As you also might expect, the environuts were not well pleased. They filed complaints with the government broadcasting regulator, Ofcom. (In case you weren't aware, we have lots of government regulatory bodies that start with "Of", always pronounced "off" - Ofcom, Ofqual [see the previous article], Ofgem [energy], Ofwat [water], Oftel [telephone], and Ofsted [the school inspectors] for example.) Ofcom has upheld some of the complaints and dismissed some.

They are censuring Channel 4 because some of the proponents of global warming weren't told that the programme was primarily designed to show the other point of view. It would seem they either would not have participated or would have said things differently.  However, Ofcom couldn't find the evidence to censure Channel 4 for inaccuracy. This is despite a 131-point 270-page complaint.

The global warming scientific community is very angry that they are just not convincing the general population of their arguments. A recent poll showed that 60% of the British public  believe "many scientific experts still question if human beings are contributing to climate change". This is despite the Government being behind the global warming message and like it's American counterpart only providing funding for scientists who support this viewpoint. It is also being promoted very actively in schools, even though I know a number of science teachers who have not bought into the propaganda.

The American Physical Society represents 50,000 physicists and they are redacting their support of Al Gore's Man-made Global Warming Scam.  Obviously, they have seen the light and have stepped over to my side of the isle on the subject.  JUST remember I was here first!  While you guys swore man caused warming, I was here saying No he isn't!

To put it another way, people swooning over Obama say he was insightful because he didn't support the Iraq war from the start.  Just think of me, your humble blogger, as being insightful and hitting the bullshit button at Al Gore's scam from the start.  Some of us have to be leaders and others will always have someone to follow.  Your welcome!

She’s cuddling the infant when another basket floats by with a baby in it. She wades in and grabs that one too. Then there’s another and another.

She calls to her companion to help, but instead of jumping into the water, the other woman is running upstream along the riverbank.  “Where are you going???” the wading woman yells. "We’ve got to save these babies.”

“I know,” yells back the second woman. “I’m going upstream to find out who's putting the babies in the water. And I'm going to stop them.”

This story illustrates two very different approaches to solving a serious problem: the bandaid model (symptom relief for individuals), and the public health model (community-wide prevention strategies).

Our current medical system is still primarily based on the bandaid model. Folks get sick or hurt and the doctor fixes them. Take diabetes (please). Diabetes until recently was something that happened to you and then the doctor patched you up with insulin. And while it's true that some folks have a genetic predisposition to diabetes, it turns out that today's epidemic is a result of our eating too much (crap) and exercising too little - on a grand scale.

I came around to a public health perspective many years ago through my own personal experience of trying to lose weight. I tried about as many diets as there were weeks in the year, and failed at every one of them. It gradually dawned on me that specific diet programs (eat this, don’t eat that) were bandaids that covered up deeper issues – that only more awareness, an attitude shift and behavioral changes could fix, once and for all. Once I resolved those issues and changed my behavior the need for a special diet disappeared, as did the excess weight.

This got me thinking about how much trouble you could avoid if you could prevent the overeating in the first place. For example, working with kids before they developed bad eating habits, educating their parents about nutrition, improving school lunches and PE programs, and then going back even further in the chain to the suppliers of our food. (I was a few decades ahead of the curve here!).

Instead of trying to help individuals lose weight after they'd gained it, giving them insulin after they got diabetes or statins when their cholesterol was too high (bandaids), where could you shove a stick into the cogs of the machine to effect the greatest preventive benefit to a whole bunch of people?

These questions led me back to school for a masters in Public Health. Ever since, I've been the woman running upstream to find out where the babies are coming from.

The public health perspective asks foundational questions: Where does the problem begin? How could we prevent it from occurring in the first place? Here are a small sample of profoundly important measures that have come out of those questions: safe drinking water; sewage treatment systems; vaccinations (small pox, polio, measles, pertussis, hepatitis, etc etc), mosquito abatement projects (malaria), occupational safety regulations, food inspection programs, pre-natal care for women, family planning education programs….

Of course many of our public health problems are not caused by pathogens like polio or cholera. They are caused by money-making enterprises whose products turn out to be toxic. Tobacco. Asbestos. Certain medications like estrogen-replacement therapy. Foods made with trans fats. Leaded gas and paint.

Or they're a result of toxic by-products of the manufacturing process:  nuclear waste, coal-fouled air, water fouled by all manner of manufacturing processes as well as grazing animals, and so on.

Business hates being told how to conduct itself and rarely ceases a practice unless under threat of penalties and lawsuits. This means the public's safety is often at the mercy of our elected officials, many of whom (Republicans esp. under this disastrous Bush administration) do not have a public health perspective. For them it's about the bottom line AND about getting re-elected.

Even Democrats, who are more sympathetic to prevention and regulation, need money to get re-elected. Unfortunately the very toxic industries that need regulating are often the biggest campaign contributors.

That's the first pickle.

The second pickle is that public health campaigns are long-term investments. What we must pay out today to prevent a future epidemic or catastrophe seems like a huge chunk of change when the payoff could be decades in the future. Often we can't begin to grasp what the catastrophe might be like that we're paying to prevent.

When Al Gore suggests an investment of $5 trillion for us to make a switch to 100% renewable energy sources in ten years we balk. But when inaction may cost us the very survival of humans on earth: well, that's a profoundly ponderous public health pickle.

It is now pretty much taken for granted that global warming is ongoing, that climate change is being driven by human activity and that it is critically important that extraordinary changes be made in fundamental aspects of our economy and way of life.

On the small scale, people plant trees, examine food miles, purchase carbon offsets and modify their travel behaviour.

Cities and even countries vie with one another to become carbon neutral; as a nation, we are contemplating emission controls, taxes and carbon-trading schemes that will have a profound effect on individual households and the national economy alike.

When linked with the other great crisis of our times - peak oil - it has become not only socially desirable to embrace all of this, but sustainability has achieved the status of a higher morality.

It has become politically unacceptable to doubt any of the current dogma.

So politics not science is driving the debate.

Not to subscribe wholeheartedly to the sustainability ethos is to be labelled not just a sceptic but a denier, with overtones of Holocaust denial and a wilful, unreasonable immorality.

It is said that we are now beyond the science and that the science of global warming has been finalised or determined and that all scientists agree.

Sceptics and deniers are simply cynical pawns in the pockets of the big oil companies.

And no one points out the vested interests in what has become the climate change industry.

This is unfortunate, to say the least.

Science is rarely determined or finalised; science evolves and the huge complexity of climate science will certainly continue to evolve in the light of new facts, new experiences and new understandings.

Here is an example of how science changes.

Early in the 1900s, Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents were once joined up; their coastlines seemed to match, there appeared to be great rifts and tears in the continental fabric.

This view was ridiculed; how could the continents move? What possible force could transport the unimaginable mass of Africa or Australia hundreds and thousands of kilometres across the earth?

Today, of course, plate tectonics is well understood. We know that continents move and we know how and what the consequences are.

Global warming seemed sewn up as well in the year 2000.

Mann's hockey-stick graph showed centuries of modest change culminating in an explosive temperature growth in recent decades, leading to terrifying projections of a climate out of control with the sea rising to drown us all.

Al Gore's apocalyptic images of tsunami-like flooding and dying polar bears brought global warming into every home.

To sign up to Kyoto was an act of sanctity and belief; only political dinosaurs in the pay of big business would not flock to this new crusade.

Today, the hockey stick has gone.

Its basic data were flawed and the statistical processes inadequate; it failed to describe known climate changes from the historically recorded past, so how could it be a reliable predictor?

Although Mr Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, his famous movie has been shown to be riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and misrepresentations; it cannot be shown in British schools without a comprehensive explanation of its mistakes and an acknowledgement that it is advocacy, not science.

There is no doubt that the climate is changing; it always has done. We have become familiar with the regularly repeating glaciations of the past.

Human history has mainly occupied an exceptionally warm interglacial peak in a world that, for the last half million years at least, has generally been much cooler, although, in deep time, the world has been much warmer than now.

In the 1970s, climate science was concerned about when the next ice age might commence; we may have to return to that position.

There have been considerably warmer eras in the past couple of thousand years. In both the Roman and medieval warm periods, vineyards flourished as far north as York in England; Greenland was indeed green, at least in parts.

By contrast, just 400 years ago, there was a Little Ice Age in America and Europe, at least, that lasted until well into the 1800s. The historic record confirms all of this, beyond doubt.

What we also know, by historical record and by proxy calculation, is that these large swings in temperature closely correlate with the frequency of sunspots, which are a visible indicator of activity in the sun.

Sunspots vary in number according to a series of short-term and long-term cycles.

In periods of high temperature, sunspots proliferated, but during the Little Ice Age, there were few or none for many decades, a phenomenon known as the Maunder Minimum; the last quarter of the 20th century saw a flurry of activity.

The last cycle was at its energetic peak in 1998, our warmest year for some time.

The mechanism is unclear, but it seems related to solar magnetic influences and the amount of gamma radiation that reaches the earth.

The last 10 years have seen a static or even cooling trend as the sunspot cycle ran down; 2007 saw bitter weather around the world and the mean global temperature dropped by an unprecedented amount.

It is not picking up.

The Antarctic winter sea ice was at its largest extent since satellite observation began, and it snowed in Baghdad and Buenos Aires for the first time in living memory. China's winter was awful.

And now the scary news.

The latest sunspot cycle should have started up around the middle or end of 2006; it didn't.

According to Nasa's forecasts, there should be a sunspot index of 70 or more, as the new cycle ran up.

I looked at a real-time photo of the sun on a recent morning; there are no sunspots at all.

There have only been a couple of brief, tiny ones since the last cycle ended.

Not only that, but the longer trends tell us that by 2020, we will be experiencing an unusually low-energy sun.

Apparently, these are exactly the conditions that preceded the Maunder Minimum and ushered in the Little Ice Age.

The science goes on.

Water vapour is the biggest greenhouse gas by a huge factor. The link between CO2 and temperature change is erratic; often, carbon follows heat rather than the uncritical popular perception that heat is induced by carbon.

The oceans are a vast reservoir of dissolved CO2; as they warm, they release it and reabsorb it as they cool.

Which causes what? There is much more yet to learn.

My point is this: It may well be that human activity is indeed changing the climate, at least in part, but there is an increasing body of science that says that the sun may have a greater role.

If it does have, then global warming is likely to stop, as it appears to have done since 1998, and if the current sunspot cycle fails to ignite, then cooling, possibly rapid and severe cooling, may eventuate.

The next five years will tell us a great deal. In these circumstances, we should wait and see.

With China and India churning out new thermal power stations at assembly-line speed, our influence on the global climate is negligible.

Surrounded as we are by great oceans, even the alarmist predictions will have relatively minor consequences for us for some time.

We can afford to wait.

There is no point in decimating our economy in the pursuit of carbon neutrality if carbon is not the main culprit or if the climate is now on a new trend.

Instead, now is the time to moderate the pseudo-religious and uncritical belief that global warming is still as we once thought it might have been.

This is difficult when anyone who questions the pseudo-religious people is labelled a heretic. But Kearsley is not alone in urging caution.

Poneke refers to an article in The Australian by Dr David Evans who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

The article is worth reading in full, so I"ll just copy the intro and conclusion:

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts...

...Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.

So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.

What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.

The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.

We have only one world and we have a responsibility to look after it. But that doesn't mean rushing headlong into policy such as Emissions Trading, which may do little or nothing to improve the environment at great economic cost.

Link, via CafeHayek.

I also really like Arnold Kling's take on Gore's idea: for the same folks that can give us a risk-free financial system, affordable housing, universal health care, and everyone getting a college degree, it should be a piece of cake.

Al Gore Inches Toward Solartopia

by Harvey Wasserman

Bit by bit, Al Gore seems to be inching toward a Solartopian view of a future that must be completely sustainable in green energy. This week he advocated getting to an electric power system that is “carbon free” within ten years.

This is an important step toward the mainstream for the decades-long social movement for a totally green-powered Earth. It comes alongside the equally telling move by oil baron T. Boone Pickens to invest $2 billion in wind power.

Gore has reportedly raised some $300 million (that’s not a typo) to spend on moving pubic opinion to support the transition to a totally “carbon-free” electric supply system.

That idea has been around at least thirty years, and is a sub-set of the Solartopian demand that our entire energy economy become free of all fossil and nuclear fuels.

Of late, Gore has become the corporate media’s designated hitter on renewables. He has helped greatly in moving public acceptance of the critical need to achieve a green-powered Earth in a relatively short period of time. It’s extremely helpful that Gore emphasizes that the conversion to renewables and efficiency will create economic wealth and millions of new jobs while alleviating the national security nightmare of being dependent on foreign oil.

But there is still a long way to go. Electricity is still just a sub-set of all energy consumption. Converting our electron supply system entirely to green power is half or less the battle.

And Gore has left out some critical pieces of the puzzle. Most important is his avoidance of the massive industry-sponsored relapse toward nuke power, an absurd diversion that could make the transition to a carbon-free world financially impossible and ecologically moot.

Gore’s primary focus, of course, is on climate change. He has been remarkably effective in convincing the world that it’s a major problem.

His thorough and persuasive “Inconvenient Truth” was long on scary facts, but slim on solutions. Most of them, stacked at the end of the film, focused on things individuals can do to trim their energy use.

These were helpful but marginal, because they largely omitted corporate responsibility for causing these problems.

Now Gore seems willing to acknowledge that large corporations — including electric utility companies — are at least somewhere near the core of the problem. How far he’s willing to take that analysis, and what he’s willing to do about it, remain to be seen. He is, after all, a lifelong inside player with an apparent aversion to acting outside the box (most critically in the catastrophic lack of a meaningful response to the theft of the 2000 election).

It’s thus extremely problematic that Gore continues to publicly avoid the issue of nuclear power. There are those who believe he remains essentially pro-nuclear, as he was earlier in his career. In that, he followed his father, US Senator Al Gore, Sr. (D-TN), a very pivotal early backer of atomic energy.

But just prior to the 2000 election, then-Vice President Gore wrote me a letter (posted at www.nirs.org) firmly renouncing atomic energy as a possible solution to global warming. Apparently due largely to his efforts, nukes were not included in the Kyoto Accords as a route to be taken for reducing carbon emissions. This was huge victory for the safe energy movement.

But Gore’s stance on building new reactors today has not been part of the public dialog. If the issue is mentioned on his web site, I couldn’t find it. Just prior to this week’s speech, he apparently told the Associated Press that he expects reactor generation to stay at “current levels.” But does that mean it will continue to account for about 20% of our overall electric consumption, or does it mean the same gross amount will be produced? Would that require building new reactors, or expanding the capacity of existing ones, or none of the above?

Privately, I am told that Gore now opposes atomic energy, including new reactors. But if so, his public silence — and lack of action– is deafening, incongruous, and ultimately unsustainable.

For example, his web site lauds Florida Governor Charlie Crist for taking various steps to fight carbon emissions. But Crist now enthusiastically supports forcing Florida ratepayers to foot the bill for four new reactors — while they are being built! The cost estimates for these plants have more than doubled in the last year. Their would-be builders refuse to give the Public Service Commission a firm price, with margins of fluctuation at a staggering 50% and more. Should they be completed in, say, ten or fifteen years, they are likely to cost Florida ratepayers a minimum of $50 billion, far and away the largest public works project in the SunShine state’s history (which could net at least as much power from a $50 billion investment in green energy and efficiency).

By contrast, the “huge” buy-out of some 185,000 acres of sugar company land aimed at saving the Everglades is to cost less than $2 billion, a mere 1/25ths of the proposed nuke tab, which has gotten virtually no state-wide scrutiny or public debate. Fittingly, mere construction of two of the proposed reactors, at Turkey Point, would utterly decimate the southern reaches of the Everglades National Park long before the first ray of radiation could be produced there.

A major root of the Solartopian vision of an Earth totally free of fossil and nuclear fuels dates back to the 1975 “Toward Tomorrow Fair” at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Featuring, among others, the work of wind pioneer William Heronemus and efficiency guru Amory Lovins, the gathering joined the vision of a totally green-powered Earth with the rise of the grassroots No Nukes movement.

The tens of thousands of us who took the fight to reactors at places like Seabrook, New Hampshire and Diablo Canyon, California, still carry a clear image of an Earth that must be entirely powered by natural sources that are sustainable and pollution-free. It’s critical to remember that our success has been substantial, and that the 1000 nukes promised by Richard Nixon in 1974 were held to 104 operating now. Had even more social capital been sunk into this failed technology, our task would be even more difficult than it is now. We have no way of knowing how many Three Mile Islands and Chernobyls were avoided along the way.

The Solartopian transition still demands an end not merely to fossil fuel consumption, but the rapid phase-out of the rest of these reactors. They are unsafe, unreliable, unsustainable and indefensible against terror or error. Their fuel cycle is a significant source of global warming gases, and they emit very substantial quantities of heat into the atmosphere and the rivers, lakes and oceans they use for cooling. They cannot guarantee against catastrophic emissions, and thus cannot get private insurance. They are absurdly expensive to build, and getting moreso. They cannot compete with renewables, which are getting rapidly cheaper.

Indeed, construction of new nukes can only proceed with massive infusions of taxpayer and ratepayer money. Draining this social capital away from the transition to truly green Solartopian technologies could be devastating.

Which means that sooner or later, if he really wants to have a lasting impact, Al Gore must join us in publicly, forcefully opposing nuclear power. It is significant that he now advocates a rapid transition to green electricity, with all its economic, employment, ecological and national security benefits.

But if that’s really going to happen, new nuke construction must be stopped, and the old reactors must be phased out as rapidly as possible.

Al Gore is a welcome and powerful force in this long-term campaign to save the planet. To really help tip the balance, he must take the jump into the No Nukes fight with both feet. As befits a Nobel Prize Winner, he might even have them dragged off a construction site or two.

Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, is at http://www.solartopia.org. He helped coin the phrase No Nukes, and helped co-found Musicians United for Safe Energy. This article first appeared at http://www.freepress.org.

I sat in on a healthcare discussion, which was led by nyceve,, an activist who has gone way above the ordinary in terms of illustrating the human element of our failed health care system.  She assembled a wide set of voices on the issue, including someone she doesn't always see eye-to-eye with, Ezra Klein.  A lot of passionate people were in the room, which is good to see.  Ezra provided one of most salient points, I think: we won't get universal single-payer care (not coverage!!!) unless we defeat politicians standing in the way.  Max Baucus, for instance, chairs the Senate Finance Committee.  One of its purviews is healthcare.  We have to get Max on our side of the issue or find a suitable replacement.

I'm going to a framing discussing this afternoon, possibly followed by a screening.  Donna Edwards is scheduled to address us later tonight.

My time here in Poland has facilitated me moving more to the right politically and economically than ever before. Yet a few films have been on my mind lately that point, in some ways, to the left. I wanted to share a short list.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. The first thing you notice about the film is how thoroughly researched it is. I consider director Alex Gibney to be intellectually sound and politically level headed. The film is two parts investigation, one part meditation. But most of the research was already done by the two Fortune Magazine reporters who wrote the book of the same title. Gibney furthers the conclusions of the book and allows for a different, more human focus to the economic story. The film ultimately creates a microcosm of the evils that prevail in extreme Reagan-esque privatizations. The great thing about this film is that it doesn't speak about privatization, per se, but it does try to learn from the Enron fiasco. To the best of my knowledge, no film has better achieved such clarity, even-handedness, and profundity while simultaneously doling out such massive amounts of information. Profound investigative reporting with a conscience.

Fahrenheit 9/11. I went into the movie expecting to hate it for its melodrama and disregard for truth. I was surprised to find less belligerence than in Bowling for Columbine (perhaps the most illogical, absurd, and yet still self-congratulatory political film I can think of). Most often Bowling for Columbine is described as one-sided while I found it lacking in subject matter — I don't believe the film actually had a point, therefore we can't argue that it was too one-sided. I felt similar sentiments about all of Michael Moore's previous endeavors, both in TV for IFC and his Academy recognized Roger and Me. Imagine my surprise, then, at the skill in the filmmaking in Fahrenheit 9/11. Unlike his previous work, this film was more than a 7th-grade political essay. While we can still argue that some of the political connections he makes are a bit outrageous if not inconclusive, the questions his filmmaking raise does great good for political discussion, I am convinced. I must say that I find the film, despite some of its outrageousness, more politically relevant now than the year it won Palm D'Or at Cannes.

Fog of War. This film, which essentially consists of an interview with Robert McNamara by master documentarian Errol Morris, goes more in depth than the book written by McNamara about the Vietnam War. View this film, if for nothing else, to hear a man who had so much responsibility and so much power in that war say the phrase aloud on camera, "We were wrong." (Am I the only person who desires this more than anything else in American politics? To hear politicians be honest, even to the detriment of their public image?) The film's perspective and maturity is astounding.

Hearts and Minds. Though this film is about Vietnam, one can't help but see application to the current war situation. I highly recommend this film, which was filmed in Vietnam during the war, though it was outrageously one-sided and even skillfully and subtly manipulative. To my eyes, it seems less so now than I imagine it did then. Simply for historical perspective and sheer mass of fact-based information (with occasional anecdote, of course). I highly recommend the Criterion Collection disc of this movie and remember to view it with and without the commentary. The commentary is less for film buffs and more for politically-minded people.

An Inconvenient Truth. Flat out, this is a propaganda piece. The film follows a series of lectures Al Gore gives about global warming. But some messages are simply worth propagating. Now, I grew up in a place where "going green" didn't need to be articulated because it was almost everyone's way of life. So I'm grateful for someone bringing to the forefront something that I have believed to be important from my childhood. If nothing else, the film is worth watching or revisiting since I cite it as an epicenter for the more omnipresent environmental discussion (the unfortunate underbelly of which has recently been manifest on The Millennial Star blog).

An Unreasonable Man. You may love or hate Ralph Nader or you may not even know who he is. No matter what group you may belong to, chances are you will have something to say, and that passionately, after this film. When my wife and I saw this at the Sundance Film Festival, everyone seemed to be engaged. The screening before ours had required security because some members of the audience were either so in favor or so angry that they went up on stage, uninvited, during the discussion to take charge of the microphone. Almost everyone had something to say. This quite even-handed film was made by someone who had worked for Nader for several years, who, on the whole, had a favorable take on Nader but also knew his flaws far better than most. Perhaps the greatest quality the film possesses is that of an intense critique of a bipartisan system. The running time is well over two hours, but I can't remember being on the edge of my seat more consistently during any documentary.

Why We Fight. Though the filmmaking in Andrew Jarecki's second endeavor is not quite as slick and clever as his first and more disturbing feature Capturing the Freidman's, the content of Why We Fight is perhaps more visceral and gives more weight where the filmmaking may fall short. The premise is two-fold: First, a reframing of Frank Capra's vital and historically important propaganda films and second, to reframe our present military condition in light of President Eisenhower's presidency.

The American national sentiment after Word War I was by and large not supportive of further American involvement in "foreign wars." Yet the American "powers that were" felt that we needed to go to war. It was in this light that Frank Capra was asked to explain to the American public why it is that we fight. The films clarified and polarized — even narratized — the current global affairs. Jarecki's feature, as you may guess, is not propaganda, but it seeks to understand 1) the American mentality that causes war as well as 2) the current American popular understanding of political war machinations. To my mind, it fails at both, though there's more success in the former than the latter. (Through this process, however, the question is raised to whether America should be considered an imperialist state.)

The second premise, however, results in success, to question the industrial-military complex President Eisenhower warned about as he was ending his presidency. This film allows us to view our own time through the lens and foresight that President and General Eisenhower had.

——————

At the end of this list, I realize how much discussion there is about war and how, on the whole, the view of war is critical. By way of disclosure, I did recently argue in favor of violence in my LDS reading of Fight Club on my blog, Toward an LDS Cinema.

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AL GORE: Green Energy by 2018 (7/17 Speech)

One thing I hadn't heard her say before was that although she voted for the FISA "compromise", she didn't encourage others to vote that way. One of the weird things about the Democrats is that when they get to the issues where there is the most pressure to pass a national security bill their official response to start claiming that their not pressuring anybody and people can just vote their "conscious". I don't know why abdicating your leadership role is something you'd want to tell people about.

P.S.
Her what we can do for America speech didn't seem to tailored to this audience, focusing on some bland, inoffensive talking points. Also Al Gore is supposed to be coming up next.

Metoderna är dock och förblir detsamma: storskaliga planer skall genomdrivas som inte tar hänsyn till enskilda människors livsval och verklighet.

Det hela bottnar om en förakt för människan och en attityd som inte passar in i ett modernt demokratiskt samhälle - däremot kan man förmoda att ett land som Kina är ett föredöme, knappast i fråga om utsläpp men i varje fall i fråga om metod. Inför OS stänger diktaturen helt sonika av praktiskt taget alla industrier i Peking med närområde. 

Niklas Elert

Läs Germania.

Det är befogat att vara kritisk när politiker hotar med domedagsprofetior, sprider panikberättelser och därefter föreslår ekonomiska tioårsplaner för landets energiförsörjning. Det är befogat att ställa motfrågor till någon som påstår att all amerikansk elektricitet ska vara fossilfri inom tio år. Det är också befogat att samtidigt undra varför inte fler miljövänner tar avstånd från sådana förslag. Till syvende och sidst underminerar det hela miljöarbetet med forskning om ny teknik som är effektiv utan farliga biprodukter och andra utsläpp.

Innan Al Gore försöker pracka på andra sin föga trovärdiga panikpolitik vore det på plats att sopa rent framför egen dörr då hans eget hus använder 20 gånger mer el än genomsnittsfamiljen i sitt 1.000 kvadratmeter stora hus. Det går bra att kräva att andra ska stå till sidan och förlora jobbet på grund av förlorad tillväxt medan han själv är stenrik och lyxkonsumerar. Paniken känner inga gränser.

... I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

For reasons I still haven't grasped, it's nearly impossible to write about climate change in a mainstream setting without having denialists pop up and, among other things, accuse you of taking orders from Al Gore. (My friend and Ottawa Citizen colleague Kate Heartfield remarked on it a little while ago.) Or, for reasons even more obscure, "Algore," like he's a biomechanical replicant of a former vice-president with a model and make instead of a person with a regular name.

But anyway, the criticism usually revolves around the idea that Gore is a crank, full of pie-in-the-sky ideas about someday we might live in a paradaisical vision of windmills and solar panels, not useful proposal for what we might actually do right now in the world we actually live in. Or, alternatively, that he's a doomsayer whose obviously absurd prophecies of planetary doom are beneath any rational consideration.

Either line of criticism is so disconnected from the reality of Gore's message, and the manifestly reasonable tone of his main vehicle An Inconvenient Truth, that they're difficult to engage.

Then he goes and says something like that America should be carbon-neutral in its electricity generation by 2018. And he compares it to the U.S. space program.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy's challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes.

I wasn't alive for them, so maybe I can't fully comprehend the power of the moment he's talking about, but this strikes me as a dangerously false parallel. The Apollo program, as ambitious as it was, was essentially about making it possible for a few people (astronauts) to do one thing (walk on the Moon) once. More often if possible, but once would meet the challenge. Gore is talking about changing the way everybody does everything, for always. (Clive Crook makes a similar argument here.)

Someone whose public credibility is as fragile as Gore's is — on a rising curve but certainly not secure — and so important to the movement he argues is key to the continued viability of the planet Earth as a home for humanity, should treat it with a little more care.

From Crook:

Does he even mean it? "I see my role as enlarging the political space in which Senator Obama or Senator McCain can confront this issue as president next year," he says. Translation: I advocate the impossible so that the possible becomes more probable. Fair enough, one might say. But propaganda in a good cause is still propaganda, isn't it?

Ah. So it's strategic nonsense.

Look. It's not happening, no matter who gets elected. Building a new wind farm, a small one, takes two years, and there's a shortage of gear and qualified people to install and maintain it. You can't fix that in a decade (see the difference between an accomplishment for the few and a fundamental change for the many, above). It's so far from happening that it's difficult even to take the idea seriously. You can't.

It'll be all the denialists talk about for the next year, pointing and laughing, and for a change they'll be right.

Al Gore announced on Thursday a goal to make the entire U.S. carbon neutral within ten years. All I have to say is: Good Luck, because he is going to need an enormous amount of it. This is one of the most lofty goals I've heard from a politician of his status. He relates this goal to JFK's decision to be on the moon within a decade, but I really don't see any similarities. While going to the moon was certainly a lofty goal, JFK increased NASA's funding immensely and the country was behind him. This is not the case for Mr. Gore. There's no money while our currency plunges, two wars and a global empire put us farther into debt, and an incompetent government continues to approve unbalanced budgets. There is also a significant lack in support for this cause, as many still approach global warming as a "theory."

In order to accomplish a goal like this, we would need to replace most if not all the energy created by coal power plants in the U.S. with renewable sources. Once again, good luck Mr. Gore. The amount of solar and wind energy in this country has yet to break 10% of overall energy produced, it would need to grow 500% or more to displace the energy currently generated from coal-burning plants. Although I believe the technology to make solar cheaper than coal will arrive within 5 years, building an infrastructure to support it will take much longer. It is also insane to expect transit in the U.S. to shift enough to make us carbon-neutral. Driving is part of American culture, and although recent gas prices have led to significantly less driving, I think driving will remain a big part of most American lives. Even if we all drive hybrids (which are actually more harmful to the environment than most would expect, but thats another day) and use public transit (which is lacking in most U.S. cities) we still won't be able to make this country's roads carbon neutral.

I do hope that one day the United States will be carbon-neutral, have an economy based on renewable sources, everyone will eat organic food, and we won't need a military because everyone loves each other. But these expectations will never amount to reality. Global warming is definitely one of the top issues humanity as a whole needs to address, and the United States should have an influential role; but lofty goals like this are doomed to fail.

While Al Gore has done great things for this country, including inventing the internet (lulz.), if he honestly thinks this is a realistic goal, he is sillier than we all thought.

Sigh.

Procrastination is a disease that inflicts many of us (certainly not excluding this author) and The US.

It seems that there is nary a chore, nary a challenge whose solution can't be put off to tomorrow or, preferably, the day after.

The time has passed. It is time to change our habits. We must start doing our chores.

We must stop making a mess. We must fight to clean up our collective messes. 

We, together, can solve tomorrow's problems.  Today.

Al Gore gave a speech Thursday (video) in Washington, DC, one that set a major objective before us, a path toward clean up our biggest mess, the dumping of carbon and other pollutants into our atmosphere and waters. He set a path for us to begin to  Solve Tomorrow's Problems, Today.  And, he gave another speech earlier today in Austin, Texas, at Netroots Nation that raised, not just Global Warming, other serious problems in our society and democracy.  He laid out problems, but, at the core, stated:  Carpe Diem.  Seize the Day.  Work together, fight to Solve Tomorrow's Problems.  Today!  

Nancy for a moment ...

Nancy Pelosi had a long session prior to Vice President Gore's talk and answered questions alongside Gore.  The engagement and participation within Netroots Nation is welcome, with her direct statements of appreciation for the Netroots' quite real role in contributing to the Democratic Party victories in 2006 and the role quite notable. 

Pelosi's opening had a notably strong emphasis on Global Warming, an issue that she seriously cares about and understands.  Sadly, however, within the comments she threw out a line that is being bandied about to fight the Republican lies about DRILL! DRILL!  DRILL! and did not complete the concept as it should. She talked about the effort to Free Our Oil and releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to help lower gasoline prices. 

My reaction to this when :

If we make this just about gas prices, we are caught into a very dangerous framing. “Lowering” gas prices gets people thinking back to cheaper energy unit costs days. We need people, the nation thinking about enery as a system, as a “cost to own” rather than “cost to buy”. We (the nation) should foster upfront investment (help it) that will lower total “cost to own” by reducing wasteful use of polluting energy. While difficult in a robocall, every single message (I would argue) should avoid getting captured in messaging that fosters thinking that we can go back to days of cheaper gasoline. Over the long term (and likely short term), it isn’t going to happen.

The missing part of Pelosi's response to the Republican lies is that taking oil from the SPR doesn't solve our problems.  If we can "free our oil", we must take the resources (the money) from that sold oil to undertake initiatives to lower our oil and other energy requirements.  Rather than "Free our oil." (e.g., end "period"), how about "Free Our Oil and Solve Tomorrow's Problems. Today!"

Turning to Al

Vice President Gore spoke to Global Warming and threats to Democracy and ...  He thanked the blogger crowd in the audience for their efforts to fight to regain Democracy in America, to turn back America toward a path of robust discussion and interaction on real issues.  To fight and turn the tide on The Assault on Reason. 

Al Gore has long (LONG) spoken of the challenges and opportunities of Global Warming.  He has often provided and presented pathways toward a better future. He has now laid a very serious challenge before us, before the US, to create a path toward a sustainable, climate-friendly society through moving toward 100 percent renewable electricity for the American economy within a decade.  This is a serious, difficult challenge with many obstacles (technical, policy, regulatory) to achievement. The most serious challenge, however, is the mobilization of will. This is a difficult challenge, but one that can be tackled, but we must choose to do so. When it comes to Global Warming and our inefficient, wasteful polluting energy system, we need to listen to Bob the Builder:  "Can We Fix It? Yes, We CAN!!!"

While this has been true for a long time, when it comes to our energy and global warming challenges, it is time to get serious and started on our way to Solve Tomorrow's Problems.  Today!!!

Solve Tomorrow's Problems. Today!!!

Peak Oil (polluting energy) and Global Warming are THE Progressive Crises. And, Al Gore has set out a path to Solve Tomorrow's Problems. Today.

But, as Vice President Gore emphasized Thursday and pointed to in Austin earlier today, we face a plethora of problems.  Trade and Budget deficits. War in Iraq.  Too Many Children Left Behind.  Pollution.  And, ... sadly, the list is long.

The time for Mañana has ended.

We must begin to clean house.

We face serious challenges.

WE can solve these problems, starting today, if we make the choice to do so.

As a first step, to stake a place among those ready to help solve the problems we face, recognize that Global Warming is a key challenge before us, before the US.  Al Gore has laid out a path to address seriously this challenge, a path that will help deal with Peak Oil.

Ask youself,

Are you ready to stand with Al to begin to Solve Tomorrow's Problems. Today?

If so, then go join the WE campaign. NOW!!!

July 20, 2008

Appealing to Bloggers’ Influence, Gore Asks for Help in Promoting Energy Challenge

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

AUSTIN, Tex. — Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, was asked a question here at a bloggers conference about energy. She glanced at her BlackBerry, noting that she had an e-mail message from a friend on that very subject.

With that, the voice of former Vice President Al Gore boomed over the public address system, leaving a sea of quizzical looks and then gasps, cheers and a standing ovation as he strode onto the stage.

It produced the first electric moment at the conference, the Netroots Nation, an ever-widening group of progressive bloggers whose major interests — the war in Iraq, the environment and technology — mesh well with Mr. Gore’s current pursuits. Indeed, many in the crowd — who are supporting Senator Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee — were overheard saying they wished he were running for president.

As waves of cheers washed over the cavernous convention center, Mr. Gore said to Ms. Pelosi, “We ought to take that act on the road.”

Click here to read the full article...

I think grassroots is a place to go on this issue as so many people are passionate about environmental issues, specifically climate change. However, I am doubtful of the call to action and how th words will fit the action...

Unfortunately we haven't figured out how to harness enthusiasm yet, so we'll have to keep chugging away at this issue the best we can for now; getting more and more communities to understand the beauty of wind farms,  pushing for R&D in renewables and investing in it ourselves, and doing the little bits that we can in our own lives.  For now, we still have to take it upon ourselves to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, to make up for our government's neglect.

So, we are gradually joining the community of low energy users in the US, and in DC.  It's been a slow, but fun process.  Here are 5 of the most important things we've done so far this year, and 5 things we hope to do in the rest of the year, while we fight for the 10-year carbon-free goal to be adopted by our leaders:

1) Unplug everything in the house, and then after a day, plug back in the relatively few items that we haven't yet figured out a way to get around using (most notably the fridge).  We try to keep everything unplugged unless it is in use now.  How did I spend so long accepting that those cell phone chargers were sucking up so much electricity?

2) Purchase double honeycomb blinds in the rooms that have the most heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter.  These blinds are really amazing, and have allowed us to survive the DC summer with no air conditioning! (we do still use a fan at night)

3) Save water (and energy at the same time).  We installed a toilet sink, which sits over our toilet tank.  It's so cool.  We now flush with gray water from hand washing, and put weights in the toilet tank, so we use less water for the whole process.  We also started using a low-flow shower head. Don't worry it's not a low-pressure water head.  The pressure is great, it's just less water.

4) Invest in bicycle-powered energy.  Your own bike generates electricity while you exercise!  Unfortunately, we' re usually tired enough from commuting by bike/foot, that it is still a work in progress to figure out how we will use this best.  But at least we have the battery now, which we can also use with solar panels, and easily can power lights with CFLs and a fan.

5) Caulk Generously!  We may have even over done this, but it sure does keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and it has the added bonus of keeping the bugs out!

Which brings me to the five things we'd like to do for the rest of the year:

1) Invest in some solar panels.

2) Get a fridge that uses less than a half a kWh per day. This is the biggest energy suck in most people's homes because there is no off button on the fridge.  It's always on, and it's always using a lot of energy.  The good news is that this is one are where the government has invested in some R&D, and there are some uber-efficient models out there.   Sun Frost has the most efficient I've seen, but there are cheaper options that are almost as efficient.

3) Try actually living off electricity completely for a while, to see what still needs to be done for us to do it comfortably (and to see what we forgot to think of in our preparations)

4) Get rid of temptation.  Getting rid of our car removed the temptation to drive places when we didn't need to .  Now we need to recycle our dryer, and accept that if it's raining, then we will just have to wait to do our laundry.

5)  Support the politicians who will do the most on this issue.  We need mayors, governors, senators, members of congress, and presidents who see this as a top priority issue.  So, we'll plan to do some door knocking, fundraiser throwing, and, of course, voting!

To describe the results another way:

Joe Biden - 24%

Gore and Sebelius - tied for second at 16% each

Hillary - 11%

Powell and Bayh - tied for fourth at 8% each

Also Rans: Richardson, McCaskill, Kaine and Buffet

Write-ins: Chuck Hagel and Mark Warner

Off Radar: Dodd

What do the results mean? Let's break them down.

Biden. What is it about Biden that has landed him the top spot in the last two RKR polls? He's a plain-speaking senator raised modestly in Scranton, PA, and remains fairly middle class compared to his fellow aristocratic senators. Roman Catholic. Very experienced in foreign affairs. Can speak very forcefully when he wants to. Those are all good things and I'm sure he'd be an asset on the ticket. Biden carries some risks, however, and I think Obama could do better. Biden can frequently disappoint by shading his responses with a wink and a nod to conventional wisdom, seemingly in an effort to not cause offense and maintain relationships inside the beltway. He's hardly an outsider, both literally and in terms of temperament. He also has a tendency to drone on and on - an abiding passion for the sound of his own voice. And this lack of verbal discipline can lead to inadvertent gaffes, like when he called Obama "clean and articulate" during the primaries. My gut says make him Secretary of State, which would play to his strengths and mitigate his risks.

Gore. Gore reaffirmed as recently as today at the Netroots Nation conference that he will not be Obama's Veep. I think I finally believe him. He wants to transform political support for fighting climate change into a truly bipartisan issue, and thinks he has a better chance of doing that from his current perch outside of government.

Sebelius. Sebelius is an attractive choice. A second term red state governor who won reelection overwhelmingly in 2006, she shares the Obama vision for working across the partisan aisle. She's strongly pro-choice. She has a temperament of calm, cool confidence that would be very compatible with Obama's style. On the con side, she has no foreign policy or national security street cred. But that may not matter if Obama's trip abroad is successful (which I believe it will be), and if Obama gives an early hint of who will be in his cabinet. I don't put a lot of stock into the MSM line that "Hillary's supporters will be outraged if a woman other than Hillary is picked." I think many women will love Sebelius when they get to know her. But that segues to her greatest weakness -- she's not very well known outside of Kansas. Yes, she's known in the key swing states of neighboring Missouri and in Ohio (where her father was a governor), but she would need to be "introduced" to most Americans. Obama is still doing this himself, and can't really afford a Veep that hasn't been on the national stage at all. I also give some credence to the notion that the ticket should not have "too many firsts" (i.e., the first African American president and the first female VP (Ferraro was a VP nominee but didn't win)), but Hillary's success has made this less of an issue.

Hillary. Hillary did surprisingly well in this poll. My guess is her showing was motivated by two sides of the same coin: her continued political strength. One side is represented by her genuine supporters that want to see her on the ticket. The other side is more practical, giving her the position to take advantage of her popularity, particularly among segments where Obama is less popular, and unify the party for victory. Having said that, I still think the risk of picking Hillary outweighs the benefits. First, she brings along the former president, which means drama and controversy. Second, she remains a divisive figure and brings along memories of the partisan battles of the 90s, which will awaken an otherwise demoralized GOP base. Third, she brings her dysfunctional staff, who would then leak to the press every perceived indignity and grievance - which is the polar opposite of Obama's campaign management style. Third, and most importantly, she conflicts with the fundamental essence of Obama's message: transformative change. She and her husband represent the past as much as McCain, and would weaken Obama's brand.

Powell. Powell would be a gift to the MSM. They would give Powell's selection obsessive cable news coverage for days. Although tarnished a bit by his association with the Bush Administration, he remains one of the most popular Americans (not just politicians) overall. His presence on the ticket would completely nuke the one area where McCain is perceived to have an advantage: national security/foreign affairs. How many other living Americans have a military doctrine named after them? Zero. As a con, like Sebelius, it would be combining "two firsts" by having two African Americans on the ticket, but those who would be most alienated by this are not in Obama's camp anyway. It also serves the theme of transformative, post-partisan change, given that Powell served in Democratic and Republican administrations. He carries the risk of alienating Obama's Left base, who view him suspiciously for his role in an administration that tortured enemy combatants. He would have some explaining to do. Would he take the job? Don't know, but his son Michael, the former FCC Chairman, is actively supporting McCain.

Bayh. Bayh is like a male Sebelius in some ways - a calm, cool Democrat who's been very successful in a very red state. Unlike Sebelius, Bayh brings foreign policy/national security experience. He's better known than Sebelius, but not exactly a national figure. Picking him might alienate Obama's left flank that are still smarting over Obama's support for the FISA compromise because of Bayh's leadership in the DLC (although he's no Joe Lieberman). He hails from a state that McCain simply cannot afford to lose, mathematically. What some may find boring (and I would agree), others in the Midwest may find attractive, stylistically. The Midwest is where elections are won and lost. He could help Obama in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, and if he does, it's game over for McCain. His gubernatorial experience is critical in a contest where the economy is the defining issue. Also, as a former Hillary supporter, he might his selection might send a "unity" message as well.

The Also Rans. Kaine is finishing his first and only term as Virginia governor. He and Obama are close friends and would be very compatible. He's Roman Catholic and speaks fluent Spanish. But he's unknown outside of Virginia, and while he's reasonably popular in Virginia, he's no Mark Warner. He would not guarantee carrying the state. He's also spoken about abortion in ways that will alienate pro-choice women and spoken against the death penalty in ways that might make it a campaign issue. No foreign policy/national security experience. Bottom line, as a relative novice, he compounds Obama's first term senator status. The same could be said of McCaskill -- someone who would be very compatible with Obama but as a rookie senator, actually could do more harm than good by rendering the ticket the "rookie duo." I tossed Warren Buffett in there as a wild card given the terrible economy and his perceived genius as an investor. But he's even older than McCain. I don't see it happening.

The Write-Ins. Mark Warner made a Shermanesque statement that he is running exclusively for the U.S. Senate this year and does not want to be considered for the VP slot. I believe him. Chuck Hagel is far too conservative on every other issue besides Iraq to be Obama's VP. He might have had a chance six months ago when Iraq was the biggest issue in the campaign, but the economy is now the top issue. Perhaps he could serve in an Obama Administration as part of his national security team, but not as his Veep.

My guess? Bayh.

]]> http://flyingcar.wordpress.com/?p=44 Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:36:03 +0000 Allison S. http://flyingcar.wordpress.com/?p=44 I watched President Clinton's Last Days In Office really early this morning and was pretty sure it was a bizarre hallucination.

It makes a very interesting reading about the links between climate change, energy security, the economy, and the ways in which the challenges of moving to an environmental sustainable mode of economic activities will be negotiated by society.

Especially interesting is to read the text critically, and to consider what is included, and why. Noteworthy is the roles of different domains of human activities  - science is used to demonstrate the problem, technology to offer a solution and the power relationships in society in both the financial investment and the political arenas are playing their part to benefit from the potential disruption of climate change.

A few more things about me, I hate Al Gore, but I will agree with you if you say George Bush is an idiot, I was for the war when it started and still am not wavering in my thought process, I love sports so sorry if you get the occasional sports blog but for now deal with it, and I think this country is in need of a superman right now because things are not looking to good.

I hope you all stay tuned plenty of exciting blogs to come, hopefully we can get the comment's going so I can see what people want to talk about, what you ask in your comments or what the debate turns into is what I will blog about because, there's no sense in me writing what you don't want to hear. SO stay tuned more to come from this guy.

Jimmy K

When I decided I wanted to write the occasional essay of sorts, I thought about just picking up another journal, like the one I started keeping one fateful summer between 7th and 8th grade. I filled notebook after notebook of all shapes and sizes through 8th grade, high school and college. Most of which are packed away in some box somewhere in the attic. I don't know what I wrote about back then. But I doubt I'd ever consider posting them to the Internet.

When I opted to post my pointless thoughts to the ether instead of committing them to the gravity and permanence of ink and paper, I promised myself that I would never, never, NEVER talk politics. Well, one should never say never.

So, here goes. Are you ready?

Al Gore is right. There. I said it.

If you decided to take a vacation from newspapers or your news.com of choice this week (I'm often tempted to do the same myself), you may have missed that Al Gore "challenged America to make a 'man on the moon' effort to produce all of the country's electricity from renewable resources within 10 years."

The guy is right. And I'm not saying he's right because I love the trees or I'm afraid of rising temperatures and suffocating greenhouse gases. I'm not sure the proof is truly conclusive on all of that stuff. Even after watching "An Inconvenient Truth". Twice.

I'm not even saying he's right because I'm tired of the gas station siphoning my wallet.

No, none of that is why I think Al Gore is right.

He's right because America needs another race to the moon. America needs another impossible dream.

When Kennedy made his "man on the moon" speech, a lot of Americans considered it a PR move to recover from the Bay of Pigs. Or worse, he was a simple lunatic.

Yet, it happened. He placed a dream before America, and America transformed it into reality. Not because Kennedy believed in some crazy idea, but because America believed in itself.

And now, here we are. Oil prices have soared beyond the moon. Finding a way out is impossible. The infrastructure just isn't there. Our cars are built for gasoline. Every intersection is peppered with gas stations. Do we really expect oil companies to walk away from $12 Billion per quarter in profits? That would be crazy, right?

Almost as crazy as launching a human into an uncharted void of a vacuum in a cramped tin can tube atop a huge fireball aimed at a lifeless rock. Almost.

When I think about it that way, I guess I'd have to say that what Al Gore is asking for can never happen. Never.

Oh, wait a second. What was it I was saying earlier. No, I learned my lesson. One should never say never. 

Yes, that's right. Never say never. The America I know never would. Never has.

Why start now?

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