Climate Corner: Jimmy Carter – visionary

Feb 1, 2025

Vic Elam

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Recently deceased former President Jimmy Carter grew up close to the land, hunting, fishing, and farming his family’s property near Plains, Ga. From those experiences Carter developed an ethic of environmental stewardship that remained with him throughout his life and influenced his political leanings.

Early in his political career as the governor of Georgia, Carter stood in the way to save a river from being dammed after paddling the river and seeing the natural beauty that would be destroyed. As president, Carter struggled to protect the environment from development and instead pivoted to provide protections for more than 150 million acres of federal lands.

Climate science was not as well established in the late 1970s, when Carter was in office, but even then, it was showing undeniable evidence that carbon dioxide gas build-up in the atmosphere was contributing to a green house effect. Carter was the first global leader that understood the science and its implications and took measures to decrease carbon emissions. Although some of Carter’s actions had unintended consequences that may have increased carbon emissions, he led with intention that was unmistakable. Many of Carter’s mandates were well ahead of their time and set the stage for much of the advances in energy efficiency that we enjoy today.

Oil shortages at the time also forced Carter to look at renewable energy sources to help us reduce our dependency on oil. This phenomenon is not unlike the energy situation that we are finding ourselves in today. The state of Virginia is one such example; by providing sales tax incentives, data centers needed to support the burgeoning artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency markets are increasing and expected to dramatically increase further electricity demands. The projected 183% increase in power demand by 2040 would require an additional large natural gas plant every year and a half, along with wind energy that is expected to come online and combined with increased solar and potentially nuclear plant additions to meet the needs.

Virginia consumers may have to bear the burden of all this power development by paying much higher utility rates and suffering environmental degradation. The Mid-Ohio Valley may not be immune to similar impacts as the quest for more and faster data ramps up.

Without the energy crisis that his administration had to endure and with the environmental impact information available now, there’s no telling what President Carter may have accomplished. He stepped forward into the dark trusting the available science, yet as science has improved and shed more and more light on the climate change problem, most leaders since Carter have largely put sunglasses on and ignored the light. Now it seems that the light is as bright as a welding arc, and still our elected lawmakers are donning a welding helmet and pretending the issue will just go away or refusing to acknowledge it. We need everyone to see the light that science has cast upon our condition and act accordingly, our future depends on it.

Carter did more than any president in history following his presidency to create peace and prosperity, but following his presidency he was looked upon as one of the worst for a few reasons. In retrospect, President Carter was a role model who was well ahead of his time, and he is now regarded among the greatest.

Rest in peace President Carter.

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Vic Elam is an avid outdoorsman and contributor to organizations that share his concern for our environment, including Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.