2008 Woodie Awards
Environmental concerns relate to Iraq crisis
U.S. search for new, efficient energy affects other nations drastically
By: Robert Rossfeld
Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Opinion/Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
So, I'm home on leave for a couple of weeks trying to enjoy some of my pre-uniformed pursuits. Along the journey, my fiance and I ended up at the Chase Park Plaza to catch a movie and we settled upon "An Inconvenient Truth." Everyone from family to acquaintances recommended the flick, and I'm always up for some gloom and doom - after all, I am an upstanding member of the armed forces. So, I dropped the six or so bucks to see if Al Gore could get a scare out of me.
Now granted, as a man in uniform, mine is not to question why … you know the rest of that line. But I was a political science major before joining the military and I reserve the right to exercise my First Amendment rights when my subordinates are not around. I land somewhere between Republican and Democrat in my political life and try to vote on issues instead of ideology. So, for the length of this read, I ask you to turn off your feelings toward Mr. Gore as we look at some of his assertions and their implications.
Greenland is going to melt off the face of the earth. When it does, the North Atlantic heat transfer will stop and you'll be able to go fishing in Manhattan. Hmm. That's a little worrisome. Now, for the most part, Mr. Gore put together a pretty convincing argument and showed a bunch of charts and graphs to convince us that what he's saying will come to pass. I haven't researched the validity of his charts and graphs, but I'm willing to accept them as legit for the moment.
If we accept what he says as true and answer his call to arms, then we'll adopt alternative forms of energy: cleaner fuels, more efficient production processes, lower carbon dioxide emissions. Awesome, right? We get to maintain our standard of living without causing harm to the planet. So we can drive as much as we want and crank up the heat in the winter. Not to mention it will save us money, because oil will become obsolete. But what's the catch?
Here's where Mr. Gore loses me a bit. I wrote a paper in college on the balance between environmental regulation and the economy. Ours is a resilient workforce. If we tell the American worker, "There's no more money in oil; now there's money in corn," the worker will adapt in order to put food on the table. But there is a place where the workforce is not as resilient as ours. This little place I'll visit before too long: Iraq.
I Googled Iraq to figure out how it would react if the world stopped buying its oil. Oil exports account for 95 percent of its national revenue. Needless to say, Iraq would have to find alternative industries to sustain itself if the world went to green energy. It does have other natural resources, among which are sulfur, phosphates and natural gas. Maybe I'm industry illiterate, but those don't sound like big money makers in a green world.
Now here's the issue. There are 28 million people living on a swath of land that most of us consider uninhabitable. Those people are largely poor, uneducated and unemployed. I read once those conditions give rise to something called terrorism. So how viable of an idea is worldwide conversion to green energy? I'm sorry Mr. Gore, but environmental regulation does indeed have an impact on the economy.
If Iraq is insecure now, what will happen when we deplete 95 percent of its revenue-generating capacity? Sure, a green world will still use some oil, but demand for oil would bottom-out in that world. What do Iraqis, or middle-easterners in general, do then? Believe me, if anyone wants Iraq to be stable and secure, it's me and those like me. I'm headed over there and I'd feel better about the trip if the Iraqis were well-fed and happy. Happy people tend to be less angry.
So, I kept Googling. I learned sulfur is used to produce matches, gunpowder, insecticides and fertilizers. Phosphates are used to produce the softeners found in laundry detergent and fertilizer. Oil can be used to produce plastics, pesticides and fertilizer. Natural gas can be used to produce plastics and fertilizer. Hmm, fertilizer … Maybe fertilizer is a bad economic anchor in a country skilled at making homemade bombs, but maybe the sale of fertilizer to farmers worldwide would provide income to Iraqi workers in the absence of an oil industry.
That transition would require a hell of a lot of fertilizer and probably some changes to trade regulation. But here's something else about natural gas: it creates 30 percent less carbon dioxide than oil for the same amount of energy output. It can be used in hydrogen-based fuels. Again, we'd have to regulate the natural gas market to make sure we purchase enough natural gas from Iraq to keep its economy alive. But it looks like we'd be able to spread wealth in Iraq while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Once again, I read once that when a man has enough money to provide for his family, he's less likely to use his Kalishnikov AK-47.
I'm not sure if natural gas is the ultimate solution to these problems. Iraq has several difficulties inhibiting its development. It needs a functioning and responsive government that gives all its people a sense of inclusion, equitable distribution of wealth, a quality and innovative education system, and a sense of security from harm. But before we move to go completely green, we must consider that Iraq's only current hope for prosperity is the very oil which is degrading our environment.
I believe that neither Iraq, nor environmental recovery, are lost causes. Both present major challenges to American preferences, and it's hard to identify the starting point from which to solve the inherent problems. Terrorism borne from Iraq is larger than a fundamentalist reading of the Quran. And oil consumption is larger than global warming.
We cannot address environmental sustenance at the expense of economic sustenance, whether it be our economy or another peoples'. Given our current engagements, we cannot go green overnight. To do so would perpetuate our difficulties in the middle-east. Mr. Gore's alarm is not out of line, but we must move for measured progress to solve these related problems intelligently. He made at least one concrete point: political will is a renewable resource. An American paratrooper asks you to remember that.
Robert Rossfeld, a 2003 alumnus, is a guest writer for The Journal.
Now granted, as a man in uniform, mine is not to question why … you know the rest of that line. But I was a political science major before joining the military and I reserve the right to exercise my First Amendment rights when my subordinates are not around. I land somewhere between Republican and Democrat in my political life and try to vote on issues instead of ideology. So, for the length of this read, I ask you to turn off your feelings toward Mr. Gore as we look at some of his assertions and their implications.
Greenland is going to melt off the face of the earth. When it does, the North Atlantic heat transfer will stop and you'll be able to go fishing in Manhattan. Hmm. That's a little worrisome. Now, for the most part, Mr. Gore put together a pretty convincing argument and showed a bunch of charts and graphs to convince us that what he's saying will come to pass. I haven't researched the validity of his charts and graphs, but I'm willing to accept them as legit for the moment.
If we accept what he says as true and answer his call to arms, then we'll adopt alternative forms of energy: cleaner fuels, more efficient production processes, lower carbon dioxide emissions. Awesome, right? We get to maintain our standard of living without causing harm to the planet. So we can drive as much as we want and crank up the heat in the winter. Not to mention it will save us money, because oil will become obsolete. But what's the catch?
Here's where Mr. Gore loses me a bit. I wrote a paper in college on the balance between environmental regulation and the economy. Ours is a resilient workforce. If we tell the American worker, "There's no more money in oil; now there's money in corn," the worker will adapt in order to put food on the table. But there is a place where the workforce is not as resilient as ours. This little place I'll visit before too long: Iraq.
I Googled Iraq to figure out how it would react if the world stopped buying its oil. Oil exports account for 95 percent of its national revenue. Needless to say, Iraq would have to find alternative industries to sustain itself if the world went to green energy. It does have other natural resources, among which are sulfur, phosphates and natural gas. Maybe I'm industry illiterate, but those don't sound like big money makers in a green world.
Now here's the issue. There are 28 million people living on a swath of land that most of us consider uninhabitable. Those people are largely poor, uneducated and unemployed. I read once those conditions give rise to something called terrorism. So how viable of an idea is worldwide conversion to green energy? I'm sorry Mr. Gore, but environmental regulation does indeed have an impact on the economy.
If Iraq is insecure now, what will happen when we deplete 95 percent of its revenue-generating capacity? Sure, a green world will still use some oil, but demand for oil would bottom-out in that world. What do Iraqis, or middle-easterners in general, do then? Believe me, if anyone wants Iraq to be stable and secure, it's me and those like me. I'm headed over there and I'd feel better about the trip if the Iraqis were well-fed and happy. Happy people tend to be less angry.
So, I kept Googling. I learned sulfur is used to produce matches, gunpowder, insecticides and fertilizers. Phosphates are used to produce the softeners found in laundry detergent and fertilizer. Oil can be used to produce plastics, pesticides and fertilizer. Natural gas can be used to produce plastics and fertilizer. Hmm, fertilizer … Maybe fertilizer is a bad economic anchor in a country skilled at making homemade bombs, but maybe the sale of fertilizer to farmers worldwide would provide income to Iraqi workers in the absence of an oil industry.
That transition would require a hell of a lot of fertilizer and probably some changes to trade regulation. But here's something else about natural gas: it creates 30 percent less carbon dioxide than oil for the same amount of energy output. It can be used in hydrogen-based fuels. Again, we'd have to regulate the natural gas market to make sure we purchase enough natural gas from Iraq to keep its economy alive. But it looks like we'd be able to spread wealth in Iraq while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Once again, I read once that when a man has enough money to provide for his family, he's less likely to use his Kalishnikov AK-47.
I'm not sure if natural gas is the ultimate solution to these problems. Iraq has several difficulties inhibiting its development. It needs a functioning and responsive government that gives all its people a sense of inclusion, equitable distribution of wealth, a quality and innovative education system, and a sense of security from harm. But before we move to go completely green, we must consider that Iraq's only current hope for prosperity is the very oil which is degrading our environment.
I believe that neither Iraq, nor environmental recovery, are lost causes. Both present major challenges to American preferences, and it's hard to identify the starting point from which to solve the inherent problems. Terrorism borne from Iraq is larger than a fundamentalist reading of the Quran. And oil consumption is larger than global warming.
We cannot address environmental sustenance at the expense of economic sustenance, whether it be our economy or another peoples'. Given our current engagements, we cannot go green overnight. To do so would perpetuate our difficulties in the middle-east. Mr. Gore's alarm is not out of line, but we must move for measured progress to solve these related problems intelligently. He made at least one concrete point: political will is a renewable resource. An American paratrooper asks you to remember that.
Robert Rossfeld, a 2003 alumnus, is a guest writer for The Journal.
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