nuclear-news

‘He was prescient’: Jimmy Carter, the environment and the road not taken

The ex-president was a pioneer on renewable energy and land conservation but his 1980 defeat was a ‘fork in the road’

 When a group of dignitaries and journalists made a rare foray to the roof
of the White House, Jimmy Carter had something to show them: 32 solar
water-heating panels. “A generation from now,” the US president
declared, “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.”

What happened next is the stuff of tragic what-ifs and
what-might-have-beens. “It did become a curiosity, it is a museum piece
and it certainly is an example of a road not taken,” said Alice Hill, a
senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign
Relations thinktank in Washington. “He was prescient that we were at the
fork in the road. And we didn’t take that road.”

A few months after
that solar panel unveiling in June 1979, Carter, who died last Sunday aged
100, lost his bid for re-election in a landslide, in part because of a
major energy crisis and soaring oil and gas prices. He was long seen as a
one-term failure. But subsequent reappraisals have suggested that his
environmental legacy, including pioneering efforts in land conservation and
renewable energy, reveals a man ahead of his time.

 Guardian 6th Jan 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/06/jimmy-carter-environment-climate-change

January 9, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | PERSONAL STORIES, USA