The imminence of Aspen Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) this Saturday noon on the Mill Street Mall—and a stream of green guests on my “Con Games” radio program on KNFO this week—set my mind to thinking that what we environmental wackos really need is a good scare.

You know: something to connect the dots between national security, our dependence on oil, and alternative energy sources. Something like the color-coded alert system that the Bush Administration so misused for political purposes before it all but disappeared altogether.

Why not “Code Green”?

I’m actually dead serious about this and I hope to hear from all of you about what you think. The idea started with the notion that conservatives have a genius for packaging that overwhelms the substance, such as it is, of what they propose. A few examples will more than suffice:

“Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.”

“The world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein in power.”

“We have to protect the sanctity of marriage.”

I could go on. And on and on. But the point is as simple as a Republican talking point: they have a genius for boiling complex, emotional issues into the simplest of gruel. There’s a genius to it, like I said, but it’s not like it takes a genius to make it work. So I’m coming up with my own packaging to dot-dot-dot the sense of urgency between the environment and the smackdown with the Islamic jihadists.

Here’s why I like Code Green. Despite the absurdity of the Homeland Security system as implemented, to use the word “Code” and a color still bespeaks urgency. It’s packaging, of course, but packaging that arrives pre-wrapped with clarity and purpose. Code Green is also a way to take something that actually didn’t work very well and turn it toward the (solar-powered) light.

And of course there’s the “Green” to consider. The only wacko now is Rush Limbaugh, the man who lives in a glass house burning as much oil and coal as is humanly possible to keep the hot-water balloon inflated. Ever since President George W. Bush said it out loud—“We’re addicted to oil”—green became mainstream. Both parties now try to out-green each other, with the exception of a few Luddites on the right. Even the likes of General Motors and General Electric now see the greening of business as the key to their corporate survival.

Code Green also means there are near- and medium-term solution to the problems that ail us, but only if we start immediately—and locally. It means personal responsibility for our addiction to oil, and the opportunity to turn things around close to home.

If we don’t, the die is cast. If we sit on our hands we run the risk of continuing not only our oilish ways, but the necessity of protecting our petroleum supply in the Middle East at the point of a gun. Can you imagine what would happen if we didn’t need oil at all? The entire conflagration in the Middle East would take on an entirely different cast. For all intents and purposes, the Middle East would start to look more like Africa, strategically speaking.

So Code Green it is. Energy independence is henceforth the key to our national security. You’re going to like this package—you have to—because there’s no time to lose.