Double Dog Dare

We live on this planet called Earth. You, me, the people in China, Austria, New Zealand and Peru and everyone else. All of us are on this one planet. Now imagine this planet as a big ol' house. You, a nation, get your own room. I get my own room. Everyone's got their own room (it's a very big house). But despite that we've got our own rooms, we're all under the same roof. We share resources , like water, energy and air. We all use the kitchen to get our food. We all use the living room to relax. So while we may have these false borders of walls and doors, we aren't closed off from each other. We could try to avoid each as much as possible, create a competition between each other as to who can have the best room...but in reality, all it does is lead to tension, and if any of you have ever lived with a roommate who you're competing with/don't wanna talk to..IT IS AWKWARD. And not a very conducive environment for living happily.

Lesson from metaphor: Our family (humanity) is dysfunctional when we compete in our house (Earth) and our house and us cannot be happy (not screwing up the planet) unless we work together.

The idea that we're "competing" with any nation in terms of green technology seems very Cold War to me. I thought we were moving past that. Perhaps though, the way we are looking at "competition" in the classic sense is the wrong way...this isn't no race for space.

China, as Friedman says, is kicking into high green-tech production gear. Good on them! We shouldn't view that as, "Oh man, China's whooping us. We can't have that, we've got to beat them."

I think we should view it as a challenge...or even better yet, a dare. If we viewed China's work as a way of saying, "Hey USA, I double dog dare you to green it up," I feel as though that's a spark for us to compete with ourselves. It becomes not US vs Them but US vs US, meaning can we prove ourselves worthy? The US has always been a self-determined nation. Manifest destiny and whatnot. Let's take on the dare then.

But let's ramp it up a notch. Technological innovation is great and the amount of new ideas and products coming out of the science/engineering world is literally jaw-dropping, but that's only one third of the pie. The other two are individual actions and policy. People, on a you and me basis, need to step it up. Last week's article by Maniates says we need to do more than the easy stuff. True, we can challenge ourselves to do more...but that easy stuff doesn't hurt either. The last third of the pie is policy. Congress is being a party pooper with that. They're like the parent in our figurative house that's saying, "No, you can't go out. Do your chores." When they don't pass policies that help innovators develop and finance their tech, we slow progress. When they don't attempt to regulate and enforce civilian clean-energy practices, they slow progress. They are locking our bedroom door and stopping us from working with the rest of the house to make it a happier home.

To summarize: Competition is bad, but a double dog dare is not. The world is double dog daring us to take it to the next level.

And as any kid will tell you, you can't say no to a double dog dare. Otherwise your a butthead (a strong insult from a 5 year old).