reviving Carter's Vision on Global Day of Action

I tell this story to people all the time. Jimmy Carter was a visionary. He put solar panels on the Whitehouse 31 years ago and challenged the United States to become solar powered, pointing out we could get off our addiction to foreign oil which would make us safer and we could become leaders in the solar industry. Then Reagan came in and took the solar panels down. Meanwhile countries like China and Germany have taken Carter's dream and made it a reality.

Well today activist Bill McKibben (who I have met) and some college students from Unity College in Maine are taking one of Carter's original panels back to the Whitehouse to try and get Obama to reinstall the solar dream. The panels have actually been heating water at Unity College are still up and running.

Carter's words when he installed the solar panels are noteworthy:

"A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people."

Bill McKibben is asking Obama to install solar panels on the Whitehouse on 10-10-10. Sungevity has offered to donate the array and McKibben has found Union workers to install it.

The day 10-10-10 is being organized by 350.org as the biggest global environmental work day in history. You can go HERE to plan an event or find an event in your area to attend. So far they have over 1700 events happening in over 140 countries.

Other words from Carter's 1977 speech:

"By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us."

"Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy."

"We must look back in history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years there has been a transition in the way people use energy."

"Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power."

"Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden."

He laid out 10 principles in his great speech upon which his energy policy would be built - much around fairness. I think his 6th principle is worth special note:

"The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it. "

The entire speech is good and if you took out the dates it could be given by someone today. Such a shame we did not act on Carter's vision but the world is even more prepared to act today so how about it Obama?