Monday morning quarterback?

I don't want to make this some kind of political blog, but the atmosphere in which we currently live demands an increased responsibility to think about the consequences of the actions of not only our government but also ourselves. I'll be the first to say that the most I do personally for the well being of our planet is implementing the reusable bag about 30% of the time. Sometimes I am shocked at how very little I do and how much I constantly denigrate the world in which I live. I can only figure that it follows the pattern of most things in modern life, namely that people don't change behaviors until they are personally made to face the consequences of their own actions.

This little diatribe was prompted by watching an interview with one of our candidates for President that took place recently. Over the course of the questioning he was asked what he might have done differently had he been President when the events of 9/11 occurred. To my relief, he was not overly critical of the immediate actions of the current administration. I say this because I can't imagine any leader being prepared for what happened that day and I don't deign to question how that person reacted in the short term. The interesting part of the answer was that he put forth a scenario about the post-9/11 government's domestic response that really made me take notice. Paraphrasing, he asked how the US might be different today if the President had, instead of encouraging people to return to their normal routines and continue spending, called for a national push away from reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Thinking back to that time, it is obvious that the country was eager to act, on individual, community, and national levels. I wonder now if there had been a drastic energy reform platform put forth at the time could it have motivated even the laziest (I'm looking at me) of our citizens to make changes? I know that there is of course no way of saying now what might have been (and this was pointed out in the interview), but can you not think of times when, on a individual level, you have been prompted to change a set of behaviors only as a result of a certain personal catastrophe?

I post this for no other reason than to put the discussion in front of the tiny audience who read this blog. While I have no ulterior motives and hope not to appear as if speaking from a soapbox, I do hope that it might make you think.

Strangely, in an entirely unrelated turn of events, I was directed to this website recently. Who knows if it could work but it's an interesting concept (Read "Our Bold Plan".)