General Discussion

...despite claiming enthusiasm for human rights, he coddled the Shah of Iran, a very brutal dictator, to have access to oil. This ultimately led to his political downfall.

He funded and hyped "coal to oil" schemes, Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, that had only been industrialized in Nazi Germany and in Apartheid era South Africa. Had this been commercialized in the US; it would have led to a climate disaster at unprecedented levels, although in fairness, although scientists were aware of the issue, it was not publicly and politically prominent until the issue was raised to that level, wisely, by Al Gore.

Carter decided to forego used nuclear fuel reprocessing as a "moral example." (Nations around the world ignored his "example" without a single nuclear war breaking out.) This is something of a mixed bag, since at that time the commercial (and military) route was PUREX processing, and cleaner routes exist now. However, had the United States, the world's largest producer of nuclear energy then and now, used MOX fuels, we would have much higher inventories of fissionable actinides which will be essential to address whatever (increasingly remote) chance to at least ameliorate the extreme global heating we now observe. If he were really a nuclear engineer, rather than a military figure in the nuclear Navy, he would have clearly understood the difference between reactor grade plutonium and weapons grade plutonium. Ideally we could have done away with uranium enrichment, thus lowering the prospect of weapons development.

On Plutonium, Nuclear War, and Nuclear Peace

He proposed the "Carter Doctrine" which was a policy by which the United States claimed the right militarily to seize foreign oil fields, something it did in both Iraq wars under each of the Bushes.

Finally, he hyped so called "renewable energy" which has been an expensive and highly damaging disaster, soaking trillions of dollars and doing nothing other than to accelerate the destruction of the atmosphere - adding the destruction of precious ecosystems, increased mining, and the industrialization of much wilderness to the damage - and entrenching the use of dangerous fossil fuels, on which so called "renewable energy" depends.

President Carter was a good man; his post Presidency was the greatest ever, with the possible exception of that of John Quincy Adams, but his energy policies as President were neither wise nor worthy. The applause for his energy policies strikes me as extremely dubious.

He does not stand as President among the pantheon of great Democratic Presidents since the dawn of the 20th century. Only JFK and Woodrow Wilson stand lower in my estimation, and he does not compare with the greater Presidencies of FDR, Harry Truman, Joe Biden, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton.

As a man, he may rank higher than some of these men, but only as a man, not as a President, especially an energy President, as his energy policies were not inspiring at all. They led down the road to disaster.

To answer the question of who is responsible for the extreme global heating we now observe, a mirror would be an extremely useful device to illuminate the answer. Turn the lights on when you use one.

Have a nice weekend.