Archive: Opinions

One of the key reasons that Star Trek has endured as an overwhelmingly popular franchise is that it portrays a time when humans band together to get positive results against overwhelming odds.  Captain Kirk famously passed an academy test that was meant to gauge behavior in a situation that was unwinnable by thinking outside the box and reprogramming the test.  He never accepted that insurmountable odds couldn't be overcome.

That is the same attitude that made America great.  When I was growing up the attitude was that there was nothing Americans couldn't accomplish with hard work and determination.  The country became the dominant nation in world politics with huge wins such as the fall of the Soviet Union, the moon landing, and a strong economy that seemed unstoppable.  All that has changed, and I think it is largely because our attitude has changed.

The Pew Research Center released the results of a poll this month that shows that 53% of Americans think the United States is less important and powerful than it was ten years ago, a 40 year low in public opinion.  Only 17% of those polled think the country has gained in influence.  2,003 adults were polled between October 30 and November 6.  70% said the U.S. is losing respect in the international community.

That was something that Obama was supposed to repair after President Bush's policies that wee unpopular particularly among Europeans.  But it is bad news for Obama.  It is only one percent less than the 71% of Americans who thought Bush's policies had diminished international respect for the U.S..  And more bad news for Obama: Americans disapprove of his handling of issues in China, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan by 56% to 34%.  And don't even start with the NSA!  52% say America should mind its own business.

Maybe we should.  If you listen to the geezers (I may be becoming a geezer) you always hear that Americans have gotten lazy.  We don't want to work hard.  We don't make things any more.  We're exporting our technological dominance.  We want to listen to our iPods and we want to get something for nothing.  We're increasingly seeing our world as a series of unwinnable situations.  We've become so polarized and politically split that it seems we can't accomplish anything any more.

What we need is an attitude change.  A couple of weeks ago I argued for a big challenge that could unite the country to accomplish a single goal.  I proposed landing humans on Mars because I think the moon project was a big attitude adjuster in the '60s and '70s.  NASA was as brilliant as a public relations purveyor as it was in its accomplishments.  They made us all feel part of that big challenge.  It wasn't just neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who stepped out of that space ship onto the moon: we all did.  And with that attitude look what America accomplished back then.

It doesn't have to be space.  Look at our local scene.  What seemed like a simple plan to repower our local coal-powered electricity plant turned into a huge controversy between those who want a practical result that will save jobs and prevent property taxes from skyrocketing and those who want green energy at any cost.

I fall on the repower with natural gas side.  But not as an endgame.  I look at it this way: in the early '60s we couldn't put people on the moon.  By 1969 we could do it.  Apollo 11 was a great triumph of American knowhow and can-do spirit.  So how about developing a practical renewable energy technology over the next decade?

There have been tries, but no real successes.  Ethanol is arguably a disaster.  Solar and wind just don't have the juice.  Biomass is promising, but not necessarily ready for prime time.  What if Americans challenged ourselves to develop solar technology that is reliable and practical within the next ten years?  Maybe some kind of scheme that collectes the sunlight in space where there is never a cloudy day, and beams the energy to power distribution plants on Earth?  If we can make cordless iPhone chargers we certainly could do something like that to make solar energy actually practical on a large scale.

It would save a lot of land for farming and development, too.  Currently it takes 3 or 4 acres of solar panels to produce one megawatt.  To produce as much as the Cayuga plant is capable of it would take between 900 and 1200 acres of  panels.  That's a big chunk of land in a place where the sun don't shine on a regular basis.  Plants to receive and distribute solar power from space would likely be much smaller than power plants today, freeing up even more property.  I'm just saying, it is a project worth pursuing for the tangible benefits and for the attitude adjustment that failure is not an option.

It almost doesn't matter what we do as long as it is big and inspiring.  I believe that would change a lot of things, especially our role as a leading nation here on Earth.  America doesn't have to be in decline.  We just need to reprogram the test.

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