[Mb-civic] Going Geo-Green

[Michael Butler]

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From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:29:42 EST



Going Geo-Green
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 31 March 2005

"I am a geo-green," says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has
written a series of columns expounding his "geo-green" stance. Geo-greens,
he 
says, combine geopolitics with green strategies - specifically in the
context of 
the Middle East and terrorism.

Friedman says that Bush's failure to advocate conservation and renewable
energy results in a "no mullah left behind" policy. By refusing to conserve,
America ensures high oil prices that keep the regimes of Iran and Saudi
Arabia 
flooded with cash and resistant to democratic reform.

What Friedman neglects to say is that these same windfall profits are also
landing in the laps of western oil companies. Look at Exxon-Mobil: now
valued at 
more than $400 billion, it is the world's most profitable corporation.
Friedman also continues to spin the fantasy that Bush's Iraq invasion has
helped to 
bring democracy to the Middle East, but his geo-green idea, at least, makes
perfect sense. 

Friedman has addressed his plea to Bush and the neocons, and some neocons
are 
already with him. Former CIA director James Woolsey owns a Prius and has
been 
outspoken about the need to promote energy independence as a national
security strategy. 

Woolsey is not the only conservative who is going geo-green. Here's some
news 
for my friends in the biodiesel movement: the Red State folks are fascinated
by your veggie mobiles. See this blog post at Redstate.com . They detect a
whiff of the French about you that goes beyond your French fry oil, they
laugh at 
your goatees and wonder if you wash, but they are intrigued. Some of them
are 
even brave enough to consider Friedman's idea of a dollar a gallon gas tax
to 
help wean us from petroleum.

On March 14th, ultraconservative congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) gave a
presentation on the House floor on the topic of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the
theory 
that all of the significant petroleum reserves have already been located and
that we have now used up about half of that 2000 gigabarrel legacy from the
Earth's past. Because the last 1000 gigabarrels will be increasingly hard to
extract, the era of cheap oil is over, starting now. Bartlett explained the
dangers of the intersecting curves of rising demand and falling production.
He even 
advanced the heretical notion that "Š transition to sustainability will not
happen if left to market forces alone."

Friedman has called for "making energy independence our generation's moon
shot." He's not the only one with this idea. A non-profit group called the
Apollo 
Alliance has already built the launch pad. They propose a renewable energy
investment program of $30 billion a year for ten years that would create
more 
than 3.3 million jobs and produce $284 billion in net energy cost savings.

Apollo has teamed up with Set America Free, a group headed by right-wingers
like Richard Perle protégé Frank Gaffney. Set America Free advocates a crash
program of alternative fuels development centered on the 500 mpg car - a
plug-in 
hybrid vehicle that fills up both at the gas pump and the wall plug. It
could 
easily run on ethanol or biodiesel as well.

Gaffney and his neocon colleagues at Set America Free are clearly worried
about more than the Islamists. In a recent column, Gaffney said, "Š we are
likely 
to find increasing competition from China for limited oil will become a
flash 
point for future conflict, if not an actual causus belli."

So where are the Democratic voices linking energy conservation and national
security? With awareness of Peak Oil rising along with prices at the pump,
it's 
time for Democrats to make it clear they are leading the charge for the
geo-green strategy. They might even want to call it "energy security."

Energy security is the big tent that the Dems desperately need, because
energy security encompasses just about everything. For starters, take the
economy, 
which is starting to bog down under escalating energy prices. Diverting
money 
that would go to ayatollahs and sultans (as well as to oil company CEOs and
wealthy investors, by the way) and pumping it into renewable energy programs
would create jobs and lower future energy prices.

And saving the economy through energy security might well be the REAL
salvation of social security.

There is no doubt that the environment is much better served by achieving
long-term energy security. Eventually we will have to give up fossil fuels
altogether, and if we can make the transition sooner rather than later, we
may be 
able to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Drilling, spilling,
mining, 
refining and burning oil, coal and gas also take a hefty toll on our health.
Fetal brain damage from mercury pollution, asthma, heart disease and cancer
are 
the wages of our sin. Religion, too, fits under this big tent. Some
Christians 
have started a "What Would Jesus Drive" (WWJD) campaign to encourage us to
make a deeper commitment to earth stewardship. Many faiths have a green core
that will embrace geo-green ideas.

Every time I hear John Kerry talk about dipping into the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve to ease gas prices, I cringe. Democrats need to get over their fear
of 
asking for a national sacrifice. How can Americans be willing to send our
young people to die in Iraq but refuse to sacrifice one bit of our comfort
and 
convenience to help the cause? Jimmy Carter's cardigan hangs over the
Democrats 
like a shroud. But times are different now. When Reagan turned the
thermostat 
back up at the White House and ripped the solar panels off the roof, the oil
boom of the 1980s was about to begin. There will never be another oil boom.

Next week, when Congress returns from Easter recess, it will begin to take
up 
the President's energy bill. There is no indication at this point of any
significant change from last year's version, which devoted two dollars out
of 
every three to oil, coal, gas and nuclear subsidies.

The Democrats need to stand tall for energy security. And along with any
conservatives who, living up to their name, believe in conservation, they
can 
point the way to a green future that just maybe, if we are blessed with a
bit of 
foresight and courage, awaits us all.



Kelpie Wilson is the t r u t h o u t environment editor. A veteran forest
protection activist and mechanical engineer, she writes from her
solar-powered 
cabin in the Siskiyou Mountains of southwest Oregon. -------

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