Can we solve it?

July 19, 2008:  When exactly was it that the U.S. became a can't-do society?  Bob Herbert, NY Times. 

If that doesn't make you put down your coffee cup, stop Twittering, or mute the TV, it should. 

What Herbert is talking about is the reaction to Al Gore's challenge to free ourselves of fossil fuels within 10 years.  It's something Americans should be able to do.  It's something Americans have always been able to do.  But are we still capable of doing the seemingly impossible?  In short, have we lost our American persona?

Having lived overseas, I've seen how others see us.  It's not always pretty.  We're brash, pushy, ill-informed, self-centered.  In short, we're the world's teenager, with all the bad and good a teenager has to offer.  Here's the good:  we are (were?) energetic, creative, out of the box thinkers and risk-takers, and if someone said it couldn't be done, we'd say, "Oh, yeah?  Betcha we can do it!"  And we did.

The rest of the world cut us some slack because although we might have been arrogant and ignorant, they had to admire the way we actually got things done.  Some of them were particularly grateful.  When the Berlin wall went up, we flew food and supplies to the other side.  We helped free people from concentration camps and stopped wars.  Oh yeah, and we sent a man to the moon.  In less than 10 years.

But that was then.  Maybe we're growing out of that teenage phase and are becoming complacent old people -- just give us our remotes, our cells, our laptops, and let us sit on the couch.  Who wants to work that hard?  Who wants to take risks?  Just get the oil so we can have our power.  Cheap.  

If our President can feel comfortable staying in the box, why not us?  I just heard his response to the oil crisis.  Apparently there's deeply buried shale oil in Colorado, Nevada and Montana.  The teenager in me wants to say, "Dude!  What are you thinking?  Solar, wind, geothermal -- it's all out there and getting cheaper to use every day.  People are buying their own dang windmills -- after they get a lawyer to fight the system so they're allowed to put one up!"

Here's a question.

What did the rest of the world see in Al Gore and his ideas to award him a prize?  A Nobel Prize, no less.  A Nobel Peace Prize.  Well, if you don't need to invade other countries for their oil, that sure helps the peace process.  And if you stop being the world's largest carbon footprint that'd not only help the environment but also curtail resentment in the rest of the world.  Hmm, maybe the Nobel Committee knew what they were doing.

And here's a thought.

We brought 3 astronauts back from a failed mission when, by all logic, they should've been lost in space.  But we did it.  That Apollo 13 mission represents America at its best.  Americans doing the impossible.  The American heart, mind, and spirit at work.  It's unstoppable.  It gives me chills.

Right now, I'm sweating.

(If you haven't heard a snippet of Al Gore's speech, it's at www.wecansolveit.org.)