I wanted to save America, but someone got there first

Back when I was writing in my blog more regularly, I had this idea for a post I was going to write. The basic gist of it was going to be that through embracing environmentalism, a variety of the problems our country currently faces could be solved. While doing a little reading to compose my thoughts, I discovered a big piece that Tom Friedman of the New York Times had in the Sunday Magazine a whole year ago. Tom, obviously, made all of the points I was going to make (and more!) far more eloquently than I ever could, which really took all the wind out of my sails and I never wrote the post.

Home sweet home.

Today being Earth Day and all, this seems like an apropos time to look back on what I was going to say. If you've got the time to do a little reading, here's the link:

The Power of Green, by Thomas L. Friedman

It's not a short article, but it's dead-on. If you don't have the time, the gist of it is this: if America embraces the green movement we can go a long way toward mitigating global warming, but you don't have to be a greenie liberal to think this is a good idea. If American scientists and entrepreneurs were inspired and challenged in the way that we were during the 1960s space race, we would also solve the biggest threat to American security: our reliance on foreign oil. And a sweet little side effect would be the benefit to our economy of being the world leader in alternative energy technologies, which promises to be a massive industry in this century, thereby replacing many of the manufacturing jobs that have been shifting overseas for years, along with several other huge economic benefits.

That pretty much sucks as a synopsis. Please read the article.

And have a happy Earth Day!