by David Bolton.
When I was a San Francisco cab driver in the ‘70s, for a time I drove a Plymouth sedan powered by propane. The white tank fit in the trunk, leaving not much room for suitcases. Propane did not pack quite the same punch as gas, no get up and go from 60 to 80, but that did not matter. The tank was good for 100 miles. Should I drive more than 100 that night, say on the ride to Sacramento, no problem. When the engine coughed, you pulled the lever, and the car switched to gasoline. This clean fuel had potential… just as electric cars had potential in the 1920s.
Here we stand as a country, 50 years removed from the first Earth Day, still fouling the planet with 19th century technology. The internal-combustion engine should have been replaced decades ago—had this country heeded President Carter’s call for “the moral equivalent to war.” From October 1973 to March 1974, the country endured the trauma of an oil embargo, courtesy of our Saudi allies and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). Long lines at the gas stations snaked across the land. In 1979, those lines returned because of a gasoline shortage, due to the Islamic revolution in Iran.
In a televised, prime-time speech, President Carter called for getting off foreign oil; to make that happen, he needed help from the American people. They had to rise above their differences and come together for a common purpose. He called for investments in solar, wind, and hydro power. Maybe by 2000 the country would be free of oil, leading to a cleaner world. His message fell on deaf ears. Political cartoonists and pundits mocked him.
Think of how different the world would be had the CIA not orchestrated in 1953 the Iranian coup, “Operation Ajax,” the overthrow of the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh, who nationalized the oil fields two years earlier. “The Seven Sisters,” an international oil cartel, were not pleased. Time to revive the Peacock Throne, bring back the Shah. How’d that work out?
From 1977 on, Exxon understood that the world’s dependence on fossil fuels was fueling global warming. Like the tobacco folks, the oil monolith kept the bad news to itself. In 1981, Ronald Reagan rode into DC on his high horse and declared in his inaugural speech that government was the problem, not the solution. This was a man who once said that trees were a source of pollution. Early on in his presidency, he had the solar panels removed from the White House roof. Can’t have those. People might get ideas. It played well on talk radio.
Yes, it was “morning in America.” No more talk of sacrifice. That’s for tree huggers. Time for the “Me Generation” to get rich. Cars got bigger, houses became McMansions, and appetites for conspicuous consumption exploded. Greed was good. Saving the world was out; lower taxes were in. The business of oil was better than ever. Meanwhile, the homeless were cluttering the streets, bridges, and sidewalks.
Not that there hadn’t been progress in reducing pollution in the 1970s. The Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and the EPA had a positive impact. In addition to unleaded gas, the catalytic converter significantly cut vehicle emissions. No longer did putrid orange clouds hang over the San Gabriel Mountains or Oakland hills. The Metro in DC and BART in San Francisco pointed the way for future transportation.
The Reagan and Bush administrations favored big business and billionaires. The less regulations, the better, setting off an era of rampant mergers and acquisitions. Antitrust? Not happening.
Rapacious capitalism has had a big impact on global warming; it also destroyed the American dream for millions of Americans. A good example is Walmart’s arrival in Huntington, West Virginia… plopped its big box just off the Interstate, making it convenient for people to flock to the big store for the lowest prices in town. Walmart killed business up and down 4th Avenue, the main street downtown. No more hardware store, movie theater, or hotel. No more department store. Even the pool hall suffered. Many of those who lost their jobs ended up on welfare, working for Walmart at minimum wage. This destruction of social fabric was replicated in towns across rural America. Today Huntington, thanks to the Sackler family, is the opioid capital of the country.
What’s this have to do with global warming? Consider what Walmart did to U.S. manufacturing. It operated like the Mob, pressing manufacturers to move their factories to China, lest they lose access to the Walmart market. Take lawn mowers: Briggs and Stratton was the sole company to defy the threat; it continued with great success to make its mowers in the States using American parts. Good for them. Now just about everything seems to come from China. This trans-Pacific commerce is a major contributor to global warming, as much as 20%.
Meanwhile, weather was sending a message: a six-year drought in California… category 5 hurricanes… tornadoes in December. As Johnny Cash once sang: “How high’s the water, Mama?” The American public was not paying much attention.
I lived in Tokyo for two years in the 80s… worked for a Japanese advertising agency, writing copy for Isuzu, Japan Airlines, Citizen Watches, and JVC. My family was enrolled in the national health plan. My second daughter, Stephanie, was born in a Japanese hospital. Mother and child spent six days there, standard operating procedure. Cost of the stay? Six dollars, a buck a day for the TV.
My family of four lived in Ikebukuro, a suburb of Tokyo. A rice field was next to our duplex. Five or six days a week I would take the train downtown to Tokyo Station, about a 40-minute commute. Like spokes on a wheel, trains, light rail, and subways converged in the huge, underground station; millions of people passed through. People avoided driving in this city of 20 million. Parking downtown cost $100, and mass transit was ubiquitous.
This had to be the future.
The Clinton administration talked a good game about the environment, but fossil fuels still ruled the roost when Y2K passed. At the beginning of the new century, renewable energy accounted for perhaps 3% of the energy market.
In a press conference, the accidental president, George W. Bush, reaffirmed that science was uncertain regarding humanity’s impact on global warming. Add the ringmaster, Fox News to the milieu, and a good portion of the country came to accept that lie as fact.
Then 9-11 hit.
It was President Bush’s finest hour. Bullhorn in hand, he stood on the rubble of the Twin Towers. “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you!” When baseball returned, he threw out the first pitch in Yankee Stadium, tossing a strike. The Texan stood tall when he addressed the joint session of Congress, his words sharp and defiant: “The war on terror will not end until every terrorist of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Al Gore called his former opponent “my commander in chief.”
The invasion of Afghanistan had 90% approval from the American people when the first boots hit the ground. Supposedly, the Taliban offered an unconditional surrender, but it was rejected. The rout was on, all the way to the Tora Bora mountains, where the greatest army on earth lost the trail of Osama Bin Laden.
Then rumblings about Iraq emanated from the White House; now it seemed that Saddam Hussein had played a role in the 9-11 attack. The Orwellian spin was on. Members of the administration flooded Sunday talk shows, talking about “the mushroom cloud” and “the smoking gun.” Colin Powell’s dramatic presentation at the U.N. sealed the deal.
100,000 American troops departed Afghanistan, not a good move in the long run for the Afghanis. Again, Bush had overwhelming public approval for his invasion. Many Boomers remembered the Cuban missile crisis. Can’t have weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a madman. How surreal to gaze at the nocturnal skyline of Baghdad, waiting for the show to start.
The Iraqi invasion was all about oil: Haliburton, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a host of scoundrels who privatized the occupation. GIs showered in fetid water while contractors lived in luxury. When things went wacko, igniting a civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites, flag-draped coffins started arriving at Dover Air Force Base.
As with the Gulf of Tonkin, when President Johnson lied about a North Vietnamese attack, Americans felt betrayed by the corruption associated with this unnecessary conflict. Nevertheless, Bush was reelected, thanks to the propaganda machine that turned a war hero into a traitor. Goebbels would have been proud.
Meanwhile, Al Gore was trying to raise public awareness about global warming. His movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” carried a dark warning. His Nobel Prize speech was terrifying:
“Today we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer…. The earth has a fever. And the fever is rising.”
Gore was an easy target for Fox News and right-wing media. He was belittled for being a hypocrite, for living on an estate while preaching sacrifice. They shredded his proposal for a CO2 tax that would be rebated back to the people. His marriage to Tipper was dissected and may have contributed to their separation… anything to mute the man’s message.
Barack Obama entered the White House with good intentions regarding the environment, but his primary focus was on health care. After losing the majority in the House in the 2010 election, he would have little legislative impact. The president could only nibble around the edges with executive orders, such as raising the gas mileage requirement for vehicles.
His successor, who called global warming “a Chinese hoax,” ended that requirement; he also trashed Obama’s plan for clean power. From the National Wildlife Refuge in the Arctic to the coastal waters around the U.S.A., President Trump voided bans on oil and gas production. His regulatory rollbacks regarding mercury, methane, coal ash, pesticides, and other toxic substances poisoned the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement of 2015, which limited global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
Since 1992, countries have come together to address global warming. Treaties were signed. Promises made. In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 191 countries pledged to reduce emissions, the United States by 7%. Republicans in Congress howled, saying this would damage the economy. They did everything they could to stall Senate approval. Once George W. Bush assumed office, the Senate rejected the treaty.
Sadly, many of the agreements turned out to be little more than Kabuki, a lot of sincere talk but no real substance. Germany continued to invest in coal, as did Australia. China considered itself exempt as a developing country. The United States pursued fracking. Drill, baby, drill.
James Watt, Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, said at his Senate confirmation hearing that he was not too concerned about the environment because he was a Christian and would be going to a better place when he died.
I beg to differ. Earth reflects the soul of humanity.
Gore in his Nobel speech said the world had 7 or 8 years to avoid catastrophe. That was 14 years ago.
How depressing to be where we are as a country and where we could have been.
Recently, Bradley, my 10-year-old grandson, declared that his kids might be living in 150 degrees. Is that our legacy? The Parana River, second largest river in South America, is drying up. What if the Colorado ran dry? There is no Red or Blue here. Everyone suffers.
Eighty years ago, the American people came together for a common purpose. Why not now? In Glasgow, Scotland, 200 nations pledged to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Let’s hope they are serious this time. President Biden’s two trillion-dollar bill, “Build Back Better,” would delegate $555 billion toward clean energy. T
There are ways, such as carbon capture, to slow global warming. It’s a matter of will.
Consider this: When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. military was puny in comparison to the Nazis and Japanese. In the ensuing 18 months, the American people built the biggest war machine on earth.
We need the same commitment toward global warming.
We’re like frogs in a pot. The heat is on.