Measuring up globally

Former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, in his short-lived quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, proposed that the U.S. go metric. This position was seen as evidence that our Linc was a clueless scatterbrain. Clearly, anyone espousing such a bizarre policy was unfit for the highest office in the land! Come on, a measurement system employing a base of 10? The world standard in science, technology and industry? Nutso stuff, for sure.

Chafee dropped out before the primaries had even started, but his metric message was one worth stealing by other candidates. It’s a cliché that the U.S. needs to compete in a global environment and up its STEM game. Implementing the International System of Units (metric), and putting “customary units” (pounds, inches, gallons) to bed would be a start.

The U.S. is plenty isolated in the system of measurement department: Liberia and Myanmar are the only other official users of customary units. If the U.S. was the size of Belgium or Belize, holding onto the customary system would be seen as folly, a backward position held by a folkloric people, rather than business as usual. Still, wouldn’t it be nice to understand that BBC story describing a “five-meter rise” in a river’s level, or have a clue how much you’re paying for gas while visiting Canada? (Scratch that, it’s best not to know). Sometimes, the consequences of retaining the “old” system are serious: in 1999, a NASA Mars orbiter valued at $125 million crashed because the Colorado and California teams got their measurement signals crossed (one group was using metric, the other customary units).

The very word “metric” is anathema to many Americans, yet we are already familiar with it. The title of “fastest human in the world” goes to the winner of the Olympic 100-meter dash, not the 328-foot sprint. And who hasn’t participated in – or been guilted into sponsoring someone running – a 5K race? You might also want to check that bottle of wine, it’s 750 milliliters, written right there on the label.

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Health care professionals use the metric system all the time, as do engineers. Moreover, the National Science Teachers Association adopted a pro-metric position statement in 1999, and avidly promotes use of the International System in schools. It’s like Bon Jovi says, “Whoa, we’re half-way there” (you can skip the “living on a prayer” part that follows, it’s the concept of not starting from zero that I’m trying to drive home).

If we were to pick up the metric baton now, it wouldn’t be the first time. In the 1970s, the U.S. did try out the International System, but soon dropped it, leading some to lump metric in with other weirdo 1970s ideas, such as platform shoes, open marriages and using chicory as a coffee substitute. However, unlike those relics of the Nixon-Ford-Carter years, metric is still going strong, just not in the U.S.

Canada started on the same metric path 40 years ago, but stayed the course; it now has highway speed limits of 100 (62 mph), and Canadians set their thermostats at 20 degrees (68 F). I know, kooky, crazy stuff. The metric system in Canada was not introduced in one fell swoop, and the two systems existed in parallel for some time. And the vernacular language remains: Canada still has “inchworms” (not 2.54 centimeter worms) as well as “foot-long” hot dogs.

Change is hard, and when something new is introduced, it’s not just that Americans don’t like it, they suspect that something is being taken away, that an agenda is being foisted upon them by that shape-shifter, “they.” The imperious they, who are not only arrogant, but often wrong (first they told us to stop eating butter, then they said don’t eat margarine!). But there are good agendas and bad agendas, and sometimes the “they” isn’t so terrible (they did tell us to stop smoking after all).

We now have same-sex marriage, an African-American completing his second term as president and legalized marijuana (in some places). We do things with our phones that took a roomful of computing power in the 1970s, when the metric system was first proposed in this country. Going metric no longer represents radical change.

We don’t need to burn our yardsticks, but let’s do this metric thing. Start by erecting “bilingual” road signs (metric and customary), teach metric from the earliest grades and run public-service ads that provide common-sense ways of “getting” metric: water freezes at zero, a can of soda is roughly 350 milliliters and the driving distance between Providence and Boston is 80 kilometers.

Oh, and the average American man weighs 89 kilograms, and the average woman 75. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? •

Tim Lehnert is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Cranston.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Great Article. I agree 100%.
    Like most Americans I am dimensionally bilingual.
    At the hardware store, I buy 2×4″s. But at the doctor’s office, in Engineering etc, it is all Metric all the time.
    If you care about seeing your kids have an opportunity for lucrative jobs – make sure they are really really fluent in the Metric System (aka SI). All of the Apple iPhones are specified in mm. Think about the fact that GM and Ford and Caterpillar all adopted the metric system.