I received this from Alan Maki this morning. I am outraged! A huge company like CenturyTel is trying to undermine our democracy. Simply appalling!
Alan Maki published his views side by side with Al Gore's opinions. Alan Maki went so far as to provide people with a link to Al Gore's speech; a written copy of Al Gore's speech; and the coverage Al Gore's speech received in the New York Times.
Alan Maki provided a model for how democracy is supposed to function.
The corporate world refuses to allow democracy to flourish.
In many countries death squads trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia simply kill people for expressing their opinions. In other countries they are jailing people. George Bush and the CIA are torturing "prisoners" in an attempt to bring democracy to Iraq.
Who will bring democracy to the U.S.A?
I agree one hundred percent with Alan Maki calling for public ownership of the Internet by placing the Internet under the jurisdiction of a specially created United Nations agency.
Big-business can't be trusted with control over a technology like the Internet. What has happened to Alan Maki and his e-mailing proves this.
I don't know of anyone who has more effectively combined use of the Internet through blogging and e-mailing for organizing working people than Alan Maki. Because Alan Maki has become so effective the powers that be are trying to harass him into silence.
Me kind of thinks they have picked on the wrong person this time because anyone who knows Alan Maki knows he can't be silenced.
By the time this fiasco makes the rounds of the Internet Al Gore is going to wish he had debated Alan Maki.
I would just note one oversight Alan has made here. Al Gore is widely recognized as one of the initial primary boosters that got the Internet up to speed. I wonder if Al Gore intended for big-business to have this kind of power and control to the extent of Internet Service Providers like CenturyTel trying to stamp out democracy?
I would go even further.
This makes me wonder and question Al Gore's motives concerning his role in the issue of global warming.
Gore got extremely wealthier than what his inheritance from Occidental Petroleum provided him with; yes, Gore increased his wealth with investments in Internet companies!
Makes me kind of wonder what is motivating Al Gore on the issue of global warming. Does he really see another gold mine in solving the problem of global warming? Seeing as how he has major financial interests in corporations all set to enrich themselves further through Barack Obama's new "green economy" I would say that Al Gore is one pretty slick salesman. A real shyster and huckster. Al Gore is nothing but one more greedy capitalist trying to make a profit from our suffering.
Read what Alan Maki has to say. Read or listen and watch what Al Gore has to say.
We need a real open discussion on this issue.
If anyone is going to this shindig in the Cities next Sunday where Jim Hightower, Leo Gerard and Ray Waldron are going to be speaking on this issue you might want to read this and ask them some questions because I am sure the event was planned as another Obama booster.
Check out Cynthia McKinney's website along with Cindy Sheehan's website. These are two women really giving these big-business jerks a run for their money.
Cynthia McKinney:
http://www.runcynthiarun.org/Cindy Sheehan:
http://www.cindyforcongress.org/Don't forget to check in often on Alan Maki's fantastic blog:
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/You can call Centurytel toll-free and tell them you resent them harassing Alan Maki the way they do: 800-809-1410
Also, call, write and email your state and federal public officials. Tell them to get big-business out of the Internet.
Rita
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Democracy and Internet Service Providers (ISP)
July 20, 2008
This is what my Internet Service Provider, CenturyTel, does to me when I am e-mailing.
I was emailing my views on Al Gore’s ideas about using his proposed “carbon tax” to finance Social Security and now they have prohibited me from e-mailing.
By Federal Statute political e-mails with political opinions is not “Spam.”
Just like citizen Tom Paine used to leaflet and post his opinions where ever he could, I distribute my opinions via e-mail.
It is amazing to me that all the big-business gurus like Alan Greenspan boast of how the Internet has “revolutionized” communications for business; but, the corporations— like CenturyTel who now have hijacked control over the Internet are opposed to citizens using e-mail and the Internet to convey their views.
Al Gore is putting forward his views very cleverly, not for the public good; but to bolster the profits of the businesses he is heavily invested in.
No wonder Al Gore doesn’t want to talk about taxing “wealth.” And, he hides this refusal to discuss wealth behind cute little ditties like, “We should tax what we burn; not what we earn.”
The corporate world, including the CEO’s of my Internet Service Provider— CenturyTel— apparently like Al Gore’s message better than mine… so, since they have the “power and control” they exercise this “power and control” to silence me when I bring forward alternative views, like those I posted here yesterday; views in opposition to the capitalists’ neoliberal agenda.
What is really the epitome of hypocrisy is these corporations have the unmitigated gall to turn around and call this “democracy.”
Al Gore has a multi-million dollar campaign promoting his views on global warming and his so-called “solutions.”
Those of us with opinions contrary to the reactionary, neoliberal views Gore is trying to pass as “progressive” have a right to respond to his views in a way that we become part of the decision-making process… this is what democracy is really supposed to be all about.
There is a very simple solution to corporate and government suppression of political views which I and many, many others in the United States— the world’s greatest “bastion of democracy”— are being subjected to.
The solution is very simple…
Take all aspects of the Internet out of corporate hands.
The Internet should be managed, run and operated on a not-for-profit basis; the only goal and objective being to make this great marvel of the new, modern, hi-tech world available for all people to freely and democratically communicate their views, just as Al Gore does now because he can afford to buy his way into this “public square” and dominate the battle of ideas in our modern world.
Working people create all wealth. The wealth created by workers has created the Internet. It is simply wrong that national governments and local public bodies have abandoned their responsibilities to the public to insure that big-money does not create the rules of usage for the Internet through their “terms” of use which not only do not take into consideration the democratic rights of working people to be full participants in society to the full extent technology has the potential to provide; worse yet, these elected public officials and those working for government agencies… in the name of “hands off business” have enabled these corporations to push working people right out of the decision making process— again.
The bosses have never liked working people to express their views and opinions— especially when those views and opinions run contrary to the corporate drive for maximum profits.
As such…
The Internet should become the first truly fully inter-nationalized publicly owned venture, jointly owned by all of humanity under the direction and control of a United Nations’ body specifically created for this purpose.
These “Internet Service Providers” are making out like bandits as they rip us off and then don’t even let us use the full potential of the service when we express views not to the liking of big-business which is seeking to profit off of ending the very global warming they created in the first place.
Here is the response I received from my Internet Service Provider— CenturyTel— a huge, mega-communication corporation, which has denied me the right to use, a service I am over-charged for.
For many days I have been denied the right to use MicroSoft Outlook to convey my opinions and response to Al Gore stated:
CenturyTel - Contact Request Processed
var s_pageName=”Contact Request Processed”;
var s_server=”interapp.centurytel.com”;
var s_account=”centelcom”;
We’re committed to delivering quality service.
Thank you for contacting CenturyTel Customer Service!
We appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions, because it is our goal to provide the highest quality service available. We will do our best to respond to your e-mail within 2 business days. Please feel free to contact us again if you have
additional questions or comments.
The information submitted…
Area: High-Speed Internet
Topic: Help Desk
Comments:
I cannot use my Microsoft Outlook to send out. This problem happened before after I sent out a large number of e-mails.I use my e-mail for Democratic Party related political activities and this is my right. Politically related materials are not spam as defined by federal statutes.I expect you to get my service that I pay your company a very good price for, to get my service back up and running properly.
Centurytel is making a corporate decision to interfere with my right to advocate my views.
Posted by alanmaki
A dangerous threat to Social Security linked to proposed “carbon tax” from Al Gore
July 20, 2008
Al Gore made an important speech on “carbon taxes;” click on the link to hear his speech or read it below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9wZloG97UPlease distribute this widely to all your e-mail lists and list serves so Al Gore’s speech gets the kind of discussion these ideas deserve in a democracy.
My thinking on Al Gore’s speech:
The time has come to start talking about the politics and economics of livelihood… working class politics.
Al Gore has proposed that the solution for keeping Social Security solvent is to fund it with a “carbon tax.”
Think about this: The idea behind the “carbon tax” is to end pollution… as carbon emissions decline, so will revenue from the “carbon tax.”
Social Security should continue to be funded from the sources that are taxed right now… any change jeopardizes the very existence of Social Security.
If anything, Social Security taxes on the employers needs to be increased.
This is a very regressive and reactionary idea aimed at destroying the best progressive social program we have in this country— Social Security.
The source of funding for Social Security is just where it belongs right now… the only reform in funding required is to drastically increase the burden on employers so Social Security will provide all those in retirement a real living income; and, retirement age should be reduced to 50 so that the millions of unemployed will have jobs so they continue to build-up the Social Security fund… unemployed people contribute nothing towards Social Security; apparently mercury emissions have retarded thinking among some politicians.
There is nothing wrong with Social Security that full-employment wouldn’t solve.
Social Security should derive its funding from the point nearest where wealth is being created; not where wealth is being destroyed.
A “carbon tax” should be placed on each and every corporation and industry, including a very heavy carbon tax on any industry using coal, gas and oil; this tax should be used to finance the creation of new clean, green industries being proposed by Barack Obama.
In fact, if these industries were threatened with nationalization and public ownership we would see more rapid compliance than with the threat of taxes or fines.
What is really bizarre is that Al Gore and Barack Obama have been completely silent when it comes to what kind of concrete action is required to save closing auto plants like the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… ironically, this present clean, green manufacturing operation would pay no Social Security taxes at all under the Gore proposal supported by Barack Obama. Obama supports this hare-brained scheme like that advocated by Al Gore to finance Social Security; but he has not raised his voice to save the jobs of two-thousand auto-workers, who, with their employer are paying into Social Security in a very big way… Do Al Gore and Barack Obama support the capitalist scheme to close the St. Paul Ford Plant Twin Cities Assembly Plant, place a hydro dam powering the operation into the hands of a private foreign corporation, and shipping these two-thousand jobs to Thailand… this is really a boon to Social Security, isn’t it?
At some point there has to be some accountability from politicians like Al Gore and Barack Obama— this is not a one-way street; in return for votes, politicians have to be taught to listen respectfully to working people with an eye towards solving problems in favor of working people and their standard of living and livelihoods.
How much will carbon emissions increase when the Ford Motor Company brings its new Ford Ranger plant in Thailand into full production once they begin shipping to North America? How much will the Ford Motor Company contribute towards the U.S. Social Security fund from “carbon taxes” on its operations in Thailand… The same amount they will pay into Social Security in Thailand— absolutely nothing. Al Gore and Barack Obama have not considered this.
Why not nationalize any corporation that doesn’t meet Gore’s proposed guidelines?
Alan Greenspan is laughing like heck over all the dates set way into the future at which point these industries will have to come into compliance with carbon emission and pollution standards… Greenspan figures by these far distant dates established for compliance by these dirty industries, they will have been replaced with new technologies paid for compliments of U.S. tax-payers and the impoverishment of the working class in North America.
We could force 100% compliance with carbon emission and pollution standards in five years, instead of fifty, if these industries were threatened with nationalization for lack of compliance with clean air and water standards.
Again, transferring funding for Social Security from its present base of “wealth” to deriving revenue from a “carbon tax” is not the way to go.
Barack Obama and Al Gore propose that tax-payers fund this “new green economy” creating an entirely new industry and subsidizing corporations to the hilt… to the tune of trillions upon trillions of dollars; what tax-payers finance, tax-payers must own… including a share of the profits the equivalent of tax-payer funding. We must introduce this new kind of thinking into the political process right at the initial beginning stage.
Modern state-monopoly capitalism has concocted these neoliberal schemes to confuse working people while standards of living are driven down through such schemes; before workers know what has hit them the damage is done. Workers create all wealth… the working class’ standard of living must rise along with this “new clean, green industry.”
The time has come for working people to assert themselves into the decision making process in a very vocal and decisive manner. Keeping quiet until after Election Day is not the answer. Speak up now.
Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Check out my blog:
Thoughts From Podunk
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/Below is the New York Times coverage of Al Gore’s speech which is followed by the speech itself.
New York Times coverage of Al Gore’s speech:
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/washington/18gorecnd.html
Gore Calls for Carbon-Free Electric Power
By DAVID STOUT
Published: July 18, 2008
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
Al Gore spoke about energy policy in Washington on Thursday.
“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake.”
Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in his remarks at the conference. “It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”
Although Mr. Gore has made global warming and energy conservation his signature issues, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts, his speech on Thursday argued that the reasons for renouncing fossil fuels go far beyond concern for the climate.
In it, he cited military-intelligence studies warning of “dangerous national security implications” tied to climate change, including the possibility of “hundreds of millions of climate refugees” causing instability around the world, and said the United States is dangerously vulnerable because of its reliance on foreign oil.
Doubtless aware that his remarks would be met with skepticism, or even ridicule, in some quarters, Mr. Gore insisted in his speech that the goal of carbon-free power is not only achievable but practical, and that businesses would embrace it once they saw that it made fundamental economic sense.
Mr. Gore said the most important policy change in the transformation would be taxes on carbon dioxide production, with an accompanying reduction in payroll taxes. “We should tax what we burn, not what we earn,” he said.
The former vice president said in his speech that he could not recall a worse confluence of problems facing the country: higher gasoline prices, jobs being “outsourced,” the home mortgage industry in turmoil. “Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse,” he said.
By calling for new political leadership and speaking disdainfully of “defenders of the status quo,” Mr. Gore was hurling a dart at the man who defeated him for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush. Critics of Mr. Bush say that his policies are too often colored by his background in the oil business.
A crucial shortcoming in the country’s political leadership is a failure to view interlocking problems as basically one problem that is “deeply ironic in its simplicity,” Mr. Gore said, namely “our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.”
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet,” Mr. Gore said. “Every bit of that’s got to change.”
And it can change, he said, citing some scientists’ estimates that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth in 40 minutes to meet the world’s energy needs for a year, and that the winds that blow across the Midwest every day could meet the country’s daily electricity needs.
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, immediately praised Mr. Gore’s speech. “For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat,” Mr. Obama said.
A shift away from fossil fuels would make the United States a leader instead of a sometime rebel on energy and conservation issues worldwide, Mr. Gore said. Nor, he said, would the hard work of people who toil on oil rigs and deep in the earth be for naught. “We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry,” he said by way of example. “Every single one of them.”
“Of course, there are those who will tell us that this can’t be done,” he conceded. “But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, ‘The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.’ ”
This is Al Gore’s actual speech
July 17, 2008
A Generational Challenge to Repower America (as prepared)
D.A.R. Constitution Hall
Washington, D.C.
Ladies and gentlemen:
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.
I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.
The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.
Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.
Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.
And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.
Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.
I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse.
Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises.
We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.
But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: 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. 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.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?
We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.
But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation’s problems, we need a new start.
That’s why 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.
This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.
A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy.
When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.
And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.
You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months – year after year, and that’s what’s happened for 40 years in a row.
To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.
To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.
When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.
Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”
To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.
To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change.
I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.
What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something
40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it’s meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.
When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.
We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.
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.
America’s transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.
Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.
In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world’s agenda for solving the climate crisis.
Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.
It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they’re going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.
If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.
However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.
Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I’ve got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I’ve begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.
We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president’s term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.
So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.
This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I’m asking you – each of you – to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org. We need you. And we need you now. We’re committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.
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. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket’s engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.
We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.
The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens said in a statement that Mr. Gore’s plan would still not address “the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our country.” Mr. Pickens has called for a blend of government leadership and private enterprise to harness the full potential of wind power to help break what he calls “our deadly addiction to foreign oil.”
Posted by Alan L. Maki at 9:32 AM Links to this post
