Most Wasteful Nation
The following are excerpts from a televised speech to the nation by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.
“With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse.
“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.
“Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.
“I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum.
“Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that, 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.
“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, 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.
“If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.
“We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation.
“But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.”
Republicans have united our efforts to destroy Iraq rather than build an energy independent economy. As Pogo said long ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
“With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse.
“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.
“Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.
“I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum.
“Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that, 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.
“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, 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.
“If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.
“We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation.
“But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.”
Republicans have united our efforts to destroy Iraq rather than build an energy independent economy. As Pogo said long ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
posted by Jim O'Leary | 12:00 AM
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