The Enormous Opportunity

The news today was good. It turns out that the United States will take over the leadership position in oil production in the next 20 years.

The implications of this opportunity are enormous. Since we have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation, our position as moral leader of the world has been eroded because we don't have the money to back it up. The revenues produced by the increase in oil production will change that dramatically.

But the opportunity must be approached in a different way than in the past. In the past, we stood as the world's police and enforced our will upon the world through military might. It has made us many enemies that are still paying us back as we speak.

Instead, we should use the revenues to lead by example. China and India are rapidly developing Western lifestyles, yet they are following the same path we did a century ago by using dirty fossil fuels to propel their growth. They feel no responsibility because they are following our example. Remember the marathon runners who were hesitant to compete in Beijing? No matter how the Chinese tried, they couldn't hide the pollution produced by the jammed highways that wind through the city.

We need to regain our moral authority by showing the whole world that we will lead the way to a greener future and do our best to mitigate the effects of the impending disaster we helped to create. So far, our apathy and loss of moral authority has shown the Islamic world that we are as bankrupt a culture as they suspected all along. A truly “green” revolution, powered by the profits from fossil fuels, would show Muslims that we are to be taken seriously and would go a long way towards decreasing the radicalization of Muslim youth.