When? jimmy carter When choosing a branding design for his presidential campaign, he chose the simple red, white, and blue colors. He wanted to beat.
Emphasizing how much Georgia Democrats enjoyed nature and prioritized environmental policy, the color became ubiquitous. On buttons, bumper stickers, brochures, a sign renaming the old Plains Train Depot as his campaign headquarters. Even the hometown election night party.
Carter’s niece LeAnne Smith recalled the 1976 victory celebration, “The moment it was announced, we all had shirts to wear – and they were green, too.”
Nearly half a century later, environmental advocates are remembering Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, as a president who championed environmental stewardship, energy conservation and the global threat of rising carbon dioxide levels. Discussed about.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged Abandon renewable energy investments Which also includes President Joe Biden Inflation Reduction Act 2022This echoes how President Ronald Reagan destroyed solar panels installed by Carter on the White House roof. But politics aside, the scientific consensus has settled where Carter stood two generations ago.
“President Carter was four decades ahead of his time,” said Manish Bapna, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council. Even before “climate change” was part of the American lexicon, Carter called for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
Wearing a cardigan and setting the standard
former vice president al Gorewhose climate advocacy earned him the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, called Carter “a lifelong role model for the entire environmental movement.”
As President, Carter implemented the first US efficiency standards for passenger vehicles and home appliances. He created the U.S. Department of Energy, which streamlined energy research, and more than doubled the wilderness area under National Park Service protection.
Inviting ridicule, Carter asked Americans to save energy through personal sacrifices, including driving less and turning down thermostats in the winter amid global fuel shortages. He emphasized renewable energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and called for 20% of US energy to come from alternative sources by 2000.
But regrets persist about what the 39th president couldn’t do or didn’t try to do before his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan.
addressing climate change
Carter left office in 1981, shortly after receiving a West Wing report linking rising carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere to fossil fuels. Carter’s top environmental advisers urged “immediate” reductions in the burning of fossil fuels to reduce what scientists at the time called “carbon dioxide pollution.”
Biographer Jonathan Alter said, “Before Carter, no one in high government office anywhere in the world was talking about this problem.”
The White House released findings, which received forgettable news coverage: The new York Times Its story was published on the 13th page of its front page. And with very little time left in office, Carter was unable to take any concrete steps beyond the energy legislation he had already signed.
The report recommends limiting global average temperatures to 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels. Thirty-five years later, in 2015 paris climate agreementThe participating nations set a common goal.
“If he had been re-elected, it would be fair to say that we would have started paying attention to climate change in the early 1980s,” Alter told the AP. “When you think about it, it adds a kind of sad aspect to his political defeat.”
Reagan ended high-level negotiations about carbon emissions. He opposed efficiency standards due to government overreach and rolled back some regulations. His chief of staff, Don Regan, called solar panels “a joke”.
pursuit of energy independence
Despite Carter’s emphasis on renewable sources, the fossil fuel industry benefited from his effort toward American energy independence.
National Wildlife Foundation CEO Colin O’Mara pointed to his deregulation of coal-fired power plants and natural gas production built during and shortly after Carter’s tenure, a move O’Mara called “a precursor” to widespread fracking. ” Said. Bapna said Carter supported drilling off the coasts of Long Island in New York and New England.
Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, pointed to Carter’s Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a short-lived effort to produce fossil fuel alternatives that “would have meant a lot more carbon emissions.”
But Carter had the right priorities, especially on coordinated research and development through the Department of Energy, Nadel said. “They allowed us to take a national approach instead of one agency here and another there.”
management of god’s creation
Carter’s environmental interests have roots in his rural childhood, where he hunted, fished, and worked on his father’s farmland.
“Jimmy Carter was an environmentalist before it became a real part of the political discussion — and I’m not talking about solar panels in the White House,” said DuBose Porter, a longtime Georgia Democratic Party leader. “Just focusing on that, reminds me of how early and how committed he was.”
His formative years of youth influenced Carter as governor, Porter said, when he promoted Georgia’s state park system and opposed Georgia congressmen who wanted to build a dam on a river. Carter himself sailed the waterway and decided that its natural condition was superior to the attractive federal construction proposal.
In Washington, Carter continued a sometimes unwinnable fight against funding for projects he considered harmful and unnecessary. He had more success expanding federal protection to more than 60.7 million hectares, including the redwood forests of California and vast areas of Alaska.
Dartmouth College professor Randall Balmer, who has written on Carter’s faith, said he sees himself as a steward of divinely provided natural resources.
“It’s a real connection that young evangelicals still have with him today,” Balmer said.
condemnation of consumerism
Nadel said Carter won the presidency amid global conflict, particularly energy shortages in the oil-rich Middle East, so national security and economic interests coincided with Carter’s religious beliefs and fascination with nature.
Carter compared the energy crisis to “the moral equivalent of war” and as inflation and gas lines rose, he called for individual sacrifice and widespread action on renewable energy.
Carter warned in 1979, “Human identity is no longer defined by what he does, but by what he has.” “But we’ve found that owning things and consuming things doesn’t satisfy our craving for meaning.”
That “malignant” speech – as it was dubbed by the media despite Carter not using the term – was unique in presidential politics for its condemnation of rampant American consumerism. Carter held a celebration that was watched by more than 100 million Americans. By 2010, Carter acknowledged in his annotated “White House Diary” that his speech was a flop, but said it proved to advocate bold and direct action on energy.
“You can say the Carter presidency is still delivering results today,” said Washington Governor Jay Inslee, whose 2020 presidential race focused on climate action. “I’ve learned in politics that timing is everything and contingency is everything.”