Berkley Bedell Blog

A Problem Capable of Solution: Foreign Policy Must Do List

We must accept today’s international realities.  We must set aside our dependence on arms to implement our foreign policy, stop being arrogant, and embrace cooperation.  Threats accomplish nothing so we must act as a nation like we do as individuals when faced with dangers such as natural disasters and disease, we must cooperate to overcome them.

 

We must give notice to the world of our intentions by announcing that the Bush Doctrine will no longer be part of the foreign relations policy of the United States.

 

We must fully support the United Nations as the best discussion and action body available.  Forming alliances such as the “coaltion of the willing,” to act when the U.N. will not, only furthers differences and encourages rivalries.

 

We need to revive the Anti-Ballistic Missle Treaty, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and all other measures to reduce and eliminate the possibility of nuclear holocaust.

 

We must reexamine our lack of support for the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

 

We need to promote, sign, ratify and support a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases and begin the process of preventing catastrophic climate change.

 

We must join 143 other nations in signing the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning landmines.

 

We must accept the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, known as the “International Bill of Rights,” which 149 other countries already have done.

 

Along with all nations, we must look into the planet’s distrubution of wealth, to say nothing of basic human needs.  Just one percent of our 2007 military spending would pay for two high-energy meals a day for 98 million children for one year.

 

We need to maintain a defense capability that actually protects our land, shores and airspace.  We should partner with all nations to deal with terrorism or rogue leaders.  We do not need bases, fleets and airfield spread imperialistically around the world.

 

We must join Jim Baker III and Warren Christopher, who served as secretaries of state for George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton, in supporting new legislation requiring the president to inform Congress of any plans to engage in significant armed conflict.

 

As a nation we must realize that we cannot run the whole world’s show.  Our foreign policy must put cooperation ahead of competition.  As we ought to know by now, the imposition of military might does not succeed and only leads to more strife.  And so much can be acccomplished with a change in the way our resources are directed.

 

With the last national election, the people of the United States of America had the chance to change the failed foreign policies of interference, competition and domination.  We must hold the executive branch to its promises and expect that the president will replace fear and force with reason and diplomacy.  We must continue to elect members of Congress who realize that the foreign policy must be changed and who accept their responsibility in the process. 

 

Our peace and prosperity, to say nothing of our survival, depend on it—Berkley Bedell. 

Competition, Cooperation

It is arguable whether or not the mighty military machine with which we find ourselves today actually defends us in a way that is necessary. We do know, however, that it is wasteful and expensive, and it does nothing for the furtherance of people striving to live peacefully on a planet with limited space, resources and waste disposal systems. More than any other factors in the world today, America’s military might and our willingness to use it as we see fit threaten the world’s security by allowing us to depend on power and competition instead of cooperation.

At this time in history the survival of humanity depends on recognition that competitive domination of the rest of the world is not only not in the best interst of the United States but cannot succeed. The answers to nuclear holocaust, global warming, depleted natural resources, millions of impoverished people, health threats, and sectarian violence cannot be found by looking to the military. They will be found when the assets now devoted to competitive mistakes are shifted to cooperative solutions.

Much of the lost assets are due to the military costs of the war on terror because the Bush administration believed the primary way to provide American security was with force. The "Pearl Harbors" of the terror war were the 9-11 bombings in New York and Washington D.C. with a loss of 2,987 lives. But the resulting rush to judgment has caused the deaths of 4,328 U.S. service persons in Iraq and 753 in Afghanistan along with thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, Afghans and Iraquis! The attacks were a tragedy but a tragedy made greater by the consequences of the pretext-based invasions that followed.

The time is for us to face the fact that competition will prevail until it is replaced by cooperation. And that to survive, we must cooperate.

The prospect of full cooperation between nations and the resultant shifting of national priorities and resources makes the world’s problems seem instantly manageable. Nuclear bombs can be eliminated. Depletion of the world’s natural wealth—land, forests, mineral deposits, water—can be curtailed. Stopping global warming and air pollution can be accomplished. Agricultural production and equitable food distribution can be increased. And dissemination of vital information to everyone can be enhanced.

The most monstrously devastating event in human history was World War II. The millions killed, wounded and emotionally scared are almost impossible to count—as are the material losses. The war ruined Europe and Japan and as an added terror included introduction of the the atomic age with its means for man to eliminate himself.

But Europe was rebuilt in large part due to America’s Marshall Plan and Japan was reconstruted by American occupation forces. Cooperation was the watchword and the results are self evident as Europe thrives and Japan is the world’s second largest economy.

Cooperation was also manifested after the war in October 1945 when the United Nations formally came into existence. It was founded "to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achieving world peace." It is not a perfect organization but over the years its evolution has resulted in a significant forum for discussion and vehicle for action on issues of worldwide importance-Jim Frost and Berkley Bedell.

The Futility of War, and Boxing

The United States government must reexamine its relationships with the rest of the world and how those relationships affect not only our own destiny but that of all people.  We must choose cooperation over competition.

 

Competition is a sociological fact of the human condition.  As prehistoric populations grew and societies matured it became necessary to form tribes to ease the struggle for food, territory and other resources, or because of philosophical differences.  As social groups and their leaders staked their claims, competition between them became the norm.

 

Characteristics of this include territorial disagreements; subjugation or exploitation of weaker tribes or states by more powerful neighbors; clashes based on religious and governance differences; qualified cooperation among communities when threatened or when it was in the best interests of each; imperial aspirations; and an escaltion in the importance if military strength.

 

Primary examples of the failure of imperialsim based on military strength came in 476 with the fall of the Roman Republic and in 1945 with the ruin of the British Empire.  Rome had disintegrated into a military dictatorship and fell when the military could not keep control of its increasingly restless and far-flung subjects.  Britain maintained itself as a democracy but at the cost of its empire, which fell as a consequence of World War II.

 

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the world with only the U.S. as a superpower empire.  It gave the neoconservatives who came into government in 2001 what they believed was license to flex their muscles.  Instead of taking the golden opportunity to lead the world with a spirit of cooperation, diplomacy and respect, they led it by trying to be the biggest bully on the block.  The lessons learned from Vietnam or by observing the Soviet Union in Afghanistan were ignored when our turn came in Afghanistan and Iraq and with the saber rattling over Iran.

 

Contrast these with our own Civil War—it was fought with horrible consequences but taught us that the differences we had between regions and among states had to be put aside so that the nation could be preserved. 

 

And contrast them with the nations of Europe, involved in years of conflict and millions of lost lives during the two world and earlier wars, that now have come together in the European Union to guarantee the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital among its 27 members.

 

As a quick and athletic young man, I was taught to box by a professional boxer turned minister.  I learned then about the futility of fighting, particularly that one fight  only leads to another; unless you give it up altogether you are never done.  The lessons learned can be applied to foreign relations.

 

I became fairly proficient and before the main events in Spirit Lake, Iowa, would box another young fellow named “Shorty” Hurst.  I enjoyed the sport but the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt Shorty—and I sure did not want him to hurt me.  Later I learned that the better you became at boxing, the more fights you got into.  And every time you won you faced a bigger and stronger challenger. 

 

It was one of my hardest days when went I went to my father, who was very proud of my boxing ability, to tell him I didn’t want to do it anymore.  I was quite sure fighting did not make friends and that sooner or later you got beat. 

 

Today I believe that just as my father was proud of me, we have every right to be proud of our military, particularly the dedicated volunteers who try to keep us safe.  However, using this monstrous tool to enforce our views on the world is an exercise in futility as Rome, Great Britain, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and boxing, have proved—Berkley Bedell.

War: Cost of A New Definition

A final foreign relations post on the past and then Thursday we will begin writing about the present and future.

 

In a November, 2007, speech to The Heritage Foundation, George W. Bush criticized members of Congress for, “behaving as if America is not at war...We are at war,” he said, “And we cannot win this war by wishing it away or pretending it does not exist.”

 

In analyzing this statement, “Pete,” who calls himself “a prematurely jaded copy editor” on The Powderhorn blog site, provides an excellent summary of what war really is.  He says that insofar as war ever may be labeled “popular,” this one might have been more so if there was a clear reason we were at war; if there was a defined, consistent enemy; if there was an imminent threat to people living in the U.S.; if at least a plurality of other countries agreed it was the right thing to do; and if there was a distinct point at which the war could be won.  None of this has been true about Iraq.

 

Perhaps the most significant consequence of Bush Doctrine was that it attempted to change the definition of war.  If it is allowed to remain even a small part of our foreign policy, the result could well be constant war as paranoid national political leaders continue to stretch the way it is defined, ultimately encompassing actions that are more accurately defined as criminal, and military leaders are given more and more opportunities to practice their craft.

 

Putting aside for the moment both the fact that the war on terror stretches the legitimate definition of war, and the many reasons for the exorbitant expense of today’s military, we need look no further than a comparison of basic budgets to recognize how much force has flourished vis-à-vis diplomacy.

 

For force: Actual total for 2007 was $626 billion for the Defense Department, atomic energy defense-related activities and other defense-related activities in both discretionary and mandatory categories. This does not include the emergency supplemental appropriation bills to fund the war on terror, which are not subject to the same budget enforcement mechanisms imposed on regular appropriations.

 

(Over the years, costs for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; Operation Noble Eagle, providing elevated military base security; and Operation Iraqi Freedom are estimated to be at least another $1 trillion.)

 

For diplomacy: Actual total cost for 2007 was $68.4 billion for State Department operations and other costs of the conduct of foreign affairs, international humanitarian assistance, international security assistance, foreign information and exchange activities and international financial programs.  There were no emergency supplemental appropriation bills.

 

The sad summary: To fund force, our president in 2007 recommended and our Congress approved almost 10 times the amount to fund diplomacy. 

 

And did this demented imbalance work?  Not according to most Americans.  Attitudess reflected in a late 2007 poll show that 46 percent thought neither side was winning the war on terror and an incredible 21 percent thought the terrorists were—Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost.

State vs. Defense: Diplomacy or Force

In spite of the influence of the hawks and neocons in the last administration, practitioners of traditional diplomacy attempted to soldier on.  Their success was limited and President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are now faced with rebuilding the role of diplomacy in world affairs. 

 

Colin Powell was a popular and moderate Army general, national security advisor and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  In conflict, he believed in using overwhelming force but that it should always be joined by strong international cooperation such as during the first Gulf War.

 

Powell has now revealed that in spite of his flawed February, 2003 presentation at the United Nations favoring military intervention in Iraq, he spent several hours with Bush arguing against such action. He has said it was a civil war and that it could not “be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.”

 

It has been written that Vice President Cheney’s characterization of the loyal soldier’s trip to New York was, "go up there and sell it, and we'll have moved forward a peg or two.  Fall on your damn sword and kill yourself, and I'll be happy, too." 

 

Powell testified to a Senate committee in September of 2004 that his United Nations speech was based on erroneous information and that the presence of weapons of mass destruction was not likely.  On Nov. 15 of that year, depending on the source, he was either asked to resign or not asked to stay for Bush’s second term.  Condoleezza Rice was named his successor the next day.

 

Powell asserted that he had planned all along to serve only one term but it seems apparent that he stayed even that long in spite of his lack of success in order to counterbalance the hawks and maintain at least some influence on the course of our foreign policy.  His tenure was characterized by turf battles between his Department of State, Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense and Cheney—in general his views did not prevail.  His attitude about the Bush administration neocons was most tellingly revealed when in a reported statement from a 2004 interview he referred to them as “f-----g crazies.”

 

Condoleezza Rice’s appointment was a mixed blessing.  An intellectually brilliant former Stanford professor, she was personally close to and held in high regard by Bush.  While on the one hand she helped plan and justify the Iraq debacle as his director of national security, on the other she was not a neoconservative and as Secretary of State advocated policies that were much more in line with traditional diplomacy than the neocon-inspired Bush Doctrine.

 

A plan she put forth, called “transformational diplomacy,” had five elements—note the absence of any reference to force:

 

1.  Relocating American diplomats to the places in the world where they are needed most, such as China, India, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, and Lebanon.

 

2.  Requiring diplomats to serve some time in hardship locations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Angola; gain expertise in at least two regions; and become fluent in two foreign languages, such as Chinese, Arabic, or Urdu.

 

3.  Focusing on regional solutions to problems like terrorism, drug trafficking, and diseases.

 

4.  Working with other countries on a bilateral basis to help them build a stronger infrastructure, and decreasing foreign nations' dependence on American hand-outs and assistance.

 

5.  Creating a high-level position, director of foreign assistance, to oversee U.S. foreign aid managed by the two agencies that manage the majority of foreign aid, the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  

 

Neither the sage advice of the former general, nor the influence of the former professor, however, put the Bush administration on a course that led to progressive and successful foreign relations, most particularly the avoidance of unnecessary future wars.  State, diplomacy, reason and cooperation were trumped by Defense, force, fear and competition—Jim Frost.

 

 

 

 

 

More About this Blog

We will get back to our foreign policy discussion but today I would like to write a bit more about the purpose of this blog.

Several years ago I spent the night at a friend's house in Connecticut on the shore of the ocean.  That same night astronaut Edgar Mitchell was staying at the same house.  The next morning Dr. Mitchell was on the front lawn with a movie camera, beside a large globe.

He said, "As we were traveling towards the moon in that tiny capsule we realized that we had to work together with our limited space, limited resources, and limited waste disposal system. I looked out that tiny window and saw that beautiful blue and white ball we call earth. And then all of a sudden a strange thing happened.   All of a sudden I realized that that blue and white ball we call earth was a space ship just as surely as was the one on which we were traveling.   But whereas we were working together to bring our flight through successfully recognizing our limited space, limited resources, and limited waste disposal system, the crew of billions of people on planet earth were not doing the same."

How right he was.   How successful do you think that space flight would have been if each of the crewmembers had a history of fighting each other and some were armed with weapons with which they could blow up the space ship? What if they did not agree on how the space ship should be governed?  What if they failed to recognize the limits of their waste disposal system? And what if each of them were judged primarily upon how much of the space ship they could gather unto themselves during the trip?

We can argue about how many years the non-renewable resources of this space ship earth will last, but surely they will not last forever.

We can argue about how much pollution our space ship can absorb, but surely there is a limit.   We have already increased the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 40 percent.

We can argue about how many people this space ship can hold, but surely there is a limit to our capacity.

And we can argue about how many nuclear bombs the planet can absorb and still sustain human life, but surely there is a limit to the nuclear radiation that the planet can absorb and still permit life.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss these issues.   To continue to ignore them, I believe threatens the survival of our species.

I am a product of capitalism. I started a fishing tackle manufacturing business when I was 15 

years old.   That business has been a great success, and it has brought me and my family substantial wealth and security.

Like my friends, our "Standard of Living" is much higher than it was for my grandparents. Our dishwashers and refrigerators make our living easier, and cars and airplanes make it possible for us to travel around the world. But except for our improved medical care, I am not at all sure that we are living much more rewarding lives.

With the recent financial melt down, television brings us news of the plight of people who have lost their jobs, and face financial disaster while financial executives who helped to bring on this disaster rake in million dollar bonuses. This in a country where there is sufficient total wealth for everyone to have their basic needs, including adequate health care.   For the first time, we have the chance to look at some of the problems that come with uncontrolled capitalism and what parts of socialism might improve upon the lives of our people.

We have a chance to look at a democracy where the people elect their leaders, but the leaders are then dependent upon pleasing their wealthy political contributors and their lobbyists to get the money they need for their next election.

Competition and consumption are one way. Cooperation and conservation are another. For the first time in a long time, we can look objectively at the choices of our world community as we try to bring this space ship earth successfully through its journey.

I hope this blog will give us an opportunity to discuss some of these issues without worrying about what others may think of our opinions.

The stakes are too high for us to worry about how we are perceived—Berkley Bedell.

 

Remember the Past

 

Philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

 

The purpose of this Weblog is to examine issues and move forward but an understanding of what brought about today’s mess in our foreign policy is necessary background if we are to overcome past mistakes.

 

President George W. Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001; nine months later his administration was forced to deal with the terrorist bombings in New York and Washington, D.C.  He named an axis of evil countries, pronounced the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, identified dangerous leaders, and set out to right the world’s wrongs by declaring a war on terror.

 

Today’s foreign policy is enmeshed in this controversial “war.”  At its best, it was a way to define a very real world threat.  At its worst it was used to defend the loss of thousands of lives, justify a worldwide buildup of military forces and huge increases in military spending, condone one-sided military action including invasion of sovereign states, and overlook the loss of U.S. moral authority and leadership in the world.

 

It was based on innovative if insidious foreign policy principles called the Bush Doctrine.  This doctrine essentially says we have the right to treat countries that harbor or aid terrorists as terrorists and that the U.S. may unilaterally intervene with military force to remove foreign governments that pose or might pose a threat.  It is wrapped in the flag and the guise of defending democracy and our way of life but most Americans feel that one of its results—the Bush invasion of Iraq—neither made the United States more secure nor was a war worth fighting.

 

Bad policy coupled with bad execution can result in disaster but from where did the bad policy come?

 

Although some might suggest the policy is rooted in American tradition with ancestry that can be traced back to the Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick,” it actually has a recent birth.

 

In 1997, an organization named the Project for the New American Century was founded.  Of all the Washington think tanks hatching governance plans that might or might not be implemented depending on how the winds of politics—particularly presidential politics— blow, this one turned out to be one of the most dangerous. 

 

At its beginning, PNAC board and staff asked, “Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades?” and, “Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?^”  Here are some of their shaky determinations:

 

·         We need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future.

 

·         We need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values.

 

·         We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

 

Signers of the PNAC’s statement of principles included key foreign policy officials in the administration of George W. Bush: Elliot Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paula Dobriansky, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.  Support came from conservative intellectuals such as John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, Steve Forbes, J. Danforth Quayle, Washington Post columnist and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer, and author Thomas Donnelly.

 

As early as January of 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others openly pushed President Bill Clinton to use U.S. military power to remove Saddam Hussein.  They claimed that the United Nations Security Council should not be allowed to cripple our policies and that we could not rely on our allies from the 1990 Gulf War to punish Hussein for his threats to U.S. interests.

 

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the perfect president for these strong-willed individuals and their aggressive policies was in office.  Bush proceeded to put PNAC leaders in powerful and influential government positions, particularly at the Pentagon and White House.  They jumped at the opportunity to intensify planning and looked forward to putting their plans into practice.  Whether because of their strength, his own beliefs or a simple lack of intellectual curiosity, the president embraced the schemes as being central to what became the Bush Doctrine.

 

Then came the Sept. 11 attacks.  The perpetrators were united first by philosophy and only secondarily by nationality but the president and the neoconservatives from the PNAC used the doctrine to justify hunting down and punishing them and proceeded to invade Afghanistan.  Later, the added menace of weapons of mass destruction was necessary to publicly sell the invasion of Iraq and still later, ridding the world of a dangerous dictator was added to the excuses. In both countries, however, the basis for our military action has been the Bush Doctrine.

 

The now bankrupt doctrine gave rise to action that has had virtually no impact on the threat with which it was supposed to deal—terrorism. It curtailed the search for effective ways to handle the threat, limited the resources available to implement workable solutions and to a great extent pushed aside traditional diplomacy—Jim Frost.

The Problem

 

United States foreign policy has often been driven by insistence that our interests have preeminence in the world—by imperialistic domination of other people and nations if necessary.  Imposition of what our political and military leaders unilaterally determine is right comes at the expense of understanding, cooperation and diplomacy.  It cannot succeed in the diverse and fractious complex that is the world of today.

 

Our foreign policy has been sometimes more, sometimes less dynamic depending on world conditions and existing U.S. leadership but four paradigms apparent since 1776 can be identified plus another that helps define the mess we are in today.

 

Today we will look at the first four patterns and on Thursday begin to tackle the “war on terror” and its ramifications.  The historical overview in this posting will be useful as we go forward.

 

1776 to 1898: Isolation

 

For the first 122 years of its existence, United States foreign policy was basically isolationist.  Europe was seen as the principal source of threats to our developing way of life.  Trade with our former enemy, Great Britain, as well as France, Spain, the Netherlands and other countries was about as far as we wanted to go with international relations. 

 

Although the Navy was established and lesser wars against Barbary pirates, France and Great Britain took place between 1801 and 1812, the principal military objective was defense of our own territory so that democracy, accompanied by domestic prosperity, could go forward unhindered.

 

The United States formally shut the door on Europe (including Russia) in 1823 when our fifth president, James Monroe, established his doctrine proclaiming that the Western Hemisphere should be free from further European colonization or interference in its countries’ affairs.  We would consider attempts to create new colonies or other interference in the Americas hostile acts toward the U.S. but would otherwise remain neutral in conflicts between European nations.

 

For most of the rest of the 19^th century, economic growth and post Civil War territorial consolidation, coupled with the complete withdrawal of Britain and France, led to affirmation of U.S. regional preeminence as the principal nation in the Americas.  Along with this came a worldwide awakening to the young country’s potential power.

 

1898 to 1945: On the World Stage

 

This power began to be more broadly manifested when the United States took on and beat Spain in an 1898 war—a fledgling step toward imperialism that gained for us the Philippines and Guam.  At the same time, President Theodore Roosevelt added his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, stating our right to intervene with weak states in the region in order to help them achieve stability.

 

World War I and World War II put an emphatic end to any pretext that the United States could exist in a world free of the influence of other nations.  After World War I the country turned inward to deal with the Great Depression and tried again for isolation by rejecting internationalism as typified by the League of Nations.  This ended when we joined the allies fighting Germany, Italy and Japan.  In 1945 the war’s conclusion included the use of nuclear weapons against Japan.  It also left Europe devastated and the world with the United States and Soviet Union as equal and clearly dominant nations. 

 

The two superpowers soon became adversarial although they joined most of the countries of the world in the United Nations, a venue the United States wholeheartedly supported as one means of trying to deal with international problems and reduce the chance of what this time would probably be a nuclear world war.

 

1946 to 1991: Cold War

 

As the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and the Bamboo Curtain on China after World War II, the Cold War began and became the basis for United States foreign policy.  The world was divided into three camps: the U.S. and its allies, the Soviet Union and its allies, and the unaligned or so-called Third World countries.  Mutually assured destruction thankfully forestalled a nuclear war but the superpowers often stood toe to toe and there were several major conflicts, including those that involved the U.S. fighting allies or client states of the U.S.S.R. notably in Korea and Vietnam.

 

Containment of communism and an effort to limit Soviet influence were the cornerstones of our foreign policy during this period.  Specifically this involved building global alliances with like-minded governments as well as spreading our diplomatic, economic and military weight worldwide.  All over the world the U.S. made overtures toward or was friendly with repressive governments, including China, if it helped further our primary goal of restraining the Soviets.

 

1991-2001: Prosperity and Emerging Issues

 

The Soviet Union collapsed and we fought the Gulf War in 1991; the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.  In between was a period of relatively passive international activity while at home we enjoyed prosperity. 

 

At the same time issues that have now become preeminent were evident.  Included are climate related catastrophes, ethnic struggles, terrorism, hunger and poverty, dictatorial regimes, and even our national credo that we be able to pursue individual freedom and prosperity without worrying too much about how the rest of the world fares—Berkley Bedell.

Solution, Wrapup

President Bill Clinton’s science and technology advisors stressed the importance of the U.S. taking the lead with innovative energy technology, a future multi-billion dollar business, because of its economic ramifications.  Boone Pickens and other entrepreneurs know this and are ready to move.

 

As documented in a post at http://alternativeenergy.dowjones.com/, alternative energy has emerged as a key investment area for venture capitalists.

 

The Ford Motor Company has just released plans to deliver a fleet of new battery-powered electric cars to the United Kingdom for use in a British study.

 

California’s Energy Innovations Small Grant (EISG) Program provides up to $95,000 for hardware projects and $50,000 for modeling projects to small businesses, non-profits, individuals and academic institutions to conduct research that establishes the feasibility of new, innovative energy concepts. 

 

And President Barack Obama has made cimate control one of his two signature domestic policy initiatives. 

 

Concerns that have officially been all but ignored are seeing the light of day.   Progress that has been stymied is being revitalized.   

 

But the fact remains that today, many of us live good and comfortable lives.  We drive big cars, live in temperature controlled houses, do not worry too much about the price of gasoline or our dependence on other countries for our energy supply, and generally are not obsessed about climate change.  We should be. 

 

If our leaders were told that in 10 years there was a good chance of a nuclear attack or collision with an asteroid, no effort would be spared to prevent it.  We must wake them up, and wake up ourselves, to the possibility that air pollution and climate change could be just as catastrophic—Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost.