"The Infamous Generation"

P. Richard Rittelmann, a partner at Burt, Hill, and Associates, a firm of architects from the Pittsburgh area in the early 1970’s, said: “Long-standing government controls have allowed the prices of energy to reflect only cost and not the value of diminishing resources. If somehow energy had been permitted to seek its true market value, energy conservation would now be a way of life, and alternate energy opportunities could quite conceivably have followed an evolutionary development process rather than the revolutionary process to which the nation must commit itself.”

Remember, this argument was made in the early 70’s. And indeed, steps were taken at the time to find alternate energy sources, that is, until we foolhardy, impatient, short-sighted, Americans could not stand being told the truth—that we couldn’t have what we wanted and have it right now—so we elected those who told us what we wanted to hear. And the much needed search for alternate energy sources was put off for the next twenty-eight years.

We certainly can’t afford to waste another twenty-eight years—in fact, it is very possible that we didn’t have the luxury of the last wasted period—the unimaginable harm to our planet may already be unstoppable.

Some of us won’t be here to witness it, but our children, and their children will. Instead of the “Greatest Generation” as our folks were named—we can be called the infamous one, not a legacy of which to be proud.


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