I listened to the President’s State of the Union address last night and I came away feeling confused and saddened. It wasn’t because of the rampant partisan politics and the vicious personal attacks by both the far left and far right that we’ve had to endure over the last two years. It wasn’t watching as left-wing Democratic liberals (excuse me, the politically correct term is ‘progressives’) were forced to sit with right wing Republican ultra-conservatives. It was the impression that we as a country are lost and our leaders are nothing more than men and women ‘looking for a vision’ to quote a line from one of my favorite movies.
One of the fulcrums of this search for a vision is the idea of a ‘Green Economy’ and ‘Green jobs.’ It appears that our good President and the esteemed leadership of our country want us all to fall in line with this grand vision, retrain ourselves for the resulting explosion of economic growth that is promised and prepare the way for future generations to enjoy this new found vision. The problem is it’s a vision without direction or purpose. When President Kennedy proposed putting a man on the moon in the early 1960’s it was a clear and direct vision to spur technology, provide jobs and motivate a nation to achieve the potential of greatness it was capable of reaching. It touched that desire that resides in all humans to see what’s over the horizon. It excited the explorer in all of us. From what I’ve read it wasn’t that President Kennedy liked the idea of a space program, in fact like many liberal Democrat’s he really saw it as a waste of time and money. But, it was something concrete that people could get their hands and heads around and it answered a growing technological threat from the Soviet Union with the launch of Sputnik. The bottom line was that it was a brilliant strategic and political move that inspired a country and provided a way for the government of the United States through NASA to lead the nation toward a new vision of greatness. I’m afraid that President Obama’s vision just doesn’t ring with the same tones of inspiration and greatness as President Kennedy’s vision.
First, unlike the space program which provided very clear and direct goals; build rockets, spacecraft and a supporting industry to send men and women into space, the idea of a green economy is at best a nebulous idea born out of reaction to inconclusive and hotly debated global climate change studies, hype from a former vice president turned venture capitalist, a failed economy that resulted from unrestrained global corporate greed and a desire to be energy independent. It is a concept that in itself is actually a truly worthy endeavor. We as a nation should not be dependent on any other country for our energy needs and we should work toward preserving and protecting our limited natural resources. Unfortunately, not even President Obama seems to be able to clearly define what a green economy is and where it should be heading. Promoting a small business man from Oregon who converted his business to ‘green’ really didn’t tell us what that entailed or how many new jobs were created.
This brings me to my second concern. How is this concept of a green economy helping us create jobs? I am an engineer by education and training and I’ve worked in everything from aerospace to the medical industry as a result. President Obama touted how some fifty year old mother re-educated herself to become a bio-chemical engineer. My feeling is good for her. I myself recently earned a masters degree in Information Technology (oh my gosh – one of the components of the Presidents new vision for America!) I’m for anyone improving themselves at any age and redefining the direction of their life, but you have to do it for a reason. I can almost guarantee you that the person the President was referring to did it because there was potential for immediate work and not to pursue the President’s grand new vision for America’s future. He’s missed the point here again. Five green jobs here and a hundred there doesn’t make up for the ten’s of thousands of science, engineering and technical jobs that have been lost to overseas companies and as a result of this President’s change of vision for America. If you doubt this consider that NASA, America’s agency for leading us into space exploration laid off over ten thousand scientists, engineers and technical support staff in 2010 as a result of the end of the space shuttle program and the cancellation of the Ares program. How is adding to the unemployment lines helping our economy? Did the government have a plan for placing these highly trained people into their touted green job environment? The answer is simply no and if you think private industry is in a position to absorb more scientific and technical staff think again. I work at least for the moment for a major aerospace company and I can tell you with certainty that with unemployment holding steady at between 9% and 10% nationally and layoffs occurring on a regular basis my company is not in a hiring mode. It appears that once more the President is reacting instead of being proactive.
Finally, President Obama doesn’t seem to see the big picture set on the global stage and if he does, he thinks his concept of this new green age will be the answer. If you hadn’t noticed, because I am an engineer, I tend to look at issues with a bent toward technology. But there are also some realities that we as a nation simply can’t ignore. The space race of the 1960’s was a result of the very real threat of the Soviet Union being the dominant force in space. In this new millennium the problem is the same only the players have changed. Discount just for the moment the fact that in a few months the only way we will be able to send Americans into space is on a Russian built and launched Soyuz spacecraft. What about China and Japan. China is making no bones about the fact that they want to go to the moon first – again – and be the dominant power in space. What does that mean for America? Do we really want China to be up there alone? The big question then becomes; should we allow China uncontrolled access to space? We weren’t willing to take that chance with the old Soviet Union. Why are we willing to take that chance now? What if they decide to put purely ‘defensive’ weapons in space – shouldn’t we be in a position to deny them this capability? Also, let’s consider for a moment the future benefits of exploring space. Because we live on a planet with finite resources, shouldn’t we be considering the vast resources of harvestable elements contained on other planets and in the asteroid belt? I know this sounds like a bunch of science fiction, but what was science fiction 40 years ago has become reality today and will become reality in the future.
I agree with President Obama that this nation is in desperate need of a vision for the future. We are a great nation of great people and we need to remember what makes us great – it’s now and always has been our capability to look beyond this moment beyond these current problems to the future. Building new roads, bullet trains and becoming energy independent is not the end-all. The development and maintenance of a strong and viable infrastructure is imperative to keep our nation strong, but it should not be our primary vision of the future but a support for a new vision. What we need are leaders with a true vision who can guide us to the future.
