American Views Abroad

It is extraordinarily cold here in Europe today. Russia has been experiencing one of its coldest winters in a long time and the freezing temperatures are moving westward. Interestingly, a TV magazine devoted to looking at the world outside of Germany, Weltspiegel on ARD TV, brought an item on Freezing Americans last evening. In Kampf Gegen die Kaelte, it showed Joe Kennedy (a nephew of the Kennedy clan) delivering cheap oil donated by Venezuela to needy New England citizens. It explained how the price of heating oil is now around 80 cents a litre there, which is more expensive than in Germany, and how many families can no longer afford to fill up their home tanks. Venezuela allows 200 gallons or about 750 litres to be delivered for a much cheaper price. US government assistance has run out and thus many citizens have no other recourse than to take advantage of this foreign assistance. Another important aspect of this problem, as documented in the film, is how homes are typically constructed in the US. They are very often built with wood and very badly insulated. There is little to protect these houses against the brutally cold weather coming down from Canada and to help conserve the amount of oil used in winter. A summary of this (in German) can be found at www.br-online.de/politik/ausland/themen/2006/00424 along with a link to a streaming video of this report.

Joe Kennedy is quoted saying how his uncle was able to motivate the US to get a man on the moon in ten years. What is now needed is to motivate the country to re-think its energy habits in the next ten years.