I wish I could just copy and paste Tom Friedman's column from today's New York Times here, but it wouldn't be cricket. It's called "Our Green Bubble." If you happen to be a Times Select subscriber, here's the link.
What he says, basically, is that that there's a lot of talk and froth about green energy, and a surprising amount of corporate involvement, and a lot of individuals jumping on the bandwagon... but until the federal government works up the guts to do something serious, the movement, as it were, is not going to be nearly as effective as it could be at a very critical time. Here are two excerpts that count. First:
It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.
Absolutely right. You're welcome to drive a "prestige" guzzler like a Hummer or an Escalade or a Lincoln Navigator, but you'll need to compensate for something else beside your insecurity or your manhood. If you have to drive a pick-up or van guzzler for business or because you ferry a lot of kids and gear around, well these are choices too. Really, though, there ought to be an across-the-board fuel tax whose proceeds would fund alternative energy solutions. The guy in the Prius would have to pay the same $1.00 per gallon tax as the guy in the Navigator. The difference is that the tax might be $9.00 for a Prius fill-up versus $40.00 for a Navigator fill-up.
Second:
Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.
Think of Eisenhower and the interstate highway project of the Fifties. Think of Kennedy's moon program of the Sixties. Where -- come on, seriously, where -- is the leader who can take us from blathering and bloviating and lobbying and special-interest crap about alternative energy to national action?
~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch
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