Monday, July 26, 2004

... From Adbusters
{The best 8 dollar magazine you will ever read. And worth every penny}

Earlier this year, the world bank and the pentagon released separate reports predicting dire consequences as a result of unchecked climate change. "Global warming a bigger threat than terrorism," the headlines responded. Greenpeace was quick to agree: "We have met the enemy, and he is us," shouted an article on its website. Around the same time, the British government's chief scientist, David King, wrote in Science that "climate change is the most serious problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

Bold statements, indeed, in these times of war, but underlying them was an even bolder accusation: the United States is the main perpetrator behind this new threat. "The United Kingdom is responsible for only two percent of the world's emissions, the United States for more than 20 percent," said King. But statistics aren't enough. Governor Schwarzenegger may be promising a zero-emissions, "green" Hummer in California, but America has nothing to be proud of when it comes to emissions controls. The average new car in 2003 weighed in at 4,021 pounds, breaking the two-ton barrier for the first time since the pimpmobiles of the '70s. And, despite new technology, average fuel economy is actually getting worse, down to 20.7 miles per gallon from a peak of 22.1 in the mid-'80s.

The irony is hard to miss. The very nation fighting to rid the world of terrorism actually poses a greater threat to the world that its proclaimed enemy. A harsh realization. But what logically follows is even harsher. If global warming is the new threat, and automobile emissions are responsible for much of that threat, then you and I are the new terrorists. And so is every SUV-driving soccer mom and dad between Seattle and Miami, every white-collar suburbanite cranking the air conditioning on the drive home, and every parent loading up the Ford Expedition with super-size family packs at Wal-Mart. It's almost blasphemous, but the truth is, the motorized pursuit of the American dream comes at the expense of the world's resources. We may as well just line up the bodies of the famished, the flood-threatened, and the unemployed side by side between the lane markers and drive over them on our way to the gas station. And we don't look as cool as we think, either. A recent BBC poll found that international viewers see the US as a bigger threat than war, terrorism and corruption.

But how is it that we strayed so far off the path of moral and environmental responsibility? Implicit in American guilt are the outdated policies of our leaders, policies increasingly shaped by special interests. Leading us headlong into the global warming crisis is an outdated and simplistic energy strategy designed for the benefit of Big Oil: control foreign production through aggressive foreign policies and increase domestic oil production through invasive exploration.

If it's failed leadership that led America astray, then we need a new leader for the challenges we now face. During the campaign for the Democratic nomination, John Kerry was fond of saying: "No American son or daughter should ever again be sent abroad to die for oil." Heartfelt rhetoric, but what if, unlike any politician before him, he decided to break the mold and actually followed through on that promise? Kerry has criticized Bush for withdrawing from Kyoto, and his proposed new energy policy will reduce American dependence on Mideast oil by two million barrels a day, raise fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon, and see the nation start using hydrogen power by 2020. But what if he woke up one morning with a bold new vision, one that required serious risks - off the battlefield? Not reducing American oil use, but doing away with it all together; not increasing fuel efficiency, but making all motor vehicles meet zero-emission standards, now; not only ratifying the Kyoto accord, but becoming the first nation to fully comply with it.

An impossible dream? Maybe. But isn't that exactly what America used to be all about: achieving the impossible? In 1961, John F. Kennedy stood in front of the nation and proposed just that. "We choose to go to the moon," he declared. "... Not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skill, because that challenge is the one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." He inspired a nation to act, and eight years later, man stood on the moon.

This is a new challenge, one that, like the moon mission, calls for "a major national commitment to scientific and technical manpower." One that asks us to "move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in [an] exiting adventure." For once, the US really would be liberators. That would make a welcome change on the evening news.