Others, Both American And Non-American, Agree That Energy Reform As A Unifying U.S. Goal Is A Good Idea

Ben Macintyre of the Times (of London) writes today of the growing necessity for both American leaders--industrial and political--as well as Americans in general to utilize an old sense of patriotism in order to create a new energy portfolio.  He discusses a new book by Thomas L. Friedman that deals directly with this and related issues, but he also suggests that during his travels in the U.S. (Mr. Macintyre is not American) he has recognized the same thing that Mr. Friedman (who is American) has, which is as follows:  the sort of fervor for their country that Americans project on a rather consistent basis (and at a rather generalized meta-level), which in part has created a love of the automobile that is in many ways singularly American and increasingly unhealthy as long as petroleum is used to power automobiles, can now be harnessed to help solve both the burgeoning energy crisis and ease the environmental fallout from increased demands for American-ized lifestyles from people in many presently-industralizing countries around the world.

I'll now provide a representative sampling of this intriguing article (with which I largely agree, by the way, and in saying that I mean that I agree with both Mr. Macintyre and Mr. Friedman).  The first snippet deals with Mr. Macintyre's observations, and the second deals with Mr. Friedman's.  I will say only that what Mr. Friedman in particular has to say sounds an awful lot like what I wrote just the other day (in my September 15 post) and what an awful lot of folks who have seen the necessity for the United States to shift its energy emphasis in order to remain a major geopolitical leader are presently advocating:  make energy transformation a unifying national goal and a source of American pride.

I'll also provide a few comments below the sampling from the article.

From The Times (of London)
September 18, 2008

"Greening the Dream that Drives America"

"...Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car forged some of the most enduring elements of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the automobile represented what it meant to be American: going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are quintessential American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate system, the largest public works project in history.

"In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with 'a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage'. Ford Motion Pictures, once the largest film producer in the world, churned out more than 3,000 movies extolling the thrill of driving. James Dean drove a Mercury, Steve McQueen a Mustang. Charger, Blazer, Javelin: the names reflected a society that hurtled onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial giant. The love affair continues. The US now has far more cars than garages. There are 204 million registered cars, trucks and SUVs, but only 191 million drivers.

"The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological nightmare. Europe's appetite for oil has been restrained by high petrol taxes, small cars and more efficient public transport. In America, by contrast, demand for oil has grown by 22 per cent since 1990.

"The extraordinary worldwide rise of the middle class and the demand for an American lifestyle, of which car ownership is a key component, has fuelled a staggering boom. By 2050, perhaps a decade earlier, China will have 130 million cars; Moscow's roads were built for 30,000 vehicles; the city now has three million; India is planning the mass-production of a four-seater car that will cost $2,500.

"The horrors of excessive energy consumption (of which cars are only one part), associated climate change, dwindling biodiversity and population growth are detailed in Hot, Flat and Crowded, a new book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. As the title suggests, Friedman fears the worst, but unlike so many books about the changing environment he also hopes for the best. His book is not about hand-wringing, slowing economic growth, moral censure or a radical change in lifestyles, but about harnessing American expertise, ingenuity and cash to the next great industrial revolution - finding solutions to the energy crisis that make economic sense.

"Friedman points out that the green economy is a huge investment opportunity, and a chance to reassert American national strength. 'The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean electrons, clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the Energy Climate Era - not the only one, but right up there with computers, microchips, information technologies and planes and tanks.'

"The imperative here is avowedly patriotic: 'Green is the new red, white and blue.' America, with its entrepreneurial capitalist systems, research universities and history of innovation is uniquely placed to win this race, and where America leads, he says, the rest of the world will follow....

"...Weaning America from the motorcar is a cultural gear-change that will never happen. Environmental issues have hardly touched the US election. At the Republican convention, Rudy Giuliani led delegates in a chant of 'Drill, Baby, Drill'.

"Yet Friedman suggests that a new route is opening up by purusing American self-interest, harnessing the raw power of American patriotism and tackling 'a great opportunity disguised as an insoluble problem'. The solution lies not in finger-pointing and self-flagellation, but in persuading America to solve a problem caused, in large part, by America and the great American automobile.

"As Henry Ford remarked: 'Don't find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain....'"

Back to Hasslington's comments:

What Mr. Friedman in particular (he works for the New York Times now, but he's still a good Midwestern boy at heart) is advocating is the leveraging of our (if you happen to be American) penchant for displays of national pride, many of which are healthy (and some of which I would argue are not, such as the ueber-repetitive bellowing of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" at the Republican National Convention; one or two of those instances are just fine, but dozens of them are indicative of intellectual laziness and its accompanying cultural myopia, at least to my mind). When healthy displays of national pride are focused in a few areas vital to both the sustainability of geo-leadership and a sense of creative resurgence, the country undertaking this focus is bound to find that its accomplishments are respected at increased levels both at home and abroad.

For Americans to leverage this old notion of national pride, sometimes called patriotism, into a new area of focus, in this case energy independence and transformation, is a particularly good idea given that the United States is a country which prides itself on independence of thought, spirit, and innovation. (Given the history of how the United States came to be an independent country, this is understandably the case, and rightfully so.) If linked to the idea of the renewal of the American spirit and American leadership, particularly as it relates to energy procurement, security, and use in the twenty-first century, it can work. And, as the above article (and my post from this past Monday) suggests, at present, as the U.S. goes with energy, much of the rest of the world is sure to follow.

To my mind, this type of transformational undertaking is necessary, but whether or not you agree with that sentiment, surely we can agree that it's most certainly worth a try.

For the text of the full article, please see the following address:  

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article4776122.ece