ISCOWP Update June 2010

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What Scientists Think About Religion

From Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund, as part of the Religion And Science: A Contemporary Discussion series at the Huffington Post

Almost a quarter of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion. But what do we really know about how scientists think about morality, spirituality and faith?

From 2005 to 2008, I surveyed nearly 1,700 natural and social scientists on their views about religion, spirituality and ethics and spoke with 275 of them in depth in their offices and laboratories. It turns out that nearly 50 percent of scientists identify with a religious label, and nearly one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month. While many scientists are completely secular, my survey results show that elite scientists are also sitting in the pews of our nation's churches, temples and mosques.

Of the atheist and agnostic scientists I had in-depth conversations with, more than 30 percent considered themselves atheists; however, less than six percent of these were actively working against religion. Many atheist and agnostic scientists even think key mysteries about the world can be best understood spiritually, and some attend houses of worship, completely comfortable with religion as moral training for their children and an alternative form of community. If religious people better understood the full range of atheistic practice -- and the way that it interfaces with religion for some -- they might be less likely to hold negative attitudes toward nonreligious scientists. The truth is that many atheist scientists have no desire to denigrate religion or religious people.

In fact, about one-fifth of the atheist scientists I spoke with say they consider themselves "spiritual atheists." Perhaps their stories are the most interesting. One chemist I talked with does not believe in God, yet she says she craves a sense of something beyond herself that provides a feeling of purpose and meaning and a moral compass. She sees herself as having an engaged spirituality, one that motivates her to live differently. For example, spiritual reasons keep her from accepting money from the Department of Defense, she says; for her, it's too linked to the military.

Given the presence of religion in the scientific community, why do Americans still think scientists are hostile to religion? Within their scientific communities, religious scientists tend to practice what I call a "secret spirituality." They are reluctant to talk about religious or spiritual ideas with their colleagues. I spoke with one physicist who said that he thinks universities are not always very accepting environments for scientists of faith. He believes that if he openly said he is religious, others would question the validity of his scientific work; it is his sense of things that at his elite school, he can be a scientist or be religious, but not both.

And within their faith communities, religious scientists often practice a "secret science." Sitting in the pews, they are often hesitant to discuss scientific ideas because they are afraid of offending those next to them. The result of this reticence is that people of faith are not aware of the religious scientists in their midst. More than that, these scientists fail to serve as role models for religious youth who might want to study science but fear science might lead them away from faith. As a result, these children lose out.

Research shows that the experiences students have with science in elementary and secondary school, and how well their science abilities evolve from there, help predict both whether they'll attend college and whether they'll enter into high-status professional fields. Other research has shown that those with stronger science skills and a better scientific understanding tend to have greater socioeconomic stability and overall success. So if religious folks want their children to succeed (as a scholar of American religion, I have every reason to believe they do) and if scientists want more children to consider a career in the field (as a scholar of the American scientific community, I know they do), there needs to be a better dialogue between people of faith and the scientists among them.

We need real, radical dialogue -- not just friendly co-existence between religion and science, but the kind of discussion where each side genuinely tries to understand why the other thinks the way it does and where common ground is sought. This dialogue should reach the rank-and-file in religious communities with the message of how to maintain faith while fully pursuing science. And it needs to reach the rank-and-file in the scientific community as well, providing them with better ways to connect with religious people.

Religious people need to remember that not all atheist scientists are hostile to religion. They need to know that even the most secular scientists struggle with the moral and ethical implications of their work. And scientists need to do a better job of communicating the importance of science to religious people -- especially in those areas in which religion might actually motivate them to care about science (like environmentalism, or "creation care"). Because if people of faith believe they have to become antireligious or completely secular to be a successful scientist -- when this is not a full reflection of the scientific community -- it would be a disaster.

Seeking God's Help For A Wounded Gulf

By DAN BARRY from the New York Times

BON SECOUR, Ala. — In a small white building along the baptizing Bon Secour River, a building that once housed a shrimp-net business, the congregation of the Fishermen Baptist Church gathered for another Sunday service, with the preacher presiding from a pulpit designed to look like a ship captain’s wheel.

The assistant pastor at the Fishermen Baptist Church in Bon Secour, Ala., asked the men of the congregation to come forward for a prayer.

After the singing of the opening hymn, “Ring the Bells of Heaven,” and the announcement that an engaged couple was now registered at Wal-Mart, the preacher read aloud a proclamation from Gov. Bob Riley that declared this to be a “day of prayer” — a day of entreaties to address the ominous threat to the way of life just outside the church’s white doors.

Whereas, and whereas, and whereas, the proclamation read. People of Alabama, please pray for your fellow citizens, for other states hurt by this disaster, for all those who are responding. And pray “that a solution that stops the oil leak is completed soon.”

In other words, dear God, thank you for your blessings and guidance. And one other thing, dear God:

Help.

The governor’s words hung a moment in the fan-turned air. Then the preacher, Shawn Major, summoned the men of the church to the front to “ask God to do something special.”

Two dozen men, many of them wearing short-sleeve shirts in summery colors, knelt and sat with heads bowed and eyes closed, while a half-mile down the street, other men — and women — underwent training in the use of a more secular form of hope, the laying of boom.

The wall between church and state came a-tumbling down on Sunday, as elected leaders from the five states on the Gulf of Mexico issued proclamations declaring it to be a day of prayer. Although days of prayer are not uncommon here — Governor Riley declared one asking for rain to relieve a drought a few years ago — these proclamations conveyed the sense that at this late date, salvation from the spill all but requires divine intervention.

In the two months since the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion began a ceaseless leak of oil into the gulf, damaging the ecosystem and disrupting the economy, the efforts by mortals to stem the flow have failed. Robots and golf balls and even the massive capping dome all seem small in retrospect.

So, then, a supplementary method was attempted: coordinated prayer.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry encouraged Texans to ask God “for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis.” In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour declared that prayer “allows us an opportunity to reflect and to seek guidance, strength, comfort and inspiration from Almighty God.” In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal invoked the word “whereas” a dozen times — as well as the state bird, the brown pelican — but made no direct mention of God. In Florida, Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp asked people to pray that God “would guide and direct our civil leaders and provide them with wisdom and divinely inspired solutions.”

The suggestion by government to beseech God for help — to petition a power higher than any elected official — rang out in churches and halls from Pensacola, Fla., to Galveston, Tex., as well as here, in Bon Secour, where Brother Harry prayed with head bowed.

The Fishermen Baptist Church has been in this village, whose name means safe harbor, since 1989. An anchor is planted in its front lawn. Its walls are adorned with paintings of nautical scenes. Its collection boxes are a miniature lighthouse and a treasure chest. The dock across the street is used for baptisms and fishing.

These are all reflections of the church’s founder and pastor, Wayne Mund, who grew up here. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were fishermen, and so was he, until the age of 21, when he dropped his nets and went off to Bible school.

Pastor Mund, 66, lanky and proud to call himself a Bible Baptist, works hard to incorporate his seafaring past into his mission. He sees the Bible, from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, as a nautical book, and the sea as a mesmerizing draw. He will end conversation by warning that those who do not climb aboard God’s boat of salvation “will drown in a sea of sin and despair.”

And now the oily despair in the sea is affecting his small church, his community. Fewer envelopes are being slipped into the treasure chest and lighthouse at the back of the room because some of his 200 congregants can no longer afford to tithe. Fewer people are attending service because fishermen, who normally take Sundays off, are now working for BP to help clean up its goo, which is washing up in Gulf Shores and Mobile Bay.

“The sea, the sea, the sea,” Pastor Mund says. “It has to do with the sea.”

Pastor Mund expected to be out of town on Sunday, so he assigned an associate pastor, Mr. Major, to preside over the 10:30 service. Mr. Major is 46, stocky and more apt to smile than his boss when proselytizing. The spill affecting the river, the world, has been difficult for him to fathom, and he expects that the human toll will not be felt for another year.

Mr. Major spent Saturday with 70 men and women, all learning the proper way to lay boom. But now he was with 70 other men and women, all praying from nine wooden pews; all saying amen to his assertion that “We are still a Christian nation”; all nodding when he said that everyone knew “who ultimately will stop” the spill.

A missionary about to leave for Brazil was waiting to make a multimedia presentation, but first these kneeling men, led by Brother Harry — Harry Mund, a relative of the pastor’s — needed to finish their prayer.

Please God, help us with “this awful oil spill,” he said. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The men rose from their knees and returned to their pews, a couple of them rubbing the salty wet from their eyes.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 28, 2010, on page A10 of the New York edition.

Is The Universe Merely A Statistical Accident?

From Dr. Larry Dossey, author of "The Power of Premonitions" at the Huffington Post

Where scientists such as Weinberg, Monod and Dennett see pointlessness and despair in science, as we have seen, other scientists see pattern, direction and meaning. For example, the eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler said:

"Science ... at first sight seems to have no special platform for man, mind or meaning. Man? Pure biochemistry! Mind? Memory modelable by electronic circuitry! Meaning? Why ask after that puzzling and intangible commodity? What is man that the universe should be mindful of him? ... [I]s not man an unimportant bit of dust on an unimportant planet in an unimportant galaxy in an unimportant region somewhere in the vastness of space? No! The philosopher of old was right! Meaning is important, even central." (1)

The British physicist Paul Davies is also astounded by the sheer unlikelihood of human life, and he suggests that something else might have been going on to tip things in our favor:

"The origin of life on Earth ... could well have been the result of a stupendous chemical fluke. [However,] ... computing the raw odds quickly shows that even the simplest known cell is so unlikely to form by accident it wouldn't happen twice in the entire observable universe. Or in a trillion similar universes ... Perhaps life's origin wasn't a freak event after all, but the automatic outcome of inherently bio-friendly laws of nature." (2)

In his book The Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life, (3) Davies finds in the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears a potent metaphor for expressing the weird fit between the universe and life. The Three Bears story first appeared when the English poet Robert Southey composed it for his 1837 book The Doctor. (4) In the story, a family of three bears -- mother, father, baby -- live in a house in the forest. One day, having cooked porridge and waiting for it to cool, they go for a stroll in the woods. Goldilocks finds the house, enters, and meddles with things -- chairs, beds, and porridge. She finds the adult bears' beds and chairs "too hard" or "too soft," their porridge "too hot" or "too cold." But the baby bear's bed, chair and porridge are "just right." The bears return and discover that Goldilocks is asleep in the baby bear's bed, after having eaten all the baby's porridge.

The parallels are telling, says Davies. The conditions that life encountered in the universe proved "just right." If the known natural laws had been a greater or lesser value than what they are, the universe, like the porridge, would literally be either too hot or too cold to accommodate life as we know it. The stars would burn too brightly or not at all; or they would have collapsed rather than exploded, thus failing to scatter the chemical detritus across the universe that ultimately supported life. If the difference in mass between a proton and neutron were not exactly what it is, life-sustaining chemistry would not have been possible. If all these just-right characteristics were not present on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, we would not be here to reflect on them. (5)

The distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson suggests that life is so improbable, and the physical characteristics of the universe are so finely tuned to accommodate it, that in some sense the universe "knew we were coming." (6) As a consequence of this cosmic foreknowledge, by the time life arose, conditions in the cosmos were ready for it. The table was set -- all life had to do was show up.

Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the twentieth century's most respected cosmologists, seems to agree with the idea that the universe knew life was on its way. Reflecting on the fine-tuning of the conditions necessary for the universe to bring forth life, he suggested that the universe looks like a "put-up job," as if someone had been "monkeying" with the laws of physics, getting ready in advance for the appearance of life. (7,8)

But this is a minority view within cosmology and science in general. Most scientists believe there is no mystery that needs explaining. Life, mind and consciousness are a big fat statistical accident. Given infinite time, the improbable is bound to occur. We're here because of pure, dumb luck. There are no patterns or meaning behind the scenes. This dour position reminds me of the puckish comment of Gertrude Stein: "There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer." (9)

Forfeiting Consciousness

There's an even drearier little secret that veteran scientists never let kids in on -- that if they enter science, they have to check their minds at the door. The reason is that mind, as most people think about it, does not exist in conventional science, because the expressions of consciousness, such as choice, will, emotions, and even logic are said to be brain in disguise. As astronomer Carl Sagan put it, "[The brain's] workings -- what we sometimes call mind -- are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more." (10) Nobelist Francis Crick in his 1995 book The Astonishing Hypothesis was equally explicit, saying, "'You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: 'You're nothing but a pack of neurons.'" (11) Or, as Marvin Minsky, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cognitive scientist and artificial intelligence expert, put it more crudely, "The brain is just a computer made of meat." (12) Crick went further. In his subsequent book Of Molecules and Men, he wrote, "The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry" (13) -- to analyze, in other words, the meat. And lest there be no doubt about where he stands, philosopher Dennett says, "We're all zombies. Nobody is conscious." (14)

Try selling that to a teenager contemplating a career in science and see what happens.
Novelist Arthur Koestler poked fun at these positions by taking aim at Rene Descartes, the seventeenth-century philosopher who was extraordinarily influential in establishing the notion of a mindless body. "If ... Descartes ... had kept a poodle, the history of philosophy would have been different," Koestler wrote. "The poodle would have taught Descartes that contrary to his doctrine, animals are not machines, and hence the human body is not a machine, forever separated from the mind ... " (15)

This morose, meaningless side of science is never openly presented to young students contemplating a lifetime in science. They usually sniff it out later on, after a career choice has been made. I know of no studies that assess the impact of these dark views on young scientists when they encounter them. Are they negatively affected? Do they adopt a chin-up attitude and soldier on, having traveled too far on the science path to turn around? Or -- most commonly, I believe -- do they schizophrenically partition their psychological, spiritual and scientific lives into separate domains in a desperate attempt to find balance, silently suffering the jagged contradictions the rest of their life?

Purists insist that science is neutral on matters of meaning; the world is what it is. Whatever meaning we find in the world comes from us, not the world itself. We read meaning into the world, not from it. This sword cuts two ways; if meaning should not be imputed to the universe, neither should meaninglessness. It is a plain fact that scientists in general, peering into the same universe and aware of the same set of facts, see meaning in different ways, ways that are not part of science itself. No scientist has ever possessed a meaning meter. Therefore the proper approach, it would seem, would be to declare questions of meaning beyond the purview of science, and to cease imposing one's personal view as the official way the universe should be interpreted. This would give students and young scientists a fighting chance to find their own path where meaning and purpose are concerned, and not be bullied by senior scientists who ought to know better.

Lion Burgers And Whale Steaks

From Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) at the Huffington Post.

Two big and odd news stories about eating animals were in the media this past week: the International Whaling Commission battle that included whaling countries that paid cash and provided prostitutes to sway votes away from protecting whales and an Arizona restaurant that offered lion burgers to celebrate the World Cup playoffs.

Let me start with the lions. People wanted to know where on Earth someone so far from the Serengeti was getting lion meat. The restaurateur's declaration that the meat was from lions raised on a "free-range lion farm" fell flatter than an overbaked soufflé, and even fewer people than bought the lion burgers bought that line. The growling increased to a roar when it turned out that the purveyor of this particular lion meat had been brought up on federal charges for his dealings with other big cats back in 2003.

People soon learned that most lion meat often comes from "canned hunts," the kind you often don't know you are watching on hunting shows when "Jim" appears to be out there in the middle of nowhere, bravely risking being gored, while, in fact, he is actually in a fully fenced compound into which bears, tigers, lions, or other animals have been released. Some of the animals are so tame that they walk up to the shooters, who frequently shoot at them from their padded seats in a jeep only yards away. And where do these places get the lions? Some are discarded pets, bought at auctions after becoming too big for a backyard pen, and some come from zoos with a "surplus" to get rid of, having done nothing to curb the birth of cute cubs, who draw crowds.

The idea that whales might lose their status and lions their hide made people see red and the blogosphere light up. That spoke well of our evolving sensibilities, but we need to keep going in that direction, not just settle for the easy stuff.

The Japanese and Norwegians bristle at our valiant attempts to deprive them of whale steak, people in China shake their heads at our disgust over dog soup, and the Korean restaurants serving live, squirming octopus on a bowl of noodles do not understand why we march outside their premises holding picket signs and quoting studies showing that cephalopods are highly sensitive to pain. Causing needless suffering to any form of life should be out of the question for everyone, but they are justified in pointing a finger at us. That's because, down the road from the restaurants serving lion meat, whale steak, dog soup, and live octopus, you will find other animals on the menu who regularly disappear down gullets without a ruckus.

They are, of course, all animals we do not find so fascinating, perhaps because they have traditionally been introduced to us on a dinner plate with a side of potatoes. They surely valued their lives and loves as much as the animals we are culturally conditioned to eat. In fact, the lions surely suffered less than the animals who make up a "regular" burger or steak, given that they were not prodded and kicked down the ramp to the slaughterhouse as was the pig or cow. And while the whale enjoyed a life with loved ones in the ocean until the harpoon hit, the chicken on the filthy factory farm endured chronic pain from cracked leg bones caused by breeding for increased breast meat and then finally suffered broken wings in a travel crate while being jostled down the highway in an open truck.

In an old book about fancy foods, I found a passage in which vegetarians were described as "sad souls, reduced to eating little more than grass." Among the meals I've eaten recently are the vegan coconut cake at Sublime in Ft. Lauderdale, a seitan "Wellington" at Native Foods in Los Angeles, a Gardein soy "chicken" amandine from Whole foods, "faux gras" from Belgium, spicy tofu and garlic spinach with noodles at Mei Wah in Washington, D.C., mock lobster at Harmony in Philadelphia, and a cornucopia of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and bean dishes. My local carry-outs have vegan meals to satisfy any palate. So perhaps, with all the vegan choices we can so easily make, it is time to be a little bit outraged over what befalls the billions of non-whales and non-lions who end up in freezer cases, buckets, boxes, and fast-food wrappers. A free vegetarian/vegan starter kit is downloadable from PETA.org.

Meat Or No Meat: Tell Us What You Think And Why

From Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn at the Huffington Post

Eat meat or not? There is no other topic more heated, and more important when discussing food. Our food choices are not just about taste. They are influenced by and impact our health, culture, religion, ethics, economics, and the environment.

The Huffington Post Food Section would like to compile the best arguments on the subject, pro, con, or in between, and perhaps help some people decide. There are books on both sides of the issue, but we would like to see point and counterpoint side by side. We would also like to debunk some myths. Here's how we can do this together:

Have at it in the comments below. Take your best shots. Compose your comments carefully and thoughtfully. Make your case. Back up your statements with facts and references. We know this is an emotional issue and some people are religious in their fervor. But please show respect for opposing viewpoints. Look for solutions and middle ground.

I will copy the best arguments and paste them here in the main article, for all to see and for all to use in continuing the debate. I will also select a co-author from among the vegetarians and vegans who comment below to assist me in the process to make sure my preferences do not color the debate.

Full disclosure: I run a popular website about barbecue, AmazingRibs.com, with both meat and meatless recipes. I eat meat about five nights a week, rarely at lunch, and never for breakfast.

I have read extensively on the subject of meat pro and con. I was blown away by the powerful arguments against meat in Jonathan Safran Foer's landmark book "Eating Animals". Then I read Lierre Kieth's compelling "The Vegetarian Myth". The middle ground is staked out profoundly by Michael Pollan in "The Omnivore's Dilemma", probably the most important book about food since Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" drew back the curtain on the Chicago stockyards in 1906.

I shall try to be fair and open minded in my selection of arguments to elevate to the main article. If I'm not, I'm sure you will let me know.

Follow Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ribguy

The Choices Before Us

From author John Robbins at the Huffington Post

There are a lot of different ways people are responding to the tragic events currently take place in the Gulf of Mexico. Some right wing pundits -- including Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh -- have been blaming the worst human-caused environmental catastrophe in the nation's history on, of all people, environmentalists. In a stunning twist of oxymoronic logic, the people whose mantra is "drill, baby, drill" have been placing the fault for this disastrous result of offshore drilling, on those who have opposed offshore drilling.

In his May 17th broadcast, Limbaugh complained: "What the environmental wackos are making us do is drill down 35,000 feet, when there's oil practically begging to be taken out of the ground in areas that are now off-limits because of U.S. regime regulations." William Kristol agreed, saying that it if weren't for restrictions passed "after the Santa Barbara incident 40 years ago," we would be drilling closer to shore, in shallower water, and everything would be okay.

Such statements make dramatic political theater, but their connection to reality is minimal to nonexistent. According to the federal agency in charge of offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, there are today 3,417 active shallow-water oil platforms operating close to shore in the Gulf of Mexico. This is more than 100 times as many platforms as are operating further out, in water depths of more than 1,000 feet.

But Kristol is right about one thing. The "Santa Barbara incident" he refers to did in fact help give birth to the modern environmental movement. That's because, at the time, people responded to a horrible offshore oil spill not by blaming those who took threats to the biosphere seriously, but by mobilizing to protect the environment.

Here's what happened: On January 28, 1969, an oil well being drilled six miles offshore by Union Oil Company of California (now part of Chevron) suffered a blowout. It took ten days to plug, during which 100,000 barrels of crude oil poured into the Santa Barbara Channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara. As the oil slick grew to cover 800 square miles, there was widespread shock and outrage. One reporter called it a sacrilege, and another said it was like watching mud thrown at the Mona Lisa. Californians were horrified as waves, thick with crude oil, broke on shore with a sinister silence. Many publicly burned their gasoline credit cards in protest.

As anger swept the nation, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which to this day requires environmental impact assessments and statements for all actions involving federal agencies that could have a significant effect on the environment. The following spring, millions of people took part in the first Earth Day. In the two years following the oil spill, more environmental legislation was passed than at any other time in the nation's history. It was during this period that President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and signed the Clean Air Act.

But the Santa Barbara oil spill was child's play compared to what's happening now. Every single day, the BP catastrophe (also called the Deepwater Horizon oil spill) is vomiting as much crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico as was spilled in the entire duration of the Santa Barbara disaster. This assault against the natural world on which our lives depend has been going on since April 20th, and no one knows when it will stop. The best-case scenario at present is that relief wells may be operative by August, by which time something like five to ten million barrels (210 to 420 million gallons) of oil will have gushed into the ocean. But it is by no means certain that the relief wells will succeed in terminating the flow of oil. Worst-case scenarios, which include the whole seabed of the Gulf collapsing, are so dire that they are difficult to comprehend, with the most extreme rivaling worldwide nuclear war in their apocalyptic implications to life on earth.

There remains a great deal of uncertainty about how bad this will be. What's certain is that we are now at a far greater turning point in the history of our relationship to oil than we were 40 years ago when the Santa Barbara incident took place. The millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico now add to the other massive burdens that stem from our oil addiction. Climate change, the trade deficit, military entanglements in the Middle East and Venezuela, air pollution in our cities, and rapidly growing rates of asthma among our children are other consequences of our unabated oil consumption. It is no exaggeration to say that how we respond to the current upheaval will help determine the future of this nation, and indeed what manner of civilization our planet can sustain in the generations to come.

The good news is this: Contrary to what might logically be inferred from the pronouncements of some right wing pundits, oil consumption is not akin to a constitutional right. Nor is oil equivalent to the oxygen we need to breathe. Rather, it is an addiction. A formidably tenacious addiction, yes, but an addiction from which we may yet recover.

Weaning our economy from the addiction to oil would certainly mean making fundamental changes in the way we live, and thus far, despite being drawn into war after war in pursuit of oil, we have not been willing to make those changes. But as I describe in my recently published book The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less, there are ways to cut down substantially on the amount of oil we consume that can actually improve the quality of our lives. And there is a precedent for the size and speed of the call to action before us.

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. resisted becoming engaged in World War II. But after the attack, which took place in December 1941, the country immediately began a massive restructuring of the economy in order to mobilize for the war effort. Less than a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt announced the goals, which included immediately producing massive numbers of tanks, planes, and anti-aircraft guns. He met with automobile industry leaders, including the heads of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, and told them the country would need them to totally redirect their production facilities in order for the nation to reach these arms production objectives. Soon, the sale of private automobiles was banned. For nearly three years, no cars were produced in the United States, other than those for the army, navy, coast guard, and other military services. In addition, highway and residential construction was halted.

When Roosevelt originally announced that the U.S. would need 60,000 planes, experts said it would be impossible to come anywhere close to that number. But as a result of the massive redirection of the country's productivity, the nation's needs for planes, tanks, and other military requirements were fully met, and greatly ahead of schedule. In the three years beginning with 1942, the U.S. far exceeded the initial goal, turning out 230,000 aircraft.

The speed and extent of this economic conversion was astounding, as was its impact. Military historians almost universally agree that without it, the Allied Forces would have lost the war.

The mobilization of resources that took place within a matter of months is a compelling demonstration that we can restructure the economy swiftly and effectively, if we are convinced of the need to do so. But so far, the prevailing response to the BP oil disaster has been about using safer drilling methods. This strikes me as equivalent to heroin addicts using clean needles. It's an improvement that does absolutely nothing to challenge the addiction itself.

But what if we were to respond to the tragedy taking place in the Gulf of Mexico and the many other disastrous consequences of our addiction to oil with the same level of urgency and commitment our nation displayed in restructuring the economy during World War II?

Albert Einstein once famously said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." What if we were to truly think outside the box and seek, not just to make our addiction more palatable, but to truly overcome it? Too expensive to contemplate, you think? The oil companies have amassed $289 billion in profits over the last three years. The U.S. imports more than $300 billion worth of oil every year. What if that kind of money was used to move us away from a petroleum-based economy?

We have the technology, if we have the will. Consider, for example, what would happen if we made an immediate and massive commitment to plug-in hybrid cars (and other electric vehicles).

As I explain in The New Good Life, plug-in hybrids are a quantum leap over current hybrids. Though they are not yet commercially available, they will be very soon, and could be within months. They get 100 miles per gallon or more, but the advantages go way beyond fuel efficiency. It's not an exaggeration to say that plug-in hybrids could help save us from oil dependence, air pollution, and a deteriorating atmosphere. By dispensing with 80 to 90 percent of the gasoline used by conventional cars, these vehicles could play a key role in breaking our addiction to petroleum.

It's not just environmentalists who are agog about plug-ins. One of the foremost advocates in the country for these vehicles is R. James Woolsey. A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency who spent three years as a member of then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Woolsey is on the board of directors for the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America. He is also a founding member of the Set America Free Coalition, whose support for plug-ins recognizes the national security problems of the U.S.'s current oil dependence. Even before the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took place, the organization declared: "Ninety-seven percent of the fuel used in U.S. transportation is petroleum-based, and two-thirds of our oil is imported. With gas prices on the rise and no end in sight, our cars' addiction to oil is bankrupting us. And because so much of the oil we import comes from countries that hate us, we're actually helping to bankroll terrorists that hunt us. As long as our cars can only run on gasoline, we'll continue to be held hostage."

A commonly raised question about plug-in technology is whether you are simply trading one form of pollution for another--tailpipe emissions for power-plant smokestack emissions. In 2007, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Electric Power Research Institute conducted the definitive "wells-to-wheels" life-cycle analysis to find out. It turns out that power-plants are vastly more efficient than internal combustion engines. The study found that a shift by the United States to plug-in vehicles would reduce pollution spectacularly. The reduction in carbon emissions alone is prodigious -- it would surpass five hundred million tons annually -- and other exhaust pollutants would similarly decline.

The study also found that the existing U.S. power grid could easily handle the load of three-quarters of Americans switching to plug-ins, even if the rest of the nation's commercial and residential power consumption continued on its present scale. These vehicles will generally recharge at night, using excess electricity from power plants that can't shut down completely, so they won't add to the peak load. "Recharging batteries with off-peak, wind-generated electricity," says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, "costs the equivalent of less than $1 per gallon of gasoline."

A large-scale shift to plug-in hybrid cars would massively reduce gasoline use, eliminate our dependence on imported oil, rid us of the need for offshore drilling, and dramatically decrease air pollution and carbon emissions. If we were, at the same time, to build thousands of wind farms across the country to feed renewable, nonpolluting energy into the electrical grid, we could run our cars entirely on energy from the wind. This would rejuvenate farm and ranch communities, and shrink the U.S. balance-of-trade deficit.

Assembly lines that formerly made 20th century cars and trucks could be used to produce 21st century plug-in hybrids, other electric vehicles and wind turbines, revitalizing Detroit and other cities (including New Orleans and other areas whose economies have been devastated by the BP oil disaster). Though there would be jobs lost in the transition, many more could be gained. Those whose jobs would be lost, as well as those who are currently unemployed, could be trained to perform many of these new jobs. And even more jobs could become available in the development of algae-based biofuels and other biofuels made from nonfood sources.

Just as plug-in hybrid cars represent an extraordinary opportunity to wean the transportation sector off of dependence on fossil fuels, so too can we find abundant options in other areas of our society. From what we eat to the houses we live in, from how we manufacture our goods to the efficiency of our workplaces, from how we plan our cities to the lifestyle choices we make, we are awash with opportunities to build a new, more sustainable and self-sufficient economy.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is already a colossal environmental and economic disaster. It is one of the most ominous events of our lifetimes. But if it raises into our awareness just how intolerable a price we are paying for our addiction to oil, and if it sparks the commitment that is required to truly go "beyond petroleum," then out of something unutterably dark and brutal we will have wrested something precious. Out of this monstrous tragedy we will have taken a healing step toward a livable future for all generations to come.

Adapted from the newly released book The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less, by John Robbins. For information about the author, visit johnrobbins.info