When will the United States catch up?

31 Jul When will the United States catch up?

By Ben Williams

I’m back in the UK for my sister’s wedding, and although it’s only been three years since my last visit,there are many signs that things here are moving into the 21^st Century.

On a trip to visit my Grandma we were driving through a small village called Crick, and there in the fields were two immense 2 MW wind turbines ponderously circling.  Everywhere small 70-miles-to-the-gallon cars bustle about the narrow streets.  On top of a block of flats in Leamington Spa, two pairs of 300 KW wind turbines spin rapidly away.

And it’s not just here in the midlands.  I was recently up in Manchester, and there atop a building, more small-scale wind development.  In nearby Derbyshire (this is the North of England, remember) Toyota just brought a 17,000 panel solar array online.  According to Toyota’s blog that’s enough power to build 7,000 cars a year, or, in typical British fashion, to boil 150 million cups of tea.  Read more about it, here. 

So the only question is, where is the US in all this?  Still squabbling that Americans won’t buy smaller cars.  Still at the mercy of the oil conglomerates rifling the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards.  How come the rest of the world is moving forward toward a more sustainable Earth, yet the US is busy arguing about an inability to print more money?  What has gone wrong here?  How long will the economic inertia of overweight corporations keep squishing the market?

But the proof is in the pudding.  Given the choice, most consumers will make the right decision.  In the US, it’s about time we had a choice.