Thomas Friedman writes about how Denmark responded to the 1973 oil crises by becoming energy independent while growing their economy. In 1973 they got 99% of their energy from the Middle East, and decided that just wasn’t going to work for them. By raising taxes on fossil fuel and lowering income taxes, they created an environment for innovation where people were encouraged to work harder at conserving energy.
Instead of getting out of the Middle East, like the Danes, we seem to have gotten ourselves in deeper. We pandered to Saddam Hussein, then attacked him in 1991, and then ousted him from power in 2002. We let fundamentalists overthrow the Shah of Iran, got stuck in a hostage situation, and now we are shaking our fists at the same fundamentalists after we practically encouraged them to support terror. And let’s not forget how we kiss the feudalistic and human rights trampling Saudis asses, (you know, the country of Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11) while they laugh all the way to the banks they own.
Why is it then, that unlike the Danish (mmmm, delicious) government, whose encouragement of energy independence has led to a more healthy society (50% of vehicles on the road are bicycles), our government has led us into war and fear for the past 35 years. The Danes are now the main exporters of alternative energy, but they say they’ve seen 35 new competitors in the last eighteen months. That would be great news, except not one of those companies is American. They are all Chinese. Are we stupid, lazy, or corrupt. I vote for all three.
It makes me wonder if Al Gore had become President where we would be now.
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