silly? Yep. Thirty-two years later, and just 4 months prior to the attacks of September 11th, Dick Cheney (an oil man who was Vice President to another oil man, President George W. Bush) condescendingly commented: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Jimmy Carter's courageous words and actions were still considered silly. You know, silly as putting on a sweater.
But President Carter saw the national security element and warned us all: "We can't go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment...In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people...the energy crisis is real. It is worldwide."
But he also told us back then "...We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America....We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose."
Americans chose the wrong path.
I only wish that I could say these words about President Jimmy Carter today: "There he went again." But I can't.
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Below are some excerpts from the Los Angeles Times Sunday Editorial today:
For as clear a sign as you could want of the nation's haphazard approach to energy policy, look no further than the roof of the White House. In 1979, solar panels blossomed there, installed by President Carter to symbolize his commitment to weaning the country off oil. Seven years later, President Reagan took them down; at the time, a White House spokesman said the panels were in the way of a repair job, but few missed the symbolic significance of the move. President George H.W. Bush later put up a smaller array to heat the White House pool. That was it for presidential photovoltaics until this week, when a pair of senior Obama administration officials announced that new panels would go up to heat water and provide some electricity at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Many of Carter's remarks about energy seem prescient today, when global demand for oil is again outstripping supply (a problem temporarily eased but not solved by the economic crisis), the nation's reliance on oil is creating foreign policy nightmares, and we face a climate threat caused by the burning of fossil fuels whose urgency is becoming increasingly clear.
Carter, who created the Department of Energy (which Reagan tried to eliminate), approved generous tax credits for home installation of solar panels, backed groundbreaking energy-efficiency standards for appliances and buildings, encouraged tighter automotive fuel efficiency standards and called for generous federal funding of research into clean-energy alternatives. Much of this was approved by Congress but was almost entirely undone under Reagan, with disastrous consequences.
A booming solar power industry collapsed by the mid-1980s, killed in part by lower prices for electricity that made solar less competitive, but mostly by the elimination of Carter's tax credit. California is trying to jump-start the solar industry again by imposing carbon limits and setting a renewable power standard, none of which would be necessary if the business hadn't been strangled a quarter-century ago. Similarly, had Carter's research initiatives not been defunded by Reagan, it's likely that by now they would have resulted in technological innovations to reduce the price of renewable power and improve efficiency.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-solar-20101010,0,3182636.story
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