一个美国公民的致歉

2010-06-22 08:20:47 　来源：人民日报墨西哥湾漏油事件发生后，在"到底是谁之错"的问题上，当事方相互推诿指责，美国社会议论纷纷。被指救灾不力的美国总统奥巴马情急之下，说他一直在努力了解事故发生的真正原因以及"该踢哪些人的屁股"。这多少有些不雅的表达再次引起舆论哗然。

在此情形下，南卡罗来纳州《博福特报》的一封读者来信，因其视角的不同而格外引人注意。

这封来信说，墨西哥湾漏油事件"不是英国石油公司或瑞士越洋钻探公司的错，也不是政府的错，而是我的错。我应该为此受到指责"。信中解释道，"之所以是我的错，是因为我没有领悟到当今世界明明白白的启示：或许是我应该为世界的未来着想，并因此改变我现在这种不可持续的生活方式。如果上世纪90年代以来世界所发生的地缘政治、经济和技术的变化没能使我这样做，如果'9·11'恐怖袭击没能使我这样做，如果当前的经济危机没能使我这样做，或许这次漏油事件会促使我远离依赖石油的生活方式。如果我们愿意结束对石油'上瘾'，我们就需要做点什么--付清欠债、骑车上班、开辟花园......"来信最后说，"我再说一遍，漏油事件是我的错，对不起，我没有做到我应该做的。我现在就去说服妻子放弃她的多功能厢式车"。

美国是全球最大的石油消费国，美国人口只有3亿多，其石油消费量约占世界总量的20%多。这封来信表明，墨西哥湾漏油事件正在美国社会催生出日益深刻的多角度反思。有论者称，美国历史上最大的生态与环境灾难使美国人遇到了敌人，而敌人正是美国人自己。

《纽约时报》专栏作家弗里德曼在一篇题为《此次不同》的评论中说，这封来信是迄今为止他所见到的对漏油事故做出的"最佳反应"和向奥巴马总统提出的"最好建议"。他认为，美国人除非"认真看待自己在为自己制造的麻烦中所起到的作用"，否则无法祛除美国的病痛。美国现有的一系列机制鼓励最好的学生去华尔街制造疯狂的金融工具，而非鼓励他们到硅谷创造改善人民生活的产品；美国通过大量税收和金融手段使很多人极便利地进入住房市场，但实际上他们根本没有可持续的支付手段。是美国让英国石油公司等在墨西哥湾尽可能大量地开采石油，以使美国保持最低油价。"解铃还须系铃人"，这位专栏作家认为，制造出问题的美国应该自己拿出解决办法，应将此次事件转化为彻底改变不可持续生活方式的"机会之窗"，否则美国人最终将"踢自己的屁股"。

美国是一个"汽车轮子上的国家"，其国民生活方式与经济架构之间有着盘根错节的利益互撑关系，改变谈何容易！上述来信闪现了可贵的良知，但知与行之间无疑仍有着巨大的鸿沟。（温宪）

This Time Is Different

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: June 11, 2010

My friend, Mark Mykleby, who works in the Pentagon, shared with me this personal letter to the editor he got published last week in his hometown paper, The Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina. It is the best reaction I've seen to the BP oil spill - and also the best advice to President Obama on exactly whom to kick you know where.

Thomas L. Friedman

Go to Columnist Page »

"I'd like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This isn't BP's or Transocean's fault. It's not the government's fault. It's my fault. I'm the one to blame and I'm sorry. It's my fault because I haven't digested the world's in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life. If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn't do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 didn't do it; if the current economic crisis didn't do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle. 'Citizen' is the key word. It's what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government's role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you'll give up and what you'll contribute. Here's the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I'm sorry. I haven't done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V. Mark Mykleby."

I think Mykleby's letter gets at something very important: We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems. We - both parties - created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people's lives. We - both parties - created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really didn't have the means to sustain them. And we - both parties - sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price. (Of course, we expected them to take care, but when you're drilling for oil beneath 5,000 feet of water, stuff happens.)

As Pogo would say, we have met the enemy and he is us.

But that means we're also the solution - if we're serious. Look, we managed to survive 9/11 without letting it destroy our open society or rule of law. We managed to survive the Wall Street crash without letting it destroy our economy. Hopefully, we will survive the BP oil spill without it destroying our coastal ecosystems. But we dare not press our luck.

We have to use this window of opportunity to insulate ourselves as much as possible against all the bad things we cannot control and get serious about fixing the problems that we can control. We need to make our whole country more sustainable. So let's pass an energy-climate bill that really reduces our dependence on Middle East oil. Let's pass a financial regulatory reform bill that really reduces the odds of another banking crisis. Let's get our fiscal house in order, as the economy recovers. And let's pass an immigration bill that will enable us to attract the world's top talent and remain the world's leader in innovation.

We need all the cushions we can get right now, because we are living in a world of cascading and intertwined threats that have the potential to turn our country upside down at any moment. We do not know when the next Times Square bomber might get lucky. We don't know how long the U.S. and Israel will tolerate Iran's nuclear program. We don't know if Pakistan will hold together and what might happen to its nukes. We don't know when North Korea will go nuts. We don't know if the European Union can keep financing the debts of Greece, Hungary and Spain - and what financial contagion might be set off if it can't.

"It is not your imagination," says corporate strategy consultant Peter Schwartz - there is a lot more scary stuff hanging over the world today. Since the end of the cold war and the rise of the Internet, we've lost the walls and the superpowers that together kept the world's problems more contained. Today, smaller and smaller units can wreak larger and larger havoc - and whatever havoc is wreaked now gets spread faster and farther than ever before.

That is why we have to solve the big problems in our control, not postpone them or pretend that more lobby-driven, lowest-common-denominator solutions are still satisfactory. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, but a reprieve and a breathing spell - which is what we're having right now - is a really terrible thing to waste. We don't want to look back on this moment and say: How could we have gone back to business as usual and petty political gridlocks with all those black swans circling around us? Then we will really kick ourselves.