Get Energy Smart! NOW!

To make it quite clear: the implication has nothing to do with the cause. the implication is that we are faced with an unexpected crisis that reveals a much ignored problem, and which can, if responded to the way it should be, change the nation and the world- for the better.

The explosion of Deepwater Horizon over a month ago and the devastating man-caused volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico are a massive unfolding disaster that merit national and, well, even global mobilization. While British Petroleum and other involved players have mobilized armies of lawyers, the fleet of vessels in the Gulf seem about as effective in response to the sea of oil as using a thimble to bail water from a sinking ship.

When it comes to a chance to change the nation for the better, this is Obama’s 9/11 and Katrina rolled into one. 9/11 was an opportunity to mobilize Americans to end our addiction to oil. Katrina was an opportunity to turn the nation toward a sustainable path forward as a model for America and the Globe. Obama has the opportunity to take action where George W Bush didn’t …

Without real leadership, Americans seem to be clueless about how bad the situation truly is and how bad it could (excuse me, almost certainly, will) become. As Peter Daou wrote today (in a must read post)

A calamity is unfolding before our eyes – the greatest oil spill in history – and America’s response is little more than a big yawn.

Bob Herbert yesterday

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. … This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter. America is selling its soul for oil.

President Obama continues to miss the opportunity to lead. In yesterday’s weekly address,

First and foremost, what led to this disaster was a breakdown of responsibility on the part of BP and perhaps others, including Transocean and Halliburton.

Sigh …

“Foremost“?

fore·most

adj.
1. First in time or place.
2. Ahead of all others, especially in position or rank; paramount. See Synonyms at chief.

adv.
1. In the front or first position.
2. So as to be most important.

While the first order cause was the, what looks to be, criminal negligence on the part of “Beyond Petroleum” and its coterie of contractors combined with technical arrogance, with a second-order cause lax oversight of the oil and natural gas drilling industries, these are far from “foremost”.

What is the “paramount” (most important, “pre-eminent”) cause of the disaster? Simply put, America’s (and the global) addiction to oil combined with peak oil driving oil exploitation into ever more difficult and dangerous environments. As long as the global thirst for oil grows, ever-riskier efforts to find resources to quench that thirst will go on. If we wish, in all seriousness, to reduce the likelihood of killing off another part of the world, we have to start our path off oil.

And, to do so requires leadership.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush had the opportunity to speak to the nation, laying out the reality that part of the reason for the attack was our oil addiction, and announcing that part of the path to “win” against those who attacked America would be to end our dependence on foreign oil. In the shadow of the World Trade Center’s flames, Americans would even have accepted a need to car pool, bike, and (yikes) to drive at 55 along with supporting an investment effort to electrify our rail system, develop electric vehicles, improve fuel economy, and a myriad of other steps to drive down our oil usage. Instead of mobilizing us toward action to strengthen the nation, he told us to take our credit cards to the shopping mall.

Following Katrina’s receding waters, President George W. Bush had an opportunity to declare a transformation of the Gulf Coast to a global model for prosperous, sustainable development. He could have highlighted the value of smart development, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and the need to reclaim the barrier islands and marshes devastated by fossil foolish interests that made New Orleans more vulnerable to a hurricane’s devastation. Instead, he gave a speech in a brightly lit square and left behind a legacy of broken promises.

President Obama — the Obama Administration — are facing a challenge as great as both 9/11 and Katrina. Sadly, to date, they seem to be playing a ‘lawyer’ and ‘media management’ game along the lines we see from British Petroleum. Legaling and PR’ing up isn’t leadership. Lawyers and Press Spokesmen won’t give us the Change we want, the Change we need.

The optimist side of my optimistic pessimism holds out a sliver of hope that we — collectively — have the opportunity to goad the President and the Administration into action. This is a case where the environmental, energy, economic, and political ‘right thing to do’ are the same thing …

We need President Obama to lead.

We need him to explain, forthrightly, not just that we must end our oil addiction but that we can.

We can and we must …

President Obama must explain the necessity and value of The Five Percent Solution.

Three notes …

1. To reiterate, go read Peter Daou’s The Great Shame: America’s Pathetic Response to the Gulf Catastrophe. You won’t be disappointed — well, you won’t be disappointed with his writing and thinking.

2. Let us be quite clear: Barack Obama is no George W Bush nor are his appointees anything like the Cheney-Bush team. The Administration is taking actions, there are people taking steps … just spend a few moments at the Deepwater Horizion Response website to see that blunt accusations of total inaction in the face of this disaster are wrong (see also the WH list of actions). As Joe Romm rightly notes, for example, the appointment of serious people to investigate Deepwater Horizon represent a desire to understand and learn from this catastrophe that stand in stark contrast to how Obama’s “immediate predecessor never showed such curiosity about his myriad mistakes, such as the response to Katrina”.

3. All analogies are difficult, with strengths and weaknesses. The, thus, perhaps ‘stretched’ analogy is that 9/11 gave Bush a perfect opening for ending oil addiction and Katrina for transforming the Gulf Coast to something different. Deepwater Horizon offers Obama these two opportunities wrapped into one package.