Jimmy Carter's environmental legacy set the foundation for today's climate action
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, died at his home in Plains, Ga., on Sunday. He was 100.
Carter's interest in promoting renewable energy was on display at his January 20, 1977 presidential inauguration. Solar panels were installed to warm the reviewing stand near the White House, where Carter watched the inaugural parade.
"It happened to be one of the coldest days of the year that morning and very little sun," says Paul Muldawer, the Atlanta architect Carter tapped to design his inauguration facilities.
"We made a statement, although it honestly didn't work as well as I would have liked it to work," Muldawer says. Wind chill that day was in the teens, according to the National Weather Service.
Carter wanted a ceremony that reflected his values. That extended to the reviewing stand, which was built so it wouldn't end up in a landfill after the ceremony. Instead of wood, it was made of steel.
"After the inauguration, we had it disassembled, shipped to Atlanta, and then it was recycled as a bandstand," says Muldawer, who's now 92. The structure was in a public park where free concerts were held. "Carter was just thrilled with that. He really liked the idea of repurposing that facility."
The inauguration set the stage for Carter's four years as President. His environmental legacy has shaped how the country is responding to climate change today.
"At the time that Jimmy Carter was president, his biggest concern was energy security," says Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University.
In 1977, the U.S. was importing 8.81 million barrels of petroleum a day, mostly from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or the OPEC cartel. That made the U.S. vulnerable during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which led to long lines at gas stations.
In several ways Jaffe says Carter was ahead of his time by being an early advocate for conserving energy and boosting renewable electricity, such as solar power. But Carter also promoted domestic coal mining. The subsequent growth of that industry contributed to the warming climate the world is experiencing now.
Carter boosted energy efficiency and solar
Shortly after Carter took office in 1977, he delivered what has become known as the "sweater speech." Sitting by a lit fireplace, he wore a cardigan sweater and addressed the country on television.
"All of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night we could save half the current shortage of natural gas," Carter said.
Energy efficiency seems like a given today, but it wasn't really on Americans' minds after the 1950s and '60s, Jaffe says. Back then, it seemed like the oil would always flow. Jaffe says some even made fun of Carter's efficiency plea — an indication of how unusual the request was at the time.
Still, energy experts then were thinking about the possibility that oil and gas could run out. That prompted Carter to encourage alternative sources of energy. "He even put solar panels, famously, on the White House," Jaffe says.
At a press event unveiling the solar panels that would be used to heat water, Carter made clear that energy security was at the top of his mind.
"Today, in directly harnessing the power of the sun, we're taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels," Carter said.
By the end of the 20th century, Carter wanted the U.S. to get "20% of all the energy we use from the sun." The country still hasn't reached that goal, though more than 80% of new generating capacity this year is expected to come from solar and battery storage.
As if to highlight the risk of experimenting with new energy sources, Carter told reporters at the solar panel unveiling, "A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people."
The panels were removed less than a decade later during the Reagan administration.
"Had the United States stayed the course, and we had not had volatility in our federal efforts in alternative energy, we would maybe still be the premier country for alternative energy," Jaffe says. Instead, she says, the U.S. is playing catch-up with countries like Denmark and Spain on wind energy, and China for solar and electric vehicles.
The panels removed from the White House were stored in a government warehouse until Unity College acquired them, according to Maine Public. Sixteen panels were re-installed on a roof at the college in Central Maine and used to heat water for the dining hall. One of the panels, about the size of a picnic table, is displayed on the campus with a marker describing its historical significance.
A climate change warning and promoting coal
The summer after Carter took office, he received a memo with the subject "Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change." It warned that increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a "greenhouse effect" that "will induce a global climatic warming."
The memo was from Frank Press, Carter's chief advisor on scientific matters and the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Press wrote, "The present state of knowledge does not justify emergency action to limit the consumption of fossil fuels in the near term." But he did write that considering the "potential CO2 hazard" should become part of the country's long-term energy strategy.
The top of the memo is marked "THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN." Climate change, though, was not an issue Carter highlighted during his time in office. He actually boosted domestic coal production. Coal is the most carbon-intense fuel for generating electricity.
Carter's 1980 campaign speech to miners in West Frankfort, Illinois includes a level of boosterism rarely seen outside of the coal industry these days.
"America indeed is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and my goal as President of the United States is to see on the world energy markets Arab oil replaced with Illinois coal," Carter told miners and employees of the Old Ben Coal Mine No. 25. He also boasted that the country would, "produce more coal in 1980 than has ever before been produced in the United States of America."
The greenhouse gas emissions from burning more coal are an issue the country still grapples with as the effects of climate change become clear.
"I calculated once that we had roughly five full extra years of emissions at roughly the 2000 level of CO2 emissions due to Carter's energy coal policies," says Philip Verleger, an economist who worked on energy issues in the Treasury Department during the Carter administration.
In a 1978 speech Carter did recognize the polluting nature of coal by announcing a commission on the coal industry. "Ultimately, we will learn to harness the energy of the Sun and the oceans with fusion power to meet our energy needs. But for now, we have no choice but to continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels, and coal is our most abundant fossil fuel," Carter said.
But even Verleger comes back to Carter's work advancing energy efficiency and renewable energy.
"Carter really started the ball rolling, created many of the ideas that are now coming to the fore. And that's good. The downside in terms of environment was the emphasis on coal," Verleger says.
An enduring environmental legacy
Preserving land also was a priority for Carter. Near the end of his presidency, he signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. It provided protections for 157 million acres of land through the creation of national parks, refuges and conservation areas.
The legislation doubled the size of the National Park System and was the largest expansion of protected lands in history, according to the National Park Service.
Carter also signed legislation in 1977 creating the Department of Energy, which is implementing much of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed last year. The law dedicates money to boosting renewable energy and research on new technologies.
"Over four decades ago, Carter was putting in place policies that we are now enhancing today," Jaffe says. The IRA's focus on domestic manufacturing also is helping fulfill Carter's goal of putting "the United States back to where it needs to be, and dominating supply chains for things like solar panels, manufacturing and electric cars," explains Jaffe.
In his final years, Carter's environmental legacy came full circle. In 2017 he leased 10 acres of his land in Plains, Georgia for a solar power project that produces enough electricity to supply about half the demand of his hometown.
At the dedication event he told the crowd, "This site will be as symbolically important as the 32 panels we put on the White House," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "People can come here and see what can be done."
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