The U.S. Has Role Models for Sustainability and Civility All Over the Globe

My dear friend (and very first marketing consulting client, back in 1985) Terry Ribb writes that she takes heart in the progress that Sweden has made in committing to renewables.  I thought I would publish the conversation that she and I are having.  (Note that she, as always, has a much more positive attitude about all this than I do.)

Terry: Here’s another gem for you. 

Craig: I love this; Northern Europe is doing a wonderful job at this, across the board.  I’m not sure I’ll write a post on it, though, as I do this fairly often, as a way to celebrate good things in the world and point out how pathetic the U.S. approach to sustainability is.

Terry: I was so excited to see that some countries are still for common good!

Craig: For sure. The most sophisticated societies on Earth right now (mostly European) are doing incredibly well in terms of civility. As we’ve been discussing, lots of these countries are leading the way in terms of carbon emissions, and, of course, almost all of them have universal healthcare.  But there are other things that blow our American minds cropping up constantly.  The Netherlands, for instance, is dealing with a “crisis” in its prison system: many of its prisons are empty due to a lack of convicts; in the past few years 19 prisons have closed down and more are slated for closure next year. The Scottish have a three-word phrase they communicate to refugees entering their country: “Welcome to Scotland.” (Ours might be: “Not Welcome Here” or “Disadvantaged Go Home” or “You’re All Terrorists.”)

Yet it’s not like Americans have no role models to emulate in terms of decency and how to act as a nation.  I’m reminded of the Neil Young song exhorting Alabama to knock off the racist, Neanderthal behavior: “Alabama, you have the rest of the union to help you along. What’s going wrong?”

I suppose we can only hope for an event, or set of events,  that shed compassion and enlightenment over our people, like a light rain from the heavens.