By Jason Brommel, Guest Author

As we all know, the world is in what many call “an energy crisis”. To this, I say emphatically that, if anything, the world is currently in a large scale “energy opportunity”. But that opportunity can only come along with raw determination and a pure thirst for achieving a common goal.

Let’s go back in time a bit and examine a situation where a lofty goal was set, a timeline prescribed, and the goal achieved within that timeframe…

By quoting John F. Kennedy, this is not intended to be a political representation or support of a particular party; rather, with any biases one may have put aside, this is merely an example of vision and leadership provided by a man who was admired by many.

In a speech made to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, he said:

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

On July 20, 1969, this goal was successfully achieved by the Apollo 11 mission.

Obviously, this was a difficult task to achieve, and took momentous resources and efforts, but in just over 8 years, it was done.

And I feel that one of the most important factors that helped it along was determination, coupled with collective will to be a world leader in this new and most impressive technology.

So let’s apply this simple philosophy to what I call our current “energy opportunity”. Unfortunately though, at this point in time, the mainstream point of view and collective will is not yet on board. Just a random observation of the mainstream media and attitudes of the general public seem to be a mix of stubbornness, complacency, and misunderstanding. But most of all, it is apparent that maybe the general consensus is to just rest on our laurels and “hope” that the new technologies will make it to a viable market, while we just sit by and accept the situation as is, not change our ways toward a more sustainable attitude, and guzzle away while complaining that we pay too much for fuel.

Bold statements, yes, but drilling while guzzling only reinforces our gripping reliance on an oil-based infrastructure. The debate could be carried on forever about how and where to obtain our new oil “fix”, but if we stop for a second and think, just really think, we may come to an incredibly simple epiphany – that with the right people in the right seats, with the right policies, the right amount of funds allocated, and most of all, the right amount of determination, we can set a goal to have the majority of our transportation fuel be from renewable sources. Period.

But… What if… You can’t…

That’s the response we usually hear when these “lofty” goals are raised.

With all the “progress” humans have achieved over our history, all the technology developed, the amazing things we have achieved, can we really sit and tell ourselves that we can’t do something of this sort? Just think about it, during the 1960s, when NASA was developing a way to put a man on the moon, there were no personal computers. There was no e-mail. Manual typewriters were widely used. Office work was done manually, with no personal computers to do all the crunching. But at the same time, we were still able to put a man on the moon!

Since when can’t we be confident in setting a goal and achieving it! When we believe we can do it, we can!

It may take some adjustment in our current lifestyles to get us through the transition, but we have to understand that life as we currently are used to may not always be the way it will be. We have to adjust and drive vehicles that are much more efficient. We have to lobby our political leaders and show them what we want. We have to do the same with the large corporations that are in control of the industries. We have to let our money do the talking. We have to understand that some old attitudes or beliefs may not be reliable and true. Like…

“It’s too expensive and difficult of a goal to retrofit our oil delivery infrastructure to accommodate new technologies.”

Hogwash! We can spend billions on other things that actually cause us more detriment than benefit. Congress can approve hundreds of billions of taxpayer monies for whatever they can pass. What about lobbying for a comprehensive initiative to push for a viable alternative energy infrastructure?

“We don’t want the government involved in our daily lives and telling us what to do. This is supposed to be a free country.”

By no means do I vie for socialism or communism in any way, but like it or not, in order to really get things moving along, the government must have policies that are aggressively designed to push our energy independence and reliance on alternative and sustainable sources, and mandate a timeline, while at the same time raising the bar on new conservation measures that can get us through the transition. Automakers are not going to drastically raise their fuel efficiency standards if they don’t have to! What about declaring a country-wide goal that the United States of America be energy independent, with 80% of all energy sources being generated by clean, sustainable, and renewable sources by the year 2020?

But… What if… You can’t…

Baloney! It needs to be done! We can’t wait until 2050, 2070, and beyond. We need to set these aggressive goals so that the people with the ingenuity, ideas, resources, and ability have the support and path ahead with which they can navigate toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

The opportunity awaits. Who will be the one to use it to its best advantage?