A decade ago, we greeted a new millennium worried about Y2K — an unfounded fear of a worldwide communications meltdown from computer chips that couldn’t count beyond 1999.  Instead, the decade gave us a host of other challenges, some horrific, some hopeful.  For your consideration, here’s my  list of the top 10 decadal developments for America and the World.  I invite your comments and impressions.

1.  9/11 and Global Terror. Fueled by religious fundamentalism and grievance, the “Naughts” will be known as the decade when terror became a global phenomenon and changed the way states think about international security.  From Manhattan to Bali, from Madrid to Moscow, small groups of determined, suicidal true believers struck civilians and infrastructure, killing thousands and

The Awful Start

setting the stage for a decade of conflict in Southwest Asia.  A loose network with a few thousand members, al-Qaeda, became a household word around the world, and the beneficiary of incessant media attention.  The United States and other nation states thwarted many terrorist attacks, but they also mistakenly applied conventional and costly military approaches that widened the cultural rift between the West and the Islamic world.

2.  The Rise of Asia, the Slippage of Russia. The world’s two most populous states, one a capitalist-communist partocracy and the other a caste-laden democracy, finally assumed roles on the world stage commensurate with their size.  The economies of China and India grew at a tremendous rate.  By the end of the decade, China was the world’s largest polluter and had an emerging middle class that in population terms was nearly the size of the United States.  India, meanwhile, became a center of world outsourcing and home to the world’s largest steel company.  As Pakistan and North Korea conspired to join the ranks of nuclear states, Iran attempted to gain the same status.  Significantly, the first Eurasian nuclear power, Russia, became a proof that nuclear assets alone could not compensate for demographic decline and widespread corruption.  The world’s largest producer of natural gas, Russia attracted only one half the foreign direct investment that China did.  China’s economy ended the decade growing at 8 per cent per year, while Russia’s shrank at the same rate.  And it had yet to join the World Trade Organization.

3.  Global Economic Crisis. It was the decade of shaky finances and near meltdown in the advanced industrialized world.  By the end of 2008, most of the industrialized world had entered a steep recession, complicated by the fact that the largest economies — U.S., Europe, China, Japan — were profoundly interconnected and interdependent.  What began as a collapse in America’s mortgage markets led to failure of some of the world’s largest brokerages and investment banks, requiring large scale intervention by central banks, governments and the IMF.  One of America’s most prominent investment managers, a chairman of a top stock exchange, went to prison for conducting massive fraud.

4.  Hand-held Technology and the “Flat” World. The decade belonged to Google, Apple, BlackBerry and Internet-based social media.  Music and other digital media were suddenly available to anyone with access to the Internet and, by the end of the 2000’s, the devices to access digital media were carried in the palm of one’s hand.  Books, too, became digital media, downloaded and carried on “tablets” such as Kindle.  The ability of cell phones to record photos, audio and video clips led to surprising results:  “off the record” statements by politicians and scenes of political protests went “viral” and could be seen and heard instantaneously around the world.  As standard telephony was overcome by VoIP, providers such as Skype made it possible for business to be conducted — and outsourced — around the world.

5.  From Bush to Barack — America Changes. For only the second time in U.S. history, the son of a U.S. president was himself elected President — thanks to an unprecedented decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the narrowest election since the 19th Century.  George W. Bush, a “compassionate conservative,” planned a presidency of government restraint until faced with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, leading quickly to an American-led invasion of Iraq and a long, costly and inconclusive war.  Bush was succeeded by Barack Obama, the first African-American to reach the presidency, and an opponent of most of Bush’s policies.  The world applauds and Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

6.  The World Warms to Global Warming. After a series of years with temperatures worldwide among the highest ever recorded, global warming is acknowledged by nearly all the world’s leaders as a real threat.  Failed U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore wins a Nobel Prize for his work to publicize this “Inconvenient Truth.”

Not a Movie

7.  Disasters and Pandemics. The worst natural disaster of modern times, the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, killed some 230,000 along the perimeter of the Indian Ocean.  The worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, Hurricane Katrina, struck the Gulf of Mexico the following year and helped undo the administration of George W. Bush.  Two flu pandemics — avian flu (2001-2005) and swine flu (2009) caused far fewer deaths, but led to near panic in far flung parts of the world.

8.  The Nation-State as a Failed Enterprise. Despite the durability of the nation-state as a framework for organizing societies, it became clear during this decade that some states were not up to the challenge.  Somalia, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen were among the jurisdictions most often referred to as belonging to a new category — “failed states.”

9.  Reality Ever More Virtual. Sophisticated duplications of reality for educational, military or entertainment purposes became a remarkable novelty.  Computer games, already a multi-billion dollar industry, grew in complexity and realism.  Drone aircraft were “piloted” over Afghanistan and Pakistan by military officers sitting at computer screens half a world away.  On the Internet, “Second Life” created an alternative reality in which alter-egos represented anonymous real persons from anyplace in the world.  Animated feature films became more complex and artistically creative, capped at the end of the decade by the most expensive film ever made, “Avatar.”

10.  Sexual Evolution. Slipping under the radar of our social consciousness, sexual mores moved toward greater tolerance in the United States and many industrialized democracies.  By the end of the decade, eight states on three continents, and seven U.S. states, had legalized gay marriage and many others recognize gay civil unions.  The disclosure in United States, Ireland and elsewhere of sexual misconduct by members of the Roman Catholic clergy led to public apologies by Pope Benedict XVI and large payouts to those abused.  Other religious communities, such as the Anglican Communion, split over the issues of gay marriage and married clergy.

The second in a series of reports on America’s transition to green energy.

CHICAGO — Sometimes known as “The Windy City,” Chicago is the apt location this week for the world’s largest convention on wind energy.  “Wind Power 09″ is the annual meeting of the American Wind Energy Association, but such is the level of interest in America’s development of wind-generated electrical power, that the gathering has turned into an international meeting point for green power.  More than 19,000 participants, representing all the major international players in renewable energy, are in attendance this year.  A few years ago, only 2,000 were on hand.

Blade Runners

Thanks to the Obama Administration’s support for renewables, the wind and solar energy markets are enjoying unprecedented interest in the United States, a fact not lost on American and international wind turbine manufacturers.  Vestas (Denmark), Suzlon (India), Siemens (Germany) and GE came to this convention in force, along with hundreds of innovative mid-sized companies that are coming up with new designs for producing and distributing clean energy.  Last year, the U.S. passed Germany as the world’s largest producer of wind power, with about 28,000 MW now on line.  Although this is only about 2 per cent of total U.S. electrical supply, the new wind energy capacity added last year amounted to almost half of the total new power added across the U.S.  The trend line clearly favors renewables.

“We don’t need BP and we don’t need Shell,” T. Boone Pickens, the energy entrepreneur, told the conference yesterday.  “A few months from now, things are going to look a lot different.”  Pickens foresees Congressional approval by the end of August for Renewable Energy Standards (RES), a legislated mandate for the country to achieve 25 per cent of its electric power from renewable energy by 2025, similar to the standard already in effect in the EU.  The assumption is that a long-term federal mandate will attract investors still sitting on the sidelines.

Pickens as Oracle

Boone’s bullish advocacy for wind power (and for compressed natural gas to power the U.S. trucking industry)  has a few detractors, but not at this conference.  The 81-year-old has invested $60 million of his own money to develop wind projects and to gain popular support for his “Pickens Plan,” which argues that independence from imported oil is a national imperative.  The national security argument – beyond ecology and climate concerns – has helped to close the deal with the American public, which now supports renewables by large margins.  It also doesn’t hurt public acceptance that the industry has recruited retired General Wes Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, as a kind of spokesman-advocate.  Clark is on the board of a wind turbine company (Netherlands-based EWT — Emergya Wind Technologies) and was another prominent speaker at the conference.  Other admired public figures and corporate leaders (such as Google CEO Eric Schmidt) are speaking out.  All that is left is for the economics of renewable energy to catch up and the nation’s power grid to be modernized.

Each of the major wind power “powers” – U.S., Germany, Spain, China – possesses certain advantages.  The U.S. is the largest wind power producer, Germany has most experience, Spain has the highest production per capita, and China has the potential to dwarf other producers in the future.   All these countries are well represented at Wind Power 09.  At the moment, the American market is center stage.  Vestas is building a substantial manufacturing facility in Colorado.  Last week, Siemens announced a wind turbine manufacturing facility in Kansas.

As James Baker once famously said about the argument for liberating Kuwait in the first Gulf War, it all comes down to jobs, jobs, jobs.  In the midst of a national recession last year, the wind power industry added 35,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.  If the wind industry expands to the recommended RES quota over the next two decades, 500,000 jobs will be created in the U.S.  The U.S. states with significant wind potential (Iowa, Minnesota) or the greatest idle manufacturing capacity (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania) are aggressively pursuing investors and project developers.

The governors of four Midwestern U.S. states (Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa) came to promote their respective states as the best sites for new wind turbine plants.  Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said she wanted her state, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate (more than 11 per cent), to go from being the “poster child” for jobs lost in the “rust belt,” to the leader of a new “green belt.”

Granholm: "A New Poster Child?"

The transformation of the American energy industry landscape will transform the physical landscape of the rural American Great Plains as well.  From Texas (America’s largest producer of wind power) to North Dakota, communities that have lost population in recent decades now stand to gain jobs as wind farms appear on the horizon.  This part of America will come to resemble nothing so much as the Landschaft of flat, northern Germany, where the crops farmers plant are not nearly so interesting as the power being reaped.

Photos by Joshua Lott/AWEA