President Carter’s energy policy, his first major domestic policy initiative, has received a rocky reception in the Congress. In turn, Carter has been able to picture himself as the crusader for the public good, striving against the oil and automobile lobbies who, in collusion with members of Congress, are undermining his call for conservation and a farsighted national energy policy. But in all this public posturing, the specifics of Carter’s original proposals, and the questions which should be raised by those committed to biblical notions of justice and stewardship, are too easily forgotten.
The first reality to recognize is the link between the demand for energy and lifestyle. One is faced with the choice of either accepting that basic changes in the American lifestyle are impossible, and that only minor adjustments here and there can be hoped for, or that the only just solution to the world’s energy crisis will necessitate major changes in the ways of living that are customary for the globe’s more affluent citizens.
President Carter has opted for the first choice. To his credit, he has identified the existence of the energy crisis. But the strategy behind his solution is to conserve not energy so much as the American way of material life.
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