Last night, during his interview with the Associated Press, Al Gore challenged the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace. And made it clear that the people have to play a part, through their support of politicians for such energy policy. Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent John McCain may be “way ahead” – Al Gore’s words – but they will not go very far without the popular vote, our vote. Now, consider this:
According to a recent Rasmussen survey:
- 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states.
- 64% of voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that gas prices will go down if offshore oil drilling is allowed
La Marguerite,
The word conservation is in today’s speech which the transcript can be found online at:
http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/
🙂
~julz
Increased investment will naturally lead to reduced consumption, certainly when considering the enormous American debt. So, the c-word is implicit.
If you think of it like this, this leaves a huge open space for leadership on the other front.
Let’s call it resourcefulness. 😉
I do consider Gore the new world leader from now on. You can trace everything back to him.
That is, except for your insights. 🙂
Also, I think it would be better to conserve more than what’s needed for increased investment, so we can finally “fix” Africa, end all inequality, end all wars, etc. I’m counting on you!
I am surprised by the poll results. Short term thinking for sure.
I totally forgot about WE… Al Gore is surely versatile. Yet, I think WE misses important opportunities.
Marguerite, maybe we should try to get you into WE. It would be a great place for you, I think, if they’d give you enough freedom.
Thanks Julz. I wrote this post before whole speech was published. And did find one mention of conservation, buried deep in the middle of his very very long speech. I almost missed it . . . Here is what it says:
‘At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That’s the best investment we can make.’
I would like to react on the poll : sure let us drill the Earth everywhere to remove the ultimate droplets of oil, let us drill below the poles to make them melt even faster…
On Al Gore’s plan, it’s funny that it happens a few days after Pickens Plan…
http://www.elrst.com/2008/07/16/t-boone-pickens-energy-plan/
100 percent of energy from renewable energies is simply impossible, and in only ten years, even more…
Look at how Germany is working on these energy sources. they still represent a tiny fraction of their energy mix : http://www.elrst.com/2008/06/04/germany-a-climate-change-mitigation-example/
Renewables aren’t perfect either :
http://www.elrst.com/2008/06/10/renewables-arent-perfect-solutions/
Hope you will enjoy this data. Meanwhile, enjoy !
There’s far more possible than what we see now, if only because of the massive energy savings we could achieve if we’d relocalize.
We can start by leaving most air planes on the ground: Sorry, you’re flight is canceled.
Now of course this doesn’t work if people don’t want it, but I think that’s the only problem we’re looking at: popular support.
It’s a pity there’s not more emphasis given to conservation in the US, because you could really get some quick and easy results there. The USA uses 25bbl of crude oil per person annually, and produces 9.3bbl. Countries like Germany and Australia use 12-15bbl, countries like Croatia 7.5bbl. So Americans could fairly easily cut down without changing their lifestyles, and actual lifestyle changes – not worse off, just different – could make the US an oil exporter once more. If the US went down to Aussie levels of oil consumption they’d cut imports from 4 billion bbl to 1.5 billion bbl a year, saving themselves around $350 billion at current prices. Not bad! You can do a lot with that sort of money.
But I guess Gore is pushing the idea that we can all still eat burgers and drive SUVs, it’s just that the SUVs will be powered by electricity from wind, and the burgers made from meat in a vat, or something. Whether he actually believes that or it’s just the message he thinks is most acceptable is hard to say.
Thanks Edouard, for being our European ‘correspondent’! The bottom line is, again, that we need to consider a multi-pronged approach including, conservation, renewable energies – to the best of our capabilities – , and if necessary and viable, also nuclear energy. This is going to require the cooperation of all players, down from the citizen all the way up to the Oval Office. In order for it to happen, the behind the scenes dirty work of special fossil fuel interests will have to be exposed in its entirety, until there is no longer any doubt in the public’s mind, of what harm is being done to them and their children.
Meryn, the “we” people are hiding behind the walls of their reflected glory. I have found them to be unapproachable.
> Marguerite… I agree (once again) with you.
I am writing an article on that, where I write my full opinion on it. It will be published in the day. I think you may have it for your breakfast on the west coast…
In any case, I am supporting this plan. Even if half of the goals are achieved, it will still be a great thing for both Earth and Mankind.
Someone had to say what Al Gore is saying; someone has to be intellectually honest and willing to speak out and clearly as Al Gore is doing.
Emergent and convergent global challenges, ominously looming before the family of humanity on the far horizon, threaten the future of human civilizations, life as know it and the efficacy of Earth as a fit place for human habitation:
the human overpopulation of Earth;
the pending loss of adequate fossil fuel reserves and other vital energy sources due to unrestrained international plundering;
the dissipation of limited resources due to reckless per-capita overconsumption;
the problems of global warming in particular and climate change more generally; and
the insufficiently bridled pollution of air, land and water as well as precipitating irreversible degradation of the planet’s frangible ecosystems services due to relentless industrialization and unregulated economic globalization.
Who knows, perhaps necessary change is in the offing.
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Dear Al Gore,
Thanks for your steady and careful contributions to the work of this day, the work being ignored or else censored by most of our not-so-great, elder generation’s leaders. These “professional stonewallers” are readily identifiable: the talking heads in the mass media, the economic powerbrokers all of their minions and surrogates, and bought-and-paid-for politicians.
Please do “keep soldiering on.” Given the potentially catastrophic circumstances looming before the family of humanity, our ’soldiers’ will ultimately have to prevail, I suppose, because if ‘our side’ ahould somehow fail, then all is lost. That is to say, a colossal wreckage could occur on the surface of Earth, a unimaginable cataclysm the likes of which only the King of a thousand greedy little kings, Ozymandias, has seen.
Perhaps leadership in our time is doing a disservice to the human community, to life as we know it and to Earth’s body by maniacally pursuing a course of unbridled and unrelenting global economic growth. This “biggest business is best” growth madness appears to be a particularly foolish and soon to be destructive form of frenzy that will likely become as serious a threat to the human family in the days ahead as the elective mutism of our leaders is today.
Let’s keep going.
All my best,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
I feel that conservation is definitely key and should be promoted, but I think Al Gore wants to talk in terms that everyone can understand. While everyone can conceptualize ice bergs melting, and droughts occurring, most Americans do not care enough. Their discretionary time is mostly occupied by things ideologically opposite of conservation: watching tv, watching ads, buying things. In short, we have a culture of consumerism. We love excess, buying things on credit, and big cars. To plead for conservation is obviously the right thing to do on an intellectual level; however, on the spontaneous, American consumer level this does not ring a bell. Al Gore’s speech focused mostly on the economic viability of renewable energies. This way, he can attract everyone, because everyone loves money. He makes a very simple point that renewable energy cna be cheaper than our ever decreasing supplies of fossil fuels. Conservation would have been a noble addition, but it would be less attractive in the end. As presented, the American Gore envisions is one in which standards of living are very high, energy abundant, and energy clean. To say conservation would be something of a blow to the American identity. Let me know what you think. I wrote a little bit on this on my own blog. Semipolitico.com
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