on a more serious note

As the oil spill spreads, we cannot say that we were never warned.

A speech by President Jimmy Carter: April 18, 1977

"... 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. [Edit: the equivalent figure in 2003, the latest year I can easily find, is about 58 barrels per person per year. It remains nearly twice as much as Germany, Great Britain, or Japan. Sweden, which Mr. Carter named in his speech, is much closer to the U.S. nowadays at about 43 barrels.] 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...

"If we do not act, then by 1985 we will be using 33 percent more energy than we do today. We can't substantially increase our domestic production, so we would need to import twice as much oil as we do now. Supplies will be uncertain. The cost will keep going up. Six years ago, we paid $3.7 billion for imported oil. Last year we spent $37 billion -- nearly ten times as much -- and this year we may spend over $45 billion..." [Edit: 2008 expenditures for imported oil = approx. $475 billion. They have since declined somewhat from that figure because of the recession, and the current decline in oil prices.]

"We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now." [my emphasis]

--------------
an old Ent's environmental rant

"Mr. Carter was vilified for saying these things, especially the "moral equivalent of war" phrase, and this speech was one reason that he lost the 1980 election. Americans were unwilling to live up to what he was asking of them; they wanted the empty feel-good platitudes of the Great Communicator, and the "me" decade of unbridled consumption and waste that he ushered in.

"Mr. Carter's work was not without benefit. Thanks in part to his efforts, US oil consumption declined for the next several years, though it has steadily increased since 1985. And there were, I think, many impressionable young people like me who heard the rallying cry, and took action on scales small and large.

"'The moral equivalent of war...' I have fought the "long defeat" for these thirty years in such ways as I have been able, watching the mountain-top removal strip mining and nuclear plants that Mr. Carter predicted, watching the continued state of denial in which most Americans live, watching the window of opportunity to make a difference for the planet be squandered by two generations of political leaders. I am tired, and discouraged."

Kyrie eleison.