What if Jimmy Carter Won the 1980 Election?
By
Carter showing off the newly installed solar panels
Jimmy Carter did more to protect the environment during his administration than any president before him (save Teddy Roosevelt, perhaps). In 1977, Carter lobbied Congress to create the Department of Energy with the goal of conserving energy. Carter set oil and natural gas price controls, had solar hot water panels installed on the roof of the White House, had a wood stove in his living quarters, ordered the GSA to turn off hot water in some federal facilities, and requested that Christmas decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide, controls were put on thermostats in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising the temperature above 65 degrees in the winter or lowering them below 78 degrees in the summer. Carter also signed the National Energy Act and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, to encourage energy conservation and the development of national energy resources, including renewables such as wind and solar energy. Carter also oversaw the creation of the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado that was intended to research clean energy.
Despite these accomplishments, Carter would lose the political battle in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, who subsequently changed the nation’s course on energy policy. For example, funding to NREL was reduced by 95%, and the solar panels were removed from the White House. How different would the environment look today had Carter won in 1980? One artist, Sascha Pohflepp, examines that very notion in a piece called The Golden Institute, a vision of what NREL might have become. Being from the mind of an artist, as opposed to a scientist or historian, it is incredibly creative, and provides some good insight into an alternate past.
Thanks, we make money not art
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Very interesting I am going to have to pass this post along to friends that have sites that may be able to help you out.
What if Jimmy Carter had won…..are ya joking?
Lemme refresh your memory.
http://presidentelect.org/e1980.html
Go there and take a look at the election results. It was not even remotely close. If you destroyed 35 of the states that voted for Reagan, Jimmy still loses by a state…maybe 2 as DC was one of the 7 “states” he won.
This post or idea isn’t speculation, it is pure fantasy.
I love when people post comments without actually reading the article.
Here’s what would have happened: Jimmy Carter’s environmentally friendly, but economically suicidal ideas would have plunged the United States further into stagflation, to the point the dollar would have collapsed, and brought in an era of unsurpassed violence in the middle east and Asian nations as the prices of oil would have been linked to local or unstable currencies. The brutal, and staggeringly fuel-inefficient Soviet Union would have spread Communism permanently and thoroughly across South America, Western Europe, and Asia (i.e India and Japan). Many of the potentially USEFUL environmental technologies (developed in capitalist nations all over the globe) would never exist. The world would be far closer to a poisonous socialist death-camp if Jimmy Carter were re-elected. People in 1979 recognized his idiocy and elected Reagan for a reason.
Your doomsday view of the past is obviously clouded by some right-wing bias:
You completely ignore the fact that the U.S. government was single-handedly funding renewable energy research and that without them, “Many of the potentially USEFUL environmental technologies would never exist.” That investment would have continued had Carter been re-elected, as opposed to completely withdrawn, as what happened with Reagan.
You also seem to forget that the Middle East plunged into “an era of unsurpassed violence” AFTER Reagan’s election with the Iran-Iraq War, the 1983 Beirut Barracks and U.S. Embassy Bombings, the various clashes between the U.S. and Libya, etc.
Furthermore, you also ignore the geopolitical issues associated with the Soviet Union, such as their rivalry with China, their growing unpopularity in Eastern Europe, their wildly unsuccessful invasion of Afghanistan, and their failing economy, known as the Brezhnev Stagnation. Remember, not every Communist country was aligned with the Soviet Union (i.e. Yugoslavia), nor was every Middle Eastern nation violently opposed to the U.S. (i.e. Egypt and Jordan). Implementing environmentally-friendly protocols would not have brought on a Soviet Renaissance.
I appreciate your prognostication, but I can’t give it any credence given your obvious political bias.
I’ve liked reading through these types of blogs. Intriguing stuff! Solar energy has constantly been a fascination with me.
Don’t know if any of you are interested, but those solar panels now have a very interesting history. They hung out on the roof of the White House for awhile, before being purchased by Unity College in Maine (America’s Environmental College)to heat hot water for the dining hall. There they stayed, used semester after semester until they finally lost their usefulness. In the past 4 years they have become interesting once again. A documentary film crew from Switzerland came to the college to find out what had become of the panels. (http://www.roadnottaken.info/)Later Google purchased a panel to have in their offices. The panels continue their journey.
One for the mouse one for the crow one to rot one to grow.