Column: Spiritual Psychology

The out-of-control rise in fuel prices is putting pressure on economies around the globe. One headline last week announced: “Economy Squeezes the American Dream”—foreclosures, plummeting home values and $4 a gallon gasoline that’s heading up up and who knows where. Another headline read: Fuel Protest Begins to Pinch in Spain.” Thousands of Spanish truck drivers driven to despair by $7 plus a gallon for fuel (non-oil producing countries in Europe have significantly higher prices than the U.S) went on strike and disrupted fuel deliveries. This week Korean truck drivers also went on strike with a similar protest. Could we be building toward a tsunami of worldwide outrage and panic over gasoline prices.

Op-ed columnist Tom Friedman’s observes (NY Times May 7, 2008) that as fuel prices go up freedom goes down. Friedman tells us that 23 countries derive at least sixty per cent of their exports from oil. And not one of these countries, he says, is a democracy. It’s not surprising then that “2007 was the worst year for freedom in the world since the end of the cold war.” Friedman’s analysis suggests that the situation will worsen as oil prices continue to spiral upward— with experts anticipating $5 a gallon or more at the pumps.

This brings me back to the question I raised last week: Why haven’t we launched a Manhattan Project to develop inexpensive clean energy? The threat posed by fossil fuel is as great if not greater than the motivation for the original Manhattan Project— to beat Germany to the bomb. It’s also more crucial than the moon landing project— to beat at the time our arch enemy, Russia, for strategic control of outer space. Were those threats any less than the threat of planetary destruction posed by fossil fuel?

Inexpensive clean energy will boost global economies, force despotic oil producing nation to develop broader based industries to enfranchise a middle class—and they in turn will press for democracy. You couldn’t ask for greater motivation to stave off the destruction of our planet.

We have invested billions of dollars—ultimately possibly trillions—to shove democracy down the throats of rogue nations. Yet many of our oil-producing buddy nations are as despotic as nations we have invaded.
Back to the question: Why hasn’t someone capable of organizing an Energy Manhattan Project” stepped up to the plate?

As I suggested last week I think the project should be launched outside of Government control. The US congress has historically backed off from aggressively seeking alternative fuel. There were some limp startup measures under Jimmy Carter but those efforts vanished when the fuel crisis of the 1970’s eased. Congress is just too weighted down by self interest groups to launch a meaningful crash program to find alternative energy sources—-Congress can’t get past the lobbyists, the campaign funding from fossil fuel related lobbies in particular, the pork barrel measures they would have to add to satisfy constituents, and a long list of other priorities that astonishingly take precedent over the survival of the planet.

Further discouraging news about entrusting the government to back a meaningful clean energy thrust comes from the June 2, 2008 report issued by the Office of Inspector General of NASA. It charged that political appointees to NASA’s Public affairs Office had prevented media access as far back as December 2005 to one of its chief scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen. For over two decades Hansen has been outspoken on the dire consequences of climate change which he attributes largely to automobile emissions. The NASA report goes on to say that the political interference was “intended to systemically portray NASA in a light most favorable to Administration policies at the expense of reporting unfiltered research results.”

Another reason why we have not moved forward on energy policy may be Congress’s ignorance about the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe that we are facing. That view was reinforced last week by Congressman Bill Foster of Illinois, a physicist formerly at the Fermi Lab. In a Science Times interview Foster said: “There are 435 people in the House and 420 don’t know much about science and choose not to.” It’s not that other members of Congress are incapable of learning more Foster added, “It’s just that, “unless things play to their advantage in the next election, they are not interested.” What an indictment!

The planet does not have time to wean politicians from ignorance and self interest. That’s why an Energy Manhattan Project must be launched outside the political arena.
The crisis today is not likely to ease or go away. New assaults on the environment are accelerating and appear unstoppable. Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people around the globe in explosively expanding economies, particularly in India and China, want the American dream of a two car garage— with the two or more cars. The planet simply cannot survive that.

What are our answers to this crisis? Shortsighted proposals for consumer relief from lower taxes on fuel, and cries for conservation— drive slower, conserve gas, car pool, wear sweaters in the winter, and heat your house less. This growing cute list of drop-in-the-bucket measures misses the scope and urgency of the problem. Folks, it’s too late for conservation—it’s blind or silly, if not just plain stupid as a solution.

The crisis could reach a point of no return. This is not just a layman’s opinion; it’s the consensus of prominent scientists.

As reported in the UK Independent (Feb. 5, 2008), a major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists reported in the named nine dangerous tipping points of environmental destruction that could run out of control.

The London Guardian (May 30, 2008) reported that “a group of 1,700 leading scientists [includes six Nobel Prize winners] called on the US government yesterday to take the lead in fighting global warming.” The scientists cited “the unprecedented and unanticipated effects of global warming…”

Most ironic is that the U.S government, foreign governments, universities, and non-profit organizations provide billions of dollars each year to scientists for climate and environmental research that is largely ignored in favor of business as usual band-aids.


The University of Iowa has created an impressive directory of agencies and organizations engaged in scientific environmental research: 41 U.S federal government programs and agencies, 41 U.S. state government programs and agencies, 17 foreign government programs, 24 international organization programs, 17 professional societies, 51 U.S. corporate and non-profit organizations, 48 U.S. university based research centers, and 12 international University based centers

The consensus from scientific investigations concurs with the view of scientists cited by the Guardian. Disregarding their findings and warnings is nothing short of THE SUICIDE BOMBING OF SCIENCE!

We need an “Energy Manhattan Project" now! The environmental clock is ticking.

In case you missed last week’s column on the Energy Manhattan Project:
Let’s Launch A Clean Energy ‘Manhattan Project’ Now: An Open Letter To Lee Iacocca

(My recently published book "Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology to be Truly Free" is published by Rowman and Littlefield (Oct. 2007) and is now available at Amazon.com,Barnes & Noble.com and other major book outlets.)
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Bernard Starr, Ph.D., formerly professor of developmental and educational psychology at the City University of New York, now teaches “Spirituality in Film” and leads “The Spiritual Forum” at Marymount Manhattan College. In addition to his work in radio, he is a longtime contributor of commentary and opinion articles to numerous major publications. He is also the President of the Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy and is the main United Nations representative for the Institute of Global Education that founded the Mucherla Global School in Mucherla, India. © Copyright 2008 by Bernard Starr.