Indiana Jones to the Rescue?

• Author: Ayres, Ed
• Position: Note From A Worldwatcher - United States' energy policy - Brief Article

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And these times aren't just extraordinary. On the energy policy front, they're almost unbelievable. The United States, the most powerful and profligate country on Earth, has just re-entered the 19th century, six-guns blazing and smokestacks smoking. George W. Bush has just announced his new energy plan, and as the new president (with help from vice president Dick Cheney) sees it, the big goals for the future are to burn a lot more coal and oil and to do a make-over on nuclear power. Maybe he assumes that by now, most Americans have forgotten all about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

So, not only is the new president evidently content to assume a "what, me worry?" stance regarding the global-warming impacts of burning ever-increasing quantities of fossil fuels; he also appears to be unfazed by the fact that the nuclear industry depends heavily on being propped up by the federal government--the very kind of government intervention that conservatives say they despise. If nuclear were left to fend for itself in the energy market, it would--if it were able to voluntarily maintain current levels of protection against radiation leaks, explosions, and thefts of nuclear materials--quickly go out of business.

What to do? The problem here is that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney apparently do not read the reports of scientists who study such fields as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental security. They seem to be surrounded by advisors and cronies who screen the information they receive for its ideological suitability. Among the reports that would apparently have been deemed unsuitable are the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity in 1992, or the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species in 1996, or the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, or any of the several other landmark reports that are telling us the time has come for a fundamental shift in the energy economy.

If the U.S. leaders shrug off science as though it is not really essential to the future technologies they seem to think will solve any problems we may encounter, what can we do to get through to them? Time is short; the Earth is warming; the sea is rising; the pressure on natural systems is building; and the stability of many societies is weakening. We've been wondering, along with concerned people all over the world, how can we connect?

Thankfully, it's no longer...