Centerblue.org

I decided to evaluate Obama’s and McCain’s proposals for confronting the twin crises of energy scarcity/dependence and climate change. I developed the following grid, based on information provided by the two candidates on their respective web pages devoted to these issues (you can see Obama’s page here, and McCain’s pages here and here.)

(The government report referenced above regarding offshore resources can be found here.)

Bottom line: overall, Obama’s plan beats McCain’s hands down when it comes to aggressiveness and vision. These crises require a national resolve and commitment akin to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program in order to relieve our oil dependence and prevent a climate catastrophe. We should be throwing everything and the kitchen sink at these problems–government funding, tax incentives, education, efficiency improvements, and every other tool in the book. Both candidates kind of pick and choose, but at the end of the day Obama’s plan shows more of a commitment to resolving these problems than McCain’s.

McCain’s emphasis on developing “clean coal” technology is particularly disappointing. Coal can never truly be clean from an emissions perspective until we develop sound ways to sequester the carbon dioxide emitting from these plants, and we are a long ways off from doing that in a cost-effective and reliable manner.

However, McCain’s plan fills some notable gaps in Obama’s–most notably in pushing for the large-scale development of nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to coal. Nuclear has its problems too, but at least it doesn’t worsen the carbon emissions problem as we ramp up production of renewable energy.

I also oppose continuing subsidies for corn-based ethanol, which Obama favors but McCain does not. We have to stop putting food into our gas tanks as quickly as possible or we will continue to exacerbate food shortages around the world. Cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, but we need to push very hard right now to make that a viable alternative to corn.

Overall, Obama has it right on these crises–but he would do well to pick up a few elements of McCain’s plan so as to truly commit America to literally saving the world from these pernicious problems that are wrecking our planet, economy, and national security.

Neocons are fond of screaming that Obama saying he would simply talk with our enemies is a serious error that amounts to appeasement. They often cite the Kennedy/Kruschev summit as an example, which they claim emboldened the USSR and led to the rise of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis (they fail to mention, of course, that we had already provoked the USSR by moving nuclear missiles into Turkey and Italy).

Of course, the Cuban Missile Crisis passed with Kruschev being forced to back down, and neither the Berlin Wall nor the USSR still exist, calling into question whether this summit was such a bad idea in the long run.

Some folks insist that Kennedy “appeased” Kruschev by meeting with him without preconditions. Spare me. Kruschev was NOT “appeased” after Kennedy. Unlike the situation with Chamberlain and Hitler, Kruschev made no land grabs, launched no wars, and obtained no significant, long-lasting economic or political advantage from having had a chat with Kennedy.

But regardless, that was then and this is now. There are some key differences between the situation then, and how it exists now. Before going there, however, it is worth noting how eight years of Bush’s refusal to talk with our enemies has affected the foreign policy stance of the United States:

–Bush refused to talk with North Korea, and it now has nuclear weapons.

–Bush refused to talk with Iran, and it is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. In addition, Hamas and Hezbollah are stronger and better-financed than ever before in history, and these three entities collectively pose a much greater threat to our interests in the region than ever before.

–Bush refused to talk with Iraq (and refused to let anyone else do so either), and had he done otherwise he might have discovered the lack of any WMD’s and held back from launching a war that will end up costing thousands of lives and $1 trillion we cannot afford.

–There is probably no country more reviled in the world today than the United States. Our name, our currency, our principles, our reputation are all in the toilet because of our insistence on acting like a petulant child (much like many neocons do), refusing to talk and being all too willing to play the part of the schoolyard bully.

In short, this so-called foreign policy of refusing to talk has been a complete disaster, from which the United States will need a generation to recover.

Now, to the present. The USSR differed from Iran in a couple of key respects:

–they had the ability to annihilate us off the face of the Earth within minutes, whereas Iran does not;

–Iran directly possesses a precious commodity that we need for our economic survival–oil–whereas the USSR had no such leverage.

–Now, unlike then, our forces are bogged down, worn out, and practically helpless in a country we foolishly chose to invade, vastly decreasing our ability to leverage the threat of sustained military force.

The implications of foreign policy are very different when you have submarines bristling with nuclear missiles off your shores on the one hand, and dealing with a country that poses no military threat to your survival but has something you badly need on the other. One was outside of our control, forcing us to attempt to contain it (the USSR), the other one IS within our control–or rather, the terms of how we deal with that country are within our control if we chose to exercise it.

Let’s put it another way: suppose Iran had no oil. Wouldn’t a decision to bomb Iran’s facilities to prevent its acquisition of the bomb be SO much easier? Of course it would be. Furthermore, Iran would be well aware of its vulnerability and act accordingly–perhaps even thinking twice about developing nuclear technology.

But no, we instead choose to let Iran put its hand on our collective economic testicles, and then pray we can somehow bully it into submission. Fat chance.

The problem with Iran isn’t just them, it’s us. It’s hard to to make these two propositions work together while refusing to talk:

–They shouldn’t have something that we have (nukes);
–They must continue to supply us with something western civilization needs (oil).

I’ll leave the “we can have it but you can’t” issue for another day (I believe that the US’s insistence on that particular nuke doctrine completely undermines our moral authority on the issue, but it’s not worth arguing here). On the second premiss, we would be far better served by taking control of our addiction to oil and removing Iran’s hand from our economic testicles.

It all comes back to the desperately urgent need to develop progressive energy policies in this country that wean us off carbon fuels, which has the marvelous secondary (or primary, if you’re a conservative) consequence of freeing the US from being dependent on anybody else for its energy.

On that score, Obama beats McCain hands down. McCain idiotically thinks that drilling a few more holes offshore is going to solve the current energy crisis (when it will take 5-10 years for those wells to come online and even government documents show that such wells would only shave a few dollars off existing barrel-of-oil prices). Obama gets that we have a long emergency on our hands, one we can’t dig ourselves out of with more holes in the ground–one that requires a revolution in the way this nation consumes energy.

Until that revolution gets underway, we better talk with Iran–because talking is just about our only palatable option until we get our own act together.

In an era of $100/barrel oil with no end in sight to our energy problems, and with climate change growing increasingly alarming, the League of Conservation Voters has put out a chart that shows the energy policy positions of each of the 2008 presidential candidates. I’d love to reproduce it here, but it doesn’t fit the blog’s margins–so you can see the whole chart here.

Here’s a sample from the top candidates.

Dems

Clinton: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 55 miles per gallon standards by 2030, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce energy consumption (increased efficiency) 20% by 2020.

Obama: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 50 MPG standards by 2025, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce energy consumption 50% by 2030.

Edwards: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 40 MPG standards by 2016, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce electricity consumption 15% by 2018.

GOP

Giuliani: no articulated position on anything except supporting liquefied coal.

Romney: cap carbon emissions only if the entire world does so, opposes fuel economy/MPG increases, generally supports efficiency but has no stated goals, has no renewable energy goal, supports liquefied coal.

McCain: lead author of bill to reduce carbon emissions 65% by 2050, wants fuel efficiency increase but no goal specified, wants 25% of energy from renewables by 2025, 50% reduction in energy use via efficiency by 2030.

What strikes me is how pathetically small-minded the GOP candidates are on this issue (with the exception of McCain, who at least “gets” it about global warming and somewhat “gets” it about the energy crisis). It’s as if the rest of the GOP candidates forgot that a lot of middle class people are stretching to the breaking point in the wake of $3.00+ gas and multi-hundred dollar winter heating bills–or maybe they just never bothered thinking about it in the first place. It’s also as if they have no idea about the freight train of fossil fuel scarcity headed our way that even our own Bush-led government has warned us about, preferring instead to continue blithely on in ignorance.

Well, the rest of us “get” the energy problem every time we go to the gas pump, and a majority of us now see the light on global warming. Whether the GOP candidates like it or not these issues will be front and center in this campaign–and they will be bludgeoned to a bloody pulp by their Democratic opponents if they don’t get their heads out of their asses and address the obvious.

Thing is, we can meet the energy goals outlined by the Democratic candidates–but we need someone at the helm willing to provide the leadership necessary to make them happen. The process will be painful, and will require an adjustment to the thinking of many Americans with feelings of entitlement to cheap energy, but it CAN be done and it MUST be done if we are to keep our nation (and indeed our civilization) moving forward.

A monthly roundup of technological breakthroughs in energy, computing, nanotechnology, and biotechnology–and how these converging technologies are transforming our society, solving problems, and creating new ones.

1) (Nanotechnology/computing) Scientists create memory chip the size of a white blood cell. It is the densest such chip ever developed. It provides a possible path for circumventing the physical limits of silicone-based chips in the years ahead. Also, it is a potential milestone for creating machines that can operate at the nano level inside our bodies and such.

2) (Nanotechnology) Gut-crawling microrobot to debut in 2009. Think that the idea of robots crawling through your body to fix you is fanciful science fiction? Coming soon to a doctor near you in just two years: a robot the width of two human hairs that can travel through the arteries and organs of your body, penetrating far deeper than current methods. It will be able to provide images, and even perform non-invasive microsurgery.

3) (Computing) Military develops robotic insects. These nasty little bad boys will be remotely controlled, can fly into targets undetected, and will perform a variety of military operations from disabling computers to exploding. But can you imagine these little buggers in the hands of terrorists?

4) (Energy) Military unveils awesome projectile railgun. The military has been busy with futuristic technology. This nasty railgun, straight out of a Doom video game, can launch a small 7-pound projectile that can travel 250 nautical miles and hit its target with the force of a car at 380 mph. It can take down a building with one shot. Ouch! Who needs cruise missiles when you can lay down the smack with this nastiness?? (That goes for terrorists as well as us, of course–better not be finding this toy at the local Wal-Mart!)

5) (Energy) Military unveils new crowd-controlling ray gun. Isn’t it nice to know our military is putting our taxpayer dollars to good use with all this technology? Next up: a non-lethal ray gun it can point at people that can make them feel they are about to be burned alive, causing them to cease whatever rioting they may be doing and run away at top speed. The military says the gun is harmless, but critics claim they may have nasty side-effects.

6) (Computing) Researchers encode entire image onto a single photon. They essentially put a picture image onto a photon and were able to store it and retrieve it later. This could be a huge breakthrough in computer storage, as it would pave the way for society being able to store unimaginably large amounts of data using very little substrate.

7) (Energy) Company claims creation of new battery-ultracapacitor hybrid. EEStor claims to have created this new battery that has ten times the life of existing ones, and can be used on everything from laptops to cars. If true, it would transform our energy equation in a multitude of ways–from making intermittent solar/wind power much more reliable to allowing hybrid-electric cars to fully serve as stable backup for the power grid. Our iPod’s and laptops would run a hell of a lot longer too!

(Energy) New process makes ethanol out of trash. Forget corn, which we’d rather eat than shove down our gas tanks. A new process converts landfill and industrial trash into ethanol, with very little pollution created. We create enough trash to replace 25% of our gasoline if we used this process.

9) (Computing) Australia science agency demoes 6 gb/s wireless speeds. This new wireless peer-to-peer technology would let you download an entire DVD in six seconds. Researchers say this is just the beginning and will shortly be able to double these speeds.

10) (Computing) “Minority Report” style computer interface ready for prime time. Forget keyboards and mice, and take a cue from the (relatively primitive) iPhone. Direct manipulation of computer imagery, as shown in the “Minority Report” movie, is going to be a great new way to interact with our machines. There is a great video of the technology here, although it appears to be temporarily unavailable. Two videos showing the technology can be found on YouTube here and here.

11) (Computing) 65% of computer users spend more time with computer than with significant other. Lastly and sadly, this is not an innovation but a demonstration of a negative effect technology is having on society. Put down World of Warcraft and go cuddle your SO!

Europeans must be getting really worried that they have become so heavily reliant on a thug state for their present and future energy needs. Russia is using tactics for extracting higher prices from its neighbors that would make Stalin proud, forcing nearby states to retaliate–and the whole thing is becoming a major nightmare for Europe.

Last year, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine in the dead of winter over a dispute where Russia sought to extract drastic price increases from its neighbor. Later it threatened to do the same to Georgia and Belarus if they didn’t pony up double the amount those countries had been paying before. And in a move sure to send chills through the entire oil industry worldwide, Russia forced the Shell Corporation to give up a controlling stake in the huge Sakhalin-2 natural gas project that company had invested in, bringing even more natural resources under the direct control of the Russian government and its energy monopoly Gazprom.

Both Georgia and Belarus had to cave to the demands, but the latter has now retaliated by slapping a tax of $45 per ton of oil passing from Russia through Belarus’s pipes to Germany, Poland and Ukraine. In response, Russia has now cut off all oil flowing through Belarus–citing “force majeure” or “unavoidable circumstances.”

Needless to say, Europe is highly upset.

This is the future that awaits us if we don’t start now to diversify our energy sources–one where the petroleum “have’s” lord it over the “have not’s” in any way they see fit. Russia’s antics don’t just threaten Europe–they embolden other countries to do the same thing throughout the world. These countries–from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia and Iran–know that they have a chokehold on a key vulnerability of the West, and intend to use every resource at their disposal to impose their brand of hegemony.

Have we had enough yet? Few national security problems are more pressing than ensuring a steady energy supply that doesn’t depend on unstable or rogue nations. So what are we going to do about it?

2006 was a remarkable year in the realm of science, as the law of accelerating technological returns continued apace at an increasing speed. From the advancement of brain-machine interfaces to using stem cells to cure blindness, humanity made astounding leaps in its use of technology to better understand and manipulate the world around it. This technology also forms an essential foundation for tackling the tremendous problems posed by increasing energy scarcity and global climate change.

I list here what I consider the top achievements for the year.

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence

1) Researchers demonstrate direct brain control over robot. Scientists have developed a method for allowing the control of a robot using thought control. The possibilities of this technology are immense–ranging from guiding machines in combat to providing direction to a planetary rover on Mars.

2) Researchers unveil self-aware robot. They created a four-legged machine but did not give it instructions on how to move. It had to learn that it was four-legged by trial and error, and by testing hypotheses. It eventually developed a sense of “self” that allowed it to strategize on how to move correctly, and later how to adapt as a result of an “injury” to one of its legs. This differs from previous robots that have had to be programmed to do specific tasks, without an ability to adapt. In so doing, this robot behaves more in line with a “conscious” animal like a cat.

Biotechnology

1) Pill made from red wine compound extends life of fat unhealthy mice. Obesity is a major problem in our society and a major cause of disease and premature death. Scientists have discovered that giving obese mice a pill made out of high doses of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, eliminates the problems of obesity (fatty organs, insulin levels, etc.) even though the mice didn’t lose the weight. It also reversed the contributions of a bad diet on things like heart disease, cancer, etc. These mice went on to live as long as healthy ones, and research is underway to see if healthy mice given the compound will have their lives extended even longer.

2) Stem cells to be used to cure blindness. Scientists are using stem cells to restore retinal cells lost due to degenerative eye diseases, and have successfully restored vision to blind mice using this approach.

3) Brain-machine interfaces took drastic leaps forward in 2006. Several advances were seen this year on this front. In one study, a paralyzed patient became able to control his wheelchair by thought alone. Other scientists are developing a brain chip that can process muscle control commands and deliver them directly to paralyzed limbs, bypassing the source of paralysis.

4) Human bladders are grown in a lab and implanted in patients. Eventually scientists will be able to grow any organ using a patient’s own cells and then implant it to replace a diseased one, completely eliminating any tissue rejection issues.

5) Robotic worm can move through intestines. Scientists have developed a “worm” that can move through human intestines. It may someday contain cameras that can penetrate far deeper than today’s colonoscopies.

Nanotechnology

1) Nanowires generate electricity from body movement. Scientists have developed inexpensive nanowires that can harness our movement to provide energy to power machines. Anything from walking to breathing to the movement of our blood will eventually be able to provide energy to everything from IPOD’s to nanobots roaming inside our bodies. In a related development, nanowires have also been developed that convert light to electricity.

2) Polymer nanospheres target and destroy cancer cells. Researchers have developed particles that can target cancer cells and prevent them from spreading by slowly releasing drugs. This will greatly reduce the damage caused by conventional chemotherapy. This is part of a greater emerging movement in medicine that uses nanoparticles to specifically target and destroy disease at its source inside the body.

3) Semi-conducting nanowire transistors to make tiny computers and sensors possible. Scientists have developed a way to mass produce nanowire transistors that are much smaller and more efficient than existing ones. This will eventually make possible everything from tiny computers to ultra-sensitive sensors that can pick up the presence of hundreds of cancer markers and pathogens–in as little as five years from now.

4) Nano-membrane provides cheap drinkable water from the oceans. At a time when glaciers that provide life-giving water are disappearing at an alarming rate, with farmlands threatened by climate change all over the world, and with aquifers quickly being drained to nothing, our civilization needs a water solution fast and it needs it now. Nanotechnology provides the way, as scientists have developed a nano-membrane that reduces the cost of saltwater desalination by 75%. This will eventually lead to the creation of desalination plants that can efficiently create fresh water from the oceans. In a related development, nano-magnets have been created that can purify contaminated water.

Energy

1) Scientists design life forms to create ethanol from wood chips and agricultural waste. Ethanol provides an answer to our dangerous petroleum dependency, but using corn/soybeans/sugar/etc. for it causes competition between food and fuel. A much better answer is to use cellulosic agricultural waste and wood chips to create ethanol, but the means didn’t exist to do that until now. Scientists have developed organisms that metabolize these products and turn them into ethanol. This holds great promise as a new energy source in the future, and a cellulosic ethanol plant is already under construction. As an added bonus, ethanol contributes very little to global warming (since the amount of carbon spewed is roughly equal to the amount consumed by the plants themselves.)

2) Plug-in automobile hybrids are here. These hybrid automobiles allow you to plug them into a wall outlet, which will recharge their newer better batteries and allow more of their energy to come from electricity and less from fuel. This can be done with minimal construction of new plants by taking full advantage of plants’ peak capacities, rather than letting them stand idle during times when not everyone is running their air conditioners at full blast. Additionally, these cars will eventually serve to stabilize the power grid by providing excess power during times of emergency and by allowing users to sell power back to the grid when it’s unneeded.

3) Cheap super-efficient solar power is (almost) here. From drastically increasing the efficiency of solar cells, to being able to concentrate sunlight for increased performance, to more cheaply mass-producing solar cells, solar power is now close to being cost-competitive with fossil fuels. I hope to see the day soon when any household can put solar panels on its roof and not rely on the fossil fuel power grid for its needs.

Physics

1) Cloaking device becomes a reality. The pesky cloaking devices used by Romulans and Klingons that were such a pain to the Star Trek Enterprise crew may eventually become a reality. A cloaking device has been created that makes an object invisible–but only in the microwave frequency range for now (not in the visible light range). The problem with creating such a device for the visible light range is that it would have to be built at the nanoscale level due to the smaller frequency of light and that’s beyond the current capabilities of nanotechnology–for now.

Americans are in more trouble with debt now than ever before. Millions of homeowners who bought into the housing bubble with zero-down and adjustable-rate mortgages are beginning to feel a nasty sting as their mortgages get adjusted upwards. A total of $425 billion in adjustable-rate mortgages and $600 billion in home equity lines of credit are being adjusted upwards this year. The problem will only get worse as time goes on.

This reflects a greater problem, which is that Americans are generally borrowing more than they earn and are borrowing more than ever before. Their problems do not result from buying luxuries they cannot afford, but because they are being afflicted with a quadruple whammy of soaring costs in housing, healthcare, education and energy while incomes continue to stagnate year after year. Sooner or later the piper will have to be paid either through increasing incomes or through bankruptcies.

As the economy continues to whisper intimations of recession, the possibility that this spiraling debt could become a crisis is a real one indeed. Inflation continues to flow through the economy despite the Fed’s repeatedly raising interest rates for over two years, yet the Fed fears raising rates further for fear of accelerating the slowdown already being seen in the numbers.

Sounds like some hard times are ahead.

A profoundly sad but accurate editorial from the Providence Journal:

It slowly dawns on Americans that their lives are changing. For more and more of us, “the American Dream,” which we assumed as our birthright — founded on infinite plenty, a bottomless cup of creature comforts, and fair rewards for hard work — is fading.

The material components of the Dream were steady jobs, inexpensive mortgages and other credit, cheap gasoline, secure pensions, and flag-waving confidence in imperial America — an invulnerable power, which could do no wrong. But the deadly albatross of Iraq, gasoline at over $3 a gallon, weak growth in jobs and pay, by companies that won’t share productivity gains with workers, and export their work to Asia, have produced the sharpest drop in consumer confidence since the recession of the early 1980s.

The Dream — powerful, pervasive, energizing, defining — has been the holy writ of the middle class. But today, ask the 20,000 union workers about the American Dream at bankrupt Delphi who face permanent layoffs, while thousands of others confront the prospect of pay cut in half. Or ask the thousands more union and salaried workers with jobs at risk at General Motors and Ford — once the world’s auto-and-truck leaders, now with 40 percent of their home market taken by Toyota and Honda. Or ask the retired guys who’ve been told by the company they served for decades that they’re being stripped of their “assured” pensions and health benefits.

Those young home owners lured by cash-free adjustable-rate mortgages to buy homes beyond their means confront rising interest rates, corrosive debt, and possible foreclosure. With the real-estate market sagging, their home equity shrinks.

Adding insult to injury, the redistribution of our dwindling wealth under Bush widens the gap between the “wealth aristocracy” and the rest of us.

The American consumer economy is operating on two tiers. On top are the relative handful of CEOs and investment people, immune from assault. The Republicans’ gratuitous tax cuts on investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans — earning more than $10 million — by an average of about $500,000. Mr. Bush continues to press Congress to make permanent cuts for the privileged while the national deficit goes through the roof.

The rest of us are in a squeeze as inflation is driven by energy costs, medical care, and prescription drugs. Home-foreclosure rates are growing; they jumped an average 13 percent a month nationally at the end of 2005, with highs of 30 percent in Massachusetts, 61 percent in Texas, 70 percent in Arkansas, 145 percent in New Mexico, and 210 percent in West Virginia.

As for America’s standing in the world, the fog of the endless Iraq war has cost us friends that it took two world wars to win. Americans who felt pride in our triumphs see the leverage and reputation of this nation squandered.

We are reduced from a beacon of hope to a saber-rattling thug. The Bush foreign policy is nonexistent. The radical right exploits the formless “war on terror” — which can’t be won — to retain power by keeping us afraid.

Our ebbing strength inspires reckless challenges from rogue national leaders. In the power vacuum, Iran and Syria unleash their puppets in Lebanon. Kim Jong Il, of nuclear North Korea, blithely ignores Washington and launches his rockets. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad cold-shoulders blustering Washington and continues to enrich uranium. He and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez make threats against our petroleum supplies.

Competition by Asian industrial powers for shrinking oil reserves further threatens the assumed right of this NASCAR nation to cruise free and easy.

Then there is climate change, which Bush and the carbon-based energy giants want us to shrug off.

All this converges in a “perfect storm.”

We high-consumption Americans, who haven’t been asked to sacrifice much of anything since World War II, are unused to belt-tightening and uncertainty. The ultimate question — mostly unaddressed by politicians, pundits, sociologists, and psychologists — is how will we behave when it dawns on us that the glory of the American Dream hath departed? Will we conduct a search for strong, visionary leaders within the democratic process who will refashion the Dream in line with reduced expectations?

When dreams fall apart, humans often respond with rage, hysteria, hopelessness, and fear. How many more will find false comfort in the preachments of dangerous demagogues, who offer certitude by finding scapegoats? How many will seek solace in radical religious frenzy, pronouncing wrathful judgment on America while rooting out “the godless”?

Will the great ideas that have animated America vanish with the retreat of the good life that came to define the American Dream? With what shall we replace them?

Jerry Landay, a retired CBS News correspondent living in Bristol, writes on current issues.

I have seen a lot of vitriol directed at former President Jimmy Carter on various blogs today in response to his editorial in today’s Washington Post about the violence in the Middle East. The hatred seemed to focus mostly on his perceived ineffectiveness as a leader.

What people seem to forget is that, had we listened to Carter, we would not be where we are today. He was right all along.

How was he right? One word: energy.

All of our problems in the Middle East can be traced back to our insatiable thirst for oil. We liberated Kuwait from Iraq and set the stage for today’s Iraq mess, not because we particularly cared about the Kuwaitis, but because of their oil (anyone who says otherwise must explain why we don’t intercede in other invasions, oppressions, and genocides when they occur on lands that are not of “strategic importance”.) We dread leaving Iraq in its current sorry state because we fear the impact on Iraq’s substantial reserves of petroleum. We are hated by the Middle East because they think we are robbing them of their precious resource at bargain prices in order to feed our voracious consumption. It is because we consider the Middle East so precious for its oil that we are so willing to unquestioningly support Israel, our proxy in the region, instead of serving as a true “honest broker” for a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We are held captive and helpless in the wake of near-$80 oil by regimes like Iran and Venezuela because they could cut off our oil at any time, with extreme consequences for our economy.

We got here because we ignored Jimmy Carter, who once famously called energy independence the moral equivalent of war. Check out what he said on July 15th, 1979 in his “Crisis of Confidence” speech:

In little more than two decades we’ve gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It’s a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation.

The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977– never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over four and a half million barrels of imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I’m announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace two and a half million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation will issue up to five billion dollars in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank which will help us achieve the crucial goal of twenty percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans, to Americans. These will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.

Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by fifty percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

Twenty-seven years later it becomes apparent how foolish we have been to ignore his proposals and his commitment to energy independence. Some of his ideas were good, some not so good, but in their aggregate we would have been moved to freedom from our oil addiction to other countries. We were lulled to sleep through the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton administrations because of the easing of the Middle East crises of the day and because of new oil finds in places like the North Sea. Now we’re right back where we were; and actually we are worse off because all the oil that’s easy to get is now gone and remaining reserves are increasingly in the hands of unstable or unfriendly countries. The oil we need is now in the hands of terrorists.

How different this outcome would have been had we followed the path to energy independence laid out by Jimmy Carter. Ironically, while we ignored Carter and booted him out of office, Brazil paid attention. Almost 30 years later Brazil has announced its energy independence from the rest of the world by virtue of its development of ethanol crops and technology. The US, by comparison, is hamstrung by a crazy and nuke-obsessed Iran and helpless against ever-rising oil prices.

Maybe Carter bungled his foreign policy during his last year in office, such as the Iranian Shah/hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan–but you have to give the man his due. He was prescient, and the rest of us were foolish.

Those who vilify Carter today would also do well to remember that Americans now rate Bush II as the worst president since World War 2.

Finally, the Democrats are talking about what they will do if they come to power rather than what they won’t do. Sen. Clinton outlined the Democratic campaign agenda, called the American Dream Initiative, in a keynote speech for the Democratic Leadership Council. The key themes underlying the proposal are:

Every American should have the opportunity and responsibility to go to college and earn a degree, and to get the lifelong training they need.

Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.

Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on Earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.

Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.

Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.

In order to expand opportunity for all Americans, we must demand a new ethic of responsibility from Washington: to put government’s priorities back in line with our values — and its books back in balance — by getting rid of wasteful corporate subsidies, unchecked bureaucracy, and narrow-interest loopholes; collecting taxes that are owed; clamping down on tens of billions of dollars in improper payments and no bid-contracts; and restoring commonsense budgeting principles like pay-as-you-go.

Proposals for obtaining these goals:

Education:

**Increase the number of college graduates by 1 million a year by 2015. Proposal includes $150 billion in block grants for states to ease sharply rising tuition costs, and will provide roughly $2000 per student.

**Simplify the tax code by consolidating various education tax breaks and credits into a single $3000 college tuition tax credit, which when combined with the state subsidy should make tuition nearly free at most typical four-year colleges.

**Make Pell grants available to part-time and adult education (25+ year old college) students.

Retirement

**Require every employer with more than 5 employees to provide a retirement plan (401k, etc.) that enrolls workers automatically, increases their contributions incrementally over time unless they opt out (many workers today don’t participate simply because they don’t know about the plan, or don’t know how to use it), and provides investment advice. Tax credits would be provided to employers to help them comply.

**Create a 50% match of up to $2000 per year match on retirement savings for working and middle-class families.

Economy/Jobs/Energy

**Create a smart energy policy that sets America on a road to eventual petroleum independence, which will further encourage the development of new jobs in blossoming industries like ethanol and wind power production.

**Create an energy fund that will provide research dollars to develop cutting edge energy efficient technologies, cellulosic ethanol (from plant waste), bio-diesel, plug-in hybrids and other high-mileage vehicles, etc. All of these areas are ripe for growth in the wake of high energy prices, and can create millions of new jobs and billions of dollars in exportable technology and industry.

Home Ownership

**Allow everyone who owns a home to claim the mortgage deduction even if they do not otherwise itemize deductions (as many working- and middle-class families do not).

**Create a $5000 down payment tax credit for families who need it.

**Increase FHA loan limit to 100% of an area’s median home price so that families in high-priced areas are not locked out of affordable FHA loans.

**Provide certain employers such as police, firefighters, teachers, etc. with a 50% tax credit for employee housing assistance programs, to better help these kinds of employees live in high-priced areas (an impossible feat for many of these essential workers in areas like New York and DC).

Healthcare

**Encourage the movement of records from paper to electronic form, with strict provisions in place to protect consumer privacy. This information-sharing would greatly increase efficiency and lower the cost of providing healthcare services.

**Allow small businesses to pool their workforces together to be able to negotiate for better and cheaper health insurance than individual small employers could obtain by themselves.

**Provide universal children’s health care by reauthorizing and increasing funds for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and by providing incentives to employers to cover the dependents of employees in their health plans.

**Promote healthier living (thus preventing expensive future health problems) by taking junk food out of schools, and by providing resources to community-based programs that encourage exercise, nutrition, healthy living, and the like.

**Create a National Center for Cures that targets and coordinates research dollars for finding cures to diseases like cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s.

**Encourage further development of stem cell research.

**Strengthen Medicare by allowing the US Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.

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Overall it is a good and ambitious plan, and focuses on proposals in which both liberals and moderates in the Democratic Party can agree. My only “nitpick” is that I would like to see this plan condensed down to a few essential points that can be used in sound bytes and commercials over and over again to hammer the points home, just like the Republicans’ 1994 Contract with America. Democrats should also be prepared to provide greater detail as to how these provisions will be paid for at the same time that we attempt to return to “pay as you go” budgets.