Al Gore Endorses Green Bank Bill

Al Gore is the biggest hypocrite and embarrassment to the green movement. Like others, he claims cap-and-trade will not increase energy costs to the consumer, which is a complete fabrication and snow job. There has to be a better way!

Let's see. Character assassination, complain about and impede any progressive initiatives, and offer no solutions. I think I know where your coming from, Paul.

Okay, here is a viable, cost-effective, shovel-ready solution: Waste-to-Energy plants.
The US generates enough fuel for over 600 new plants.
They could be built at existing landfills, since the fuel is already being delivered there.
They would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in building, supplying, operating and maintaining.
They make money by receiving the fuel, selling the electricity and steam, increased recycling, selling the ash and even collecting coins from the ash.
The EPA considers municipal solid waste as a renewable fuel and regulations require clean emmissions - cleaner than coal, oil and natural gas plants.

Here are some more viable, cost-effective, shovel-ready, job-creating ideas:
Nuclear power plants - when the greens ended the construction of nuclear plants, we got hundreds more coal plants instead. That kinda backfired, didn't it?
Natural gas vehicles - the Pickens Plan is a good model.

Still think you know where I'm coming from, Charles? How about you offer some solutions instead of insults?

Paul,

You make some good suggestions. I think we also need to develop options that don't have CO2 emissions as well. That is why I support solar, wind and hydro initiatives as well. Using wind to add add generating capacity is a viable economic alternative to coal. As a prospective developer of wind energy, having multiple options for financing "green" projects gives me more confidence to proceed especially in tough economic times like we are currently experiencing. At this point in time, I think I would trust a "government bank" more so than a Wall Street bank.

Jeffrey,

I hope you are wildly successful in your wind endeavors. However, we seem to be missing one point... CO2 is not a pollutant. I'm all for reducing pollution, so I support green energy, but the reasoning for reducing emissions by most people is just wrong. Global warming is still just a theory - I personally believe it's a natural earth cycle caused mostly by the activity of the sun. It's not the CO2 we need to worry about, it's the SOx, NOx and other pollutants.

Aside from that, even if the US and Europe completely eliminate CO2 emissions, China, India and other developing nations are going to continue to emit more and more every year. They are building coal-fired generation too fast, because it's too cheap and concentrated than any comparables, besides nuclear. Whatever we eliminate in one year will be replaced by them in the next.

As for trusting Wall Street or the government, I'll take Wall Street - there is no profit potential from the government, all it does is take money from me.

As long as alternatives to traditional energy are not cost effective the public is not going to use them. Creating alternative utility companies using waste products is a start but so far with little traction. But geothermal is already available to most and nearly cost effective. With the current subsidies (30% of initial hard costs) it is cost effective for many. People merely need to be educated on the math. If individuals could sell the credits they create, it would certainly get it over the hump. For most individuals the greatest carbon footprint and greatest cost is in home energy use as opposed to automobiles yet all the emphasis in real estate development (my gig) is trying to force people out of their cars. 1) It's not going to happen and 2) you could easily get double the benefit by development practices utilizing geothermal and/or other more efficient fuels. But - and you heard it here first - it's not going to happen until green banking and other similar cost shifting measures are taken to make alternatives affordable at the individual level.

Look for the good and praise it! said my old WWII war-horse buddy, back in the day. He put that motto on his bumper, in happiness at President Carter's breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli relations. He looked at an Arco solar PV panel I had hooked up to a 12 volt car battery, and 5 or six tail light bulbs I had scotch taped to my walls, all aglow, giving a nice moody night lighting,

"That on the roof made that, did it? Well I'll be!"

Chicken man former VP Gore making amends, via good environmental works, for his gavel ling down the Florida recount black caucus (see "Fahrenheit 911" documentary): Well Ill be!

I use to be skeptical of global warming also. But I got to thinking one day, what if there is a possibility that global warming is not a myth? What if it turns out, the skeptics were wrong and the science was true? I am much more comfortable with an approach that allows me to at least consider the possibility.

CO2 emissions are a by-product of fossil fuel energy generation. I wish they were an emission that we needed not to be concerned about. For us as a species, we need to assume that they may play a significant role in affecting our climate. Is it going to cost us money to migrate from older, harmful technologies

Here is an interesting article that was in the New York Times the other day about the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming and that the fossil fuel industries were doing everything they could to suppress their own evidence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1&hpw

It really reminded me that all we need to able to make up our own mind and be capable of changing our mind at times.