Another look at Carter

Progressive, The, Feb, 2005 by T. Lyle Ferderber

Your December article on the Carter Doctrine perhaps shows only a part of a policy of someone who I think is one of the most decent human beings to have held high public office in decades ("The Carter Doctrine Goes Global" by Michael T. Klare). Carter had a larger energy strategy of moving us away from our total dependence on petroleum.

I discussed this with a fellow organic farmer friend who ran Pennsylvania's Department of Energy Conservation during Carter's tenure. In those four years, his office mapped the state's hydropower sites, tested the entire state for wind power sites, researched and pushed solar here in cloudy Pennsylvania, and gave out numerous grants for alternative energy and conservation. In those days, national manufacturers like Allis-Chalmers sold hydropower turbines from home size to industrial size, passive solar and earth-bermed homes were built, and there was excitement in the academic world over promising research.

Perhaps Carter's policy of oil protection was a rational aspect of understanding our addiction to oil while he strove to begin the practical process of finding realistic energy alternatives.

The saddest part of this is imagining the continuation of Carter's energy alternatives on a national level and where we might be today if Reagan hadn't taken down the White House's solar panels as one of his first acts as President.

T. Lyle Ferderber

Valencia, Pennsylvania