I occasionally have the strange suspicion that I may have been Jefferson Airplane’s Gracie Slick in a former life. Yes, I realize this couldn’t actually be true, seeing as she is still alive and all, but sometimes-given the right coffee-to-volume ratio-I own those vocals, whether I am actually singing along or not. I think the connection is beyond the acid-flavored lyrics and more about the historical context in which the band existed. There is something about the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, the way it seems to resonate with the present, that is hard to dismiss.

Mark Twain once said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.” Considering all the challenges we face today, and how parallel they are to challenges in our recent past, I don’t think this statement could be truer. We need to recognize these connections and learn from them. And then act-the sooner the better.

What “rhymes” am I talking about? They can be found in our foreign relations, our economic and energy crises and our relationship with the environment. Unpopular occupation of Vietnam then, unpopular occupation of Iraq today; the Cold War with Russia then, our chilling relations with Russia now; fear of economic inflation then, fear of an economic depression now; the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, the shocking oil prices of this year; the environmental movement in response to pollution, the environmental movement in response to global climate change today. We are living a very dangerous literary device.

Something that is arguably missing in this time that was present in the 1960s and 1970s is a widespread feeling of desperation. Where is the desperation? Maybe everyone is holding her or his breath, depending on the next president to make his move. Maybe the magnitude and potential of these crises haven’t sunken in. Or maybe these crises seem too big to overcome. Hope is hard to hold onto for those who feel powerless. My own sister recently told me that she didn’t plan to have children because “the world will end before they have time to grow up.”

But unlike the challenges of the 1960s and 1970s, the challenges of today can be addressed with one (albeit large) change; we need to re-construct our energy economy. On July 17 of this year, former Vice-President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore challenged Americans with this goal: an America powered by electricity from 100 percent zero carbon emission energy sources-within the next ten years.

“When you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices,” said Gore. “Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.”

Where we acted on each issue separately in the 1960s and 1970s, Gore proposes to address all of the major issues of our day by looking to the root cause: our outrageous appetite for oil. Hopefully we have learned our lesson and will get it right this time around.

This challenge has been repeatedly compared to John F. Kennedy’s challenge for America to put a man on the moon in 1961. Like Kennedy, Gore asks for us to unite behind this goal. To achieve the goal, we must invest in alternative energy sources and green jobs, remove incentives for oil companies, increase incentives for clean energy production and use, elect leaders who are enthusiastic about this vision, minimize our own energy consumption in our workplaces and our homes and encourage innovation at all levels.

We the college students, soon to enter the work force, have both the ability and the responsibility to rise to this challenge. The most beautiful thing about Gore’s vision, a vision that countless Americans share, is that every individual can be a part of it, not just the engineers and the politicians. Future teachers, farmers, artists, lawyers, doctors, accountants, mechanics, restaurant-owners, architects, journalists, janitors and everyone else of the world, unite! Gore didn’t title his address “A Generational Challenge to Re-power America” for nothing. This is our chance to be a part of something huge that could save our country-and the world-from destruction.

I suspect that this is why the music of the sixties and the seventies is so powerful. Just by listening to it, even decades later, you can hear the overwhelming emotions that so honestly represent the time in a way no textbook ever could. And today, with the re-emergence of so many disturbingly similar challenges and the re-birth of the same emotions, the music can remind you of how you are a part of something really big, and if the current momentum continues to build, there is every reason to keep up hope.

And as presidential candidate Barack Obama said, “In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”