Greening of Geopolitics

One of the best articles I read all weekend:

How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with 50 green states — not an America divided between red and blue states.

Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward. That’s why I say: We don’t just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don’t just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president. We don’t just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

The Power of Green - New York Times Magazine

And this is just the intro of the article! Friedman asserts that changing the assumption that being green means you are a liberal or a Democrat is vital in putting our country at the forefront of as yet fully realized renewable energy industry. The "Greens" of our society are going to have make similar ideological compromises that those in the Christian community are finding themselves having to make for the sake of elevating the Gospel from the exclusive domain of conservatives or Republicans.

Like some Christians who can't fathom a pro-choice brethren, there will be "greens" who will have a hard time letting a pure capitalists come into the fold and have renewable energy go nuclear (or something like it). But just like elevating the Gospel above the lens of politics and ideology makes it more accessible to those who need Jesus, the same can be said of re-visioning what it means to be "Green."

PS: Yeah don't mess with your template in the new blogger unless you are ready for the consequences....yikes!