Last night, Howard Dean lost me.
Dean appeared on Hardball to answer Chris Matthew's question: What does the Democratic Party stand for these days? What will it fight for?
At the very end of the interview, Matthews asked his most brilliant question: "Dr. Dean, should Democrats be driving SUV's?"
The old Howard Dean would have said "No!"
The new Howard Dean smiled and said: "I'm not going to touch that one Chris."
--Long pause--
Matthews: (looking amazed) "You're not?"
--Long pause--
Dr. Dean: (smiles) "No..."
What we've learned here is that neither party has any semblance of an energy policy to take us forward into the future. The answer to the question, Dr. Dean, is "No. No one should be driving SUV's" - followed by an explanation that America desperately needs a new energy policy of conservation and clean energy alternatives to oil, so we can stop polluting the planet and stop sending our children to die in the Middle East.
Clean energy alternatives alone won't do it. Today America has a built environment and infrastructure that is totally dependent on oil-cheap easy motoring. We have laid out our neighborhoods, shopping centers and living spaces in a way that requires car travel (polluting the air and wasting our time in traffic all while keeping us physically sedentary and socially isolated). No new energy of the future will support this kind of lifestyle. We should begin building more condensed, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods connected by light rail, start retrofitting the suburban areas along the same lines, and stop exburban development altogether.
Matthew's trick question was really a softball lilting over the plate. The Democratic Party is still swinging at the air.
Pag,
Dean lost me a long time ago, and now every time he steps in front of the camera, it feels like he's kicking me in the gut.
What happened to articulating a message of "fuck the republicans, let's do great things" compellingly communicated?
Oh, right, that was Joe Trippi.
Dean now appears to be confusing an articulated vision with counterproductive controversy.
Re: energy, I think you're right on - energy technologies are judged by our current lifestyle framework. What alternative lifestyles, so to speak, enabled by new technology, will create radical energy savings that actually improve quality of life?
What assumptions need to be turned on their heads to create a compelling energy-efficient alternative lifestyle?
Where's the Blue Ocean http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/pages/summary.htm
of energy innovation?
cheers,
P.
Posted by: Patrick Smith | October 06, 2005 at 09:24 AM
P.
To answer your question, I think the answer is out there: the 'alternative lifestyle/alternative living arrangements" we need is something called the new urbanism, and we already possess the technology to do it. Check out Congress for New Urbanism. http://www.cnu.org
-Pag
Posted by: John Paget | October 07, 2005 at 06:49 PM
Not so sure, Pag, about the applicability of neo-urbanism as an energy-efficient alternative lifestyle.
What have the neo-urbanists given us?
More suburbs.
Neo-urbanism has become just another excuse for developers to plant a cornfield with new houses.
Granted, it's a better suburb than those of the 70's and 80's. But it's still exurbia marching onward.
I'm more interested in technologies that can be applied in our current built environment that will make it an economic no-brainer for home-owners to be energy-efficient.
Not sure when humanure http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html will become mainstream, but there are an increasing number of compelling energy alternatives as well as visibility for them.
Check out the Solar Decathalon that's on the DC Mall this week http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/ and publications like Inhabitat http://www.inhabitat.com/entry_384.php
cheers,
P.
Posted by: Patrick Smith | October 14, 2005 at 10:07 AM
Eh.. Would you like more of my cowardly blow I have a nice joke for you) What's green and red and goes 1000 miles an hour? A frog in a blender.
Posted by: LefTreashhard | October 29, 2008 at 12:32 PM
What makes you think that it is your right to tell me how to live my life? If civil debate between us fails to convince majority of Americans to change their "immoral" habits of choosing the place of their residence, kind of a vehicle they prefer to drive, etc. - leave them alone! I can't help it but feel that all this environmental hysteria fits suspiciously well into liberal Big brother government paradigm of keeping their subjects clustered in close urban environments where it's easier to keep government's watchful eye on them. You always seem to have some scare handy to promote this agenda. It used to be global cooling, then global warming and now - climate change. Forecasts of doom always change, but catastrophe for some reason is always imminent. Does it really have anything to do with concern for people's well-being or you simply can't tolerate individual freedom?
Posted by: A.Butorin | May 18, 2009 at 06:22 PM