These are still Sputnik days in The War Against Oil.
By that I mean, just as 50 years ago, most people are still in shock over the enormity of the challenge, and what may be necessary to meet it.
This, of course, is much bigger than what we faced 50 years ago. Most of the fear then was overdone. The Russians were not ahead of us technologically. They merely had a demonstration, based on rocket expertise acquired from Nazi Germany, which we had yet to exploit.
The War Against Oil, on the other hand, must become a living reality, worldwide. China is already fully engaged. This is a necessity on their part, given the Chinese economy's reliance on coal.
But is this something we can use? After all the "threat" of China is
mainly theoretical, in comparison to the threats we claim to face from
Mexico or the Muslim World.
What we need to do, then, is to gin up this threat from China. Play it up. Sell it. Because what we need to face the threat is the equivalent of an Apollo program, enormous goals that set the imagination aflame, and will do more to motivate people than greed alone.
During the political campaign we've mainly seen alternative energy used as an interest group. Nods are given to coal, to nuclear, to ethanol, to geothermal, but there is no strategy, no goals.
Here's a goal. Energy independence in 2020. Pretty high goal. An unattainable goal, say many. But a goal nonetheless. And an interim goal, because I'm not saying here that we must be off hydrocarbons, or even off oil, in order to attain that goal.
Only by setting a high goal can we change the subject from the theoretical to the practical. And only by raising the spectre of China, I believe, can we force leaders to set a goal.
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