Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.
It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.
We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.
We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.
Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress...
...The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.
Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.
I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act.
Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.
The world has not prepared for the future. During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history.
But we do have a choice about how we will spend the next few years. Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden.
One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years.
Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste.
We can continue using scarce oil and natural to generate electricity, and continue wasting two-thirds of their fuel value in the process...
...But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.
[Excerpted from Prophet Jimmy Carter's April 1977 speech
on the energy crisis. A crisis which our subsequent presidents ignored. And so, here we are. Very worthwhile reading.]
6 comments:
Dan,
Wow, I agree with both you and Jimmy Carter. I never thought I'd say that in my lifetime. :-)
But here is the question. How? How do we begin to do this? For example, I live in the suburbs of Chicago. While our basic shopping is all within about three to four miles of my home, everything else is so spread out that it takes 20 minutes by car to get anywhere.
Even some of the people in our church drive 30 minutes to get there. Not ideal in my view.
But in a city like ours it is a fact of life. So how do we "live in smaller circles"?
Wow, I agree with both you and Jimmy Carter. I never thought I'd say that in my lifetime.
Signs and miracles are an indicator of Last Days, they say...
"In a city like ours, it is a fact of life."
Perhaps we need to change the facts of life? We have our current setup because this is how we planned our cities. for the last 50 years, most cities in the US have designed our towns with the assumption that we'll all be driving our own personal vehicles.
Cities need not be planned that way. We need not organize our lives that way.
We live in a large city, too, with plenty of sprawl. BUT, we have planned our lives so that everything we do is within 3 miles of our home. Our work, our schools, our church, the places we play, it's all within walking distance and on a busline.
Now, everyone need not set their lives up as my family did, but the point is, we can. We make decisions. Do we want to plan our lives so that we're not dependent upon huge amounts of energy or do we want that convenience of setting up our lives however we want?
It's about choices. It's a great question you ask and we're still working out what that means for us (we have the small circles thing down fairly well, but we don't have the simplified, streamlined life down so pat, yet). The thing is, we ought to be having these conversations.
If we don't change our direction, we'll wind up where we're going. Or something like that.
I think living in smaller circles is actually a more pleasing lifestyle and I applaud you for doing it. My wife and I have done the same thing as much as possible. Just about everything we do is within about three miles of our home - work, school, shopping, friends, play, etc.
We like this alot.
Most of our friends don't do this and don't really think about it.
Honestly we aren't so sure about the whole global warming thing. I think the earth has warmed, but is it for reasons some suppose? I don't know and I really don't bring this up to get off track. I do bring it up to say that the whole thing has caused us to at least rethink how we live.
We've become and are trying to become more "green." Don't get me wrong. We aren't growing our own food or anything, but we are trying to buy in ways to cut down trash. We are trying to use bio-friendly soaps and detergents. We are trying to recycle more. And we are always considering other things we can do too. I guess we've just become more thoughtful and intentional about these things.
The energy crunch and high gas prices has caused us to do the same. We are rethinking how we drive and how much we drive.
In the grand scheme of things what we do isn't probably much, but its a start. And if everyone did a little it would probably end up being a lot.
I guess this is the point of living in smaller circles.
And if everyone did a little, it would probably end up being a lot, indeed!
And, at least for me, the specter of global warming is one of the lesser reasons for changing our ways. Some scientists think there MIGHT be evidence of human impact upon global climate patterns. That should give us pause.
BUT, we know we are impacting the world and the global economy in negative ways aside from global warming. And for those reasons, we need to think about what we're doing and consider how to live more responsibly.
Seems to me.
"Signs and miracles are an indicator of Last Days, they say..."
:-)
Linked.
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