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Jimmy Carter Believed in American ‘Exceptionalism’
And then Ronald Reagan did what conservatives have been doing forever: He relied on fear, ignorance, emotion, and here we are today.
In 1977, at Jimmy Carter’s presidential inauguration, solar panels were installed to warm the reviewing stand. Two and a half years later, President Carter installed them on the roof of the White House to demonstrate America’s commitment to renewable energy. The country was still working to recover from the shock of the oil embargo by OPEC countries, and developing clean energy sources was considered a way to promote energy independence.
Warnings about the effects of carbon dioxide on a warming climate were first published in 1938. The world, however, was preoccupied with the onset of war in Europe and the recovery from that war. No one had much time to worry about some melting snow or hot summer days. By the 1970s, however, those voices grew louder, the warnings more articulate, and the long-term effects more discernibly catastrophic. Jimmy Carter heard those warnings, and in the ethos of the two Democratic presidents who preceded him, Kennedy and Johnson, Carter articulated his belief in American exceptionalism by putting solar panels on the roof of the White House.
