What if there was a country that was like America in many ways, such as the obstinate refusal of its government to acknowledge that pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment is simply a way to commit suicide faster, a fondness for beer, and an enormous capacity to live the high energy lifestyle as if there was no tomorrow?

Could Americans learn anything from it?

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Bart A’s always-excellent Energy Bulletin brings this chilling story about the very non-chill Australia, where a drought is putting big thermal plants out of business due to water restrictions.

Is it possible — maybe just barely? — that Americans could look at a people much like themselves, see what disasters are befalling them, and not simply go back to sucking on the 55″ plasma screen glass teat?

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Do we even possess the empathy needed for self-preservation, to recognize that the pain that others are experiencing as the the environmental chickens come home to roost is a foretaste of the pain we will experience if we don’t get smart (and busy) fast?

I sure hope so.