Those of us who had the privilege of being in the natural world during the first half of the last century, can never forget how fresh and clean the air was and how beautiful the abundance of butterflies and other creatures. It is so sad to be forced to witness our environment become degraded, defiled, and even apparently doomed. It is SO clear what a mess this is, and yet it appears that we are too stupid to stop ourselves. If anyone had told me this was possible 50 years ago, I would not have been able to believe it, yet ...

toast: It is rather arrogant of you to assume that I need to "educate myself" because my views do not coincide with yours regarding nuclear power.

My education on the topic is an ongoing process which currently includes courses in chemistry calculus and physics. I always strive to be objective.

I believe our country is in an unprecedented corporate grip. We don't get to choose the best energy sources; we have the worst energy source (coal) crammed down our throat, and supplying the vast majority of our energy. Such is the reality. Wind, solar, etc are obviously better and cheaper energy sources so why do we only have them in token amounts?

It doesn't make any sense to worry about radioactive materials to this extent when fossil fuels are our biggest, most immediate threat. A few more years of burning coal and oil and we won't have an inhabitable planet.

When we are no longer throwing billions of tons of carbon into the air, is when I will start to worry about radioactive waste. Uranium is radioactive when we mine it out of the ground and radioactive when we return it to the ground. This is not the world's biggest problem.

"If one accepts, as do most scientists, that global warming is the biggest threat to the planet, then it doesn't make any sense to be completely anti-nuclear."

It's my educated guess that all of you who have a penchant for buying into the big power nuclear argument as "clean", do not have a nuclear dumpsite in your backyard... and have NOT actively attempted to get industry and government to accept responsibility for the absolute despicable way they dump radioactivity... and as a result, directly affect the health and well-being of those in the vicinity of their co-conspired criminality.

Nuclear is THE big lie. If you want me to agree with the rest of your agenda, do some research into why you are being spun in the direction you have taken. Certain types of nuclear waste will decay much longer than any recorded climate cycle... some into the billions of years.

You believe a lie. Until ALL the required activities that surround extraction, processing, transportation, use, reprocessing, disposal, containment security, economics and politics have been addressed in a way that renders them equal to sustainable energy production, then your support for nuclear puts you on par with paid shills. Either educate yourself or refrain from parroting industry talking points.

At that point, I won't have to refer to you in a negative way. Gore's proposal suggests an additional 40-50 nuclear plants in the SHORT TERM. If you can convince yourself that is not nuclear industry growth... then you have become deluded.

Is university science and Congress permanently out- to- lunch? They teach the 19th Century concept that for the water molecule to be cracked to yield its components of hydrogen and oxygen, it must be assaulted with thousands of watts of electricity in a prohibitively expensive process. They will not consider the proven process of a cheap water breakdown using low- powered pulsed radio frequences.

You can go online to order working Brown's or HHO gas units that are intended for welding. Most wouldn't dare advertise them to power homes or autos. Some of these must be imported. The World Bank and WTO pressure developing countries that have outstanding loans to deny financing to resident inventors who have marketable alternative energy devices. A bunch of alternative inventors or promoters have died mysteriously. Big oil rules!

The CBS program, 60 Minutes, last night showed a rerun of John Kanzius' research using radio frequences to treat cancer. They don't have the guts to do a program on a low energy breakdown of water.

The most elementary engine modification is realized by running the fuel line through the exhaust manifold to vaporize the gas or diesel before combustion. Have someone who has a white gas or gasoline camping stove give you a demonstration. Yellow high- carbon flames leap high enough to threaten your eyebrows before the generator which runs through the flames gets hot enough for fuel vaporization; then when vaporized, the fuel burns blue and completely. Such a device can render an efficiency of 200 mpg for an ordinary internal combustion engine; yet such alteration is prohibited by government imposed catalytic converter laws. This simple technology was advanced in the 1920's but the patents were bought up and suppressed by the auto-energy cartel, the same corporate outlaws who annihilated street cars, trollies and any kind of efficient public transportation. If fuels were burned completely there would be no need for catalytic converters. If fuels had been burned completely for 80 years or so, atmospheric pollution would be a fraction of that existing today. The choice to have atmospheric pollution by the auto- energy cartel was deliberate; the sheeple just blindly followed.

Al Gore is simply put the best hope for the world. He is the only person able to raise global consciousness about our biggest problem.

Yet, here on Common Dreams, he gets worse treatment than Bush and McCain.

Fortunately, he is revered around the world.

In a similar way, Nader has become widely despised around the world, yet he's the hero on Common Dreams.
Gore is subjected to vicious attacks because of this or that little thing:
"He didn't win his home state."
"He gave up when the Supreme Court ruled it was over."
"He isn't vehemently anti-nuclear."

If one accepts, as do most scientists, that global warming is the biggest threat to the planet, then it doesn't make any sense to be completely anti-nuclear.

As testament to his influence, the trolls really come out when the article is about Al Gore.

I'm really suspicious of Harvey Wasserman also. He is much more anti-nuclear than anti-coal and fossil fuels, and that's simply scientifically unsound.

"Hydrogen is a great energy CARRIER. It is not an energy SOURCE". Define energy source? Hydrogen contains potential energy, where energy is the ability to work and work is defined to be the application of force over distance, typically to overcomes other forces such as friction, momentum, etc. Hydrogen's potential energy becomes useful in doing work when it is transformed into kinetic energy via oxidation. Hydrogen is thus a source of energy just like any other fuel is. Whether it is economical to produce it us another matter.

Cocklebur - I just read the data from Browngas.com.

It's just hydrogen.

We have been through this debate before on this site.

Hydrogen is a great energy CARRIER. It is not an energy SOURCE.

And even on the website itself, they admit it takes more energy going into the system to produce the hydrogen than you get out.

Sorry, Brown's gas is a null argument.

Cocklebur - And exactly how many working Brown's gas generators, ZPG or Tesla coil generators are there, hmm?

I admit I have heard nothing of Brown's gas. References? Sources?

But ZPG are PURE sfi-fi techno-fetishism wet dream crapolla.

And Tesla, while brilliant, was great on theory and patent applications, not so hot on actual mechanisms. And from what little I know about Tesla coils, they CONSUME a helluva lot of electricity.

While we are at it, why don't we wish for the 'Back To The Future (tm)' 'Mr. Fusion' and flying, time traveling DeLoreans?

 Al Gore stressed, "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."

This displayes his corporate partiality which is shared by (build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030) McCain and (let's examine the 'green coal technology' ) Obama. They have solutions but their gutless solutions are always lucritive to those who trumpet the dominate corporate agenda. The current corporate biofuel industry and the taxpayer subsidized 51¢/gal. ethanol windfall which is responsible for up to 70% of burgeoned food prices is but one example of this mindset. The world's starving poor are not impressed by the fact that one SUV tank fillup of ethanol is the equivalent land and energy that would feed one hungry person for one year.

Ethanol, nuclear and most of the proposed solar and wind energy solutions are part of the corporate Plan B. Plan A was the failing hydrocarbon scheme, "Drill here- drill now and we'll say you pay less even when it means fighting more wars and building more pipelines."

The corporate energy grid is obsolete and vulnerable to terrorist devastation. It could be replaced by a Brown's gas, zero point or
Tesla coil type power unit in each home or apartment complex, each being connected to a small alternater and that connected to existing home wiring. These could power an abundance of non- hydrocarbon, non- polluting energy. In a more ideal world not dominated by corporations, they could be manufactured by community cooperatives that recieve technical input from university extension programs and community colleges.

That Gore advocates expansion of the corporate energy grid (remember California and Enron?) when capital could be applied directly to home and auto energy solutions, underscores his corporate indoctrination.

In other news, as China is forcing cars with even and odd license plates to drive on alternating days, and shutting down coal powered factories in a PR bid to clean up Beijing's notorious smog problem, the subway and rail transit system are breaking down as all the drivers forced out of their cars take to the trains, overloading the system.

And in the latest, 'terrorist' bombs detonated on three buses in China, killing three and injuring 14, right as there is a major security crackdown to 'protect' the Olympics, just as world media gather. Convenient, no?

PW - Power generation / storage is not the problem.

I keep asking people to think about all the things our present technological society uses every day that are dependent upon oil for their very existence. Take away the oil, and you take away all of those item, chemicals and products. All of them. And many of them are VITAL to the alternative technologies that are being pushed here.

Yes, consume less. Yes, conserve. Practice the three R's to your hearts content. All good steps.

But when the crunch hits, all those fancy toys that DEPEND on oil will be no more. Either the products themselves, or their raw materials DEPEND on oil to be extracted, processed or transported by OIL.

No oil, no toys.

Geesh, I usually like reading the posts on Common Dreams, but this set is batty. Look he stated he didn't see any growth in nuclear power at the Netroots Nation. So he's not calling for growth in the nuclear industry. I don't want any nuclear plants but I can see why he just wants to leave that issue alone for now. He has to get us to 100% renewable in ten years, if it's only 80% wind, solar and geothermal and 20% nuclear, I don't care. Look once he has proven 80% is doable the need for the 20% nuclear evaporates. This is a remarkable vision compared to what politicians are considering right now.

Instead of bitching about every little nit, the Common Dreams community should get behind this. As far as I can tell this is the best option that has ever been proposed. Please tell me of any other idea that's even close that has gotten this kind of attention.

As for the people that think wind, solar and geothermal are not able to handle the U.S. power needs, please read up on the latest technologies i.e; Solar thermal with off peak storage, DC Power transmission, deep geothermal using existing deep drilling technologies, to just name a few. This plan is doable and as far as I'm concerned the best shot we have at adverting catastrophic global warming.

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!

kman2 (2:57pm) Whoa! There you go. Trying to get us 911 doubters stirred up again so you and your gang of repub shills can hurl the usual inane insults.

I am one of the doubters who does not have a conspiracy theory to bore you with. I just know beyond a doubt that the government's conspiracy theory that we have been fed for these 6+ years now is the biggest lie ever told. You know it. I know it. Most people know it. The question is--what can be done about it? A real and independent investigation is what we need first.

Lobo72- I forget where i read it, but a few years ago, some brainiac sat down and worked out what it would take to have a Star Trek (tm) style transporter. Just the computer power alone to plot where every single sub-atomic particle was, it's energy state, mass, and trajectory would take the entire mass of computing power available at that time. And he admitted he had no idea of the technology that would actually disassemble the subject, store the resulting data, transmit it, then reassemble it in the receiver, let alone what to use to assemble the subject out of, and, if the subject were a person, whether it would be the 'same' person, let alone alive at the end of the process.

Yes, Star Trek (tm) inspired many neat toys (cell phones, compact computer data storage, pneumatic hypo's). But the majority of Star Trek's (tm) projections are still just special effects pipe dreams. And I read a commentary on Star Trek's (tm) society that successfully compared it to a utterly militarized Fascist State.

Hmm... it seems that another Star Trek (tm) prediction might be coming true...

There are some great posts tonite. I would like to share these sources and insights:
The IPCC ice core data chart in Gore's book. Get the book, or internet it, because it deserves serious study.
Books: Under a Green Sky. and The Bridge at the Edge of the World (Spelt). And , oddly perhaps, Black Elk Speaks---from the 30's. Our native Americans were the last of the survivors, on N America anyway, of the most recent cycle depicted on the ice core data chart. Of interest, esp to Galen's posts, are his statement that "the only things that work are things that work the same way as Nature", and his reference, in the telling of rituals, to the cardinal direction, north, as "where the great white giant lives".
Ice cores were taken from Antarctica and Greenland. Not Siberia or Europe or China. Greenland is in our neighborhood and covered with 650ky of ice and snow. Perhaps, for its own good, N.America should adopt some plan for maintainence of a civilization with the carbon foot print of the indigineous tribes. As described above, the elite have different plans with the wealth they have recently accumulated. Might work---might not...
As for energy, note that the tipping point for the climate reversal appears to be temperature (if it were ghg, it would already be underway in terms everyone could see). If we are to have any chance at all, the heating of the ecosphere by any method (even geo-thermal and certainly nuclear) must come to a halt, and the CO2 already above historical levels must somehow be cleaned up. Even Gore's 10 years seems too long to me. We could cut our total energy consumption in half tomorrow with only minor adjustments. And half again in a year. That's how much fat is in the system. Keep in mind that what we're shooting for is not to avoid the coming reversal, because we can't, but to keep it within historical norms, so it will be survivable by somebody. That is our duty to Humanity. That is what we must do. We put men on the moon, we can do this. That's what Al said, but he's breaking it to us easy.
Think: Tribe. Peace . Cooperation. Non-profit. CommunalationNation. Initiative. Courage. Survival Party.

That's not too much for one night, right?
Cheers, snydly.

PiNo - Unfortunately, the only way I see us growing smaller and living closer to the land is going to be very hard on the general population.

When the real crisis comes, the governments of the world are going to freeze like deer in the headlights. They will issue orders that will only make matters worse. The seizures of 'necessary' materials will commence, and outrage the populace even more. More orders will be issued, amounting to the declaration of martial law and police states to 'contain' the emergency.

Unrest will spread like a virus. There will be demonstrations, riots and deaths. The governments will use the only tool they know how to use. The Gun. Violence.

Movement will be restricted, food and other necessities will be rationed. Those who have laid food by will be accused of hoarding. They will become the new criminal class.

At some point, there will be a 'terrorist' strike on a major oil production facility or refinery. This will have a ripple effect and bring the transport of oil to a virtual standstill. That will cause a collapse of the transportation network, which will in turn collapse food distribution.

Three days after that, the towns and cities will be stripped bare of food. The stores and warehouses empty.

Then the real problems will start.

During all of this, the vast majority of the population will be waiting for the government to 'save' them. They will obey the government and the police, sitting in their homes, pretending everything will go back to 'normal', when they could drive where they wanted, eat at McDonald's, and buy what ever consumer good they desired.

Think how the US government 'saved' the people of New Orleans.

Now apply that to the entire USA. Apply that to the entire world.

The Elite of the world will do what every elite have done in history. Act to preserve their own illusory and transient power. They will lash out at anyone who dares to come to close to their reserves.

There will be survivors. Those people who have educated themselves in skills and techniques of living in a lower tech world, who have the know-how to grow their own food, make their own clothes, and build their own shelters.

They are already seeking each other out, forming communities online, and in small groups in every city. They are in Community Gardening programs, Habitat for Humanity and other community action groups. There are peak Oil groups already planning how and where they will go, what they will do, and how to do it.

You could do worse to start your own planning and networking now.

I am.

Best of luck to all who are willing to do what it takes to prepare for the coming crash.

AdeleTheCzech: First of all, I am refering to a Leninist PARTY structure (i.e., democratic centralism, etc.) and I am unsure what you are saying when you pose Leninism against capitalism. Capitalism refers to an economic system, and Leninism refers to the internal structure of a political party.

In fact, I'm all for democratic socialism. But, what exactly do you mean by democratic socialism, and how do you propose that we get there? I hope you are not implying that we are going to somehow elect socialism into place through the bourgeois electoral system. It will never happen, as is amply illustrated by European history in the early 20th century, and since then.

In order to get to democratic socialism, you must first oust the capitalists. In case you didn't notice, their system is rigged to forever exclude democratic socialism. The working class must have its own political organs that are independent from the bourgeois electoral system. Check out the behavior of the Second International and the Menshevicks, and you will (hopefully) see what becomes of a socialist party that decides to work 'within' the capitalist electoral system. Next thing you know, they are voting for capitalist war credits and opposing workers' revolution. For communists, election to office in a capitalist state is primarily a method for gaining a podium for further agitation, not a method for lasting reform.

PissantNobody (1:11), you said "For now, the right prescription is the building a global communist movement, starting with a Leninist party."

Lord! From the frying pan into the fire! Please find yourself an intelligent democratic socialist, and he or she will give you the details on how Leninism/communism is against human nature and winds up benefitting only the New Class (party functionaries). The Soviets and Chinese went down that road in the 20th century; there is no justification to repeat their tragic mistakes, and their murder of millions.

The choice is not between capitalism and Leninism; it's between capitalism and democratic socialism (which the right wing continues to delude Americans into believing is synonymous with communism).

The zen precept: Go with the flow comes to mind in this discussion.

Billiions are spent in the advertising world to mold public perception. Here in Florida, the SUNSHINE STATE, that moniker does the work of hundreds of would-be ad campaigns IF the state became the nation's leader in piloting solar powered technologies.

Anyone know of a good solar panel company to invest in?

Interesting & evocative posts: OLD GOAT, CIVIL BEHAVIOR, UBREW, HEDOLOGY, & FREDERICK DOUGLAS

Galen,

Have you ever thought about conservation and making technologies more energy/fuel efficient instead? Obscenely high demand for petroleum comes from corporate leadership that gives the green light to fuel/energy inefficient technologies and rampant consumerism. Cut it all down and peak oil will be one less headache to put up with.

Galen: Judging from your several postings here, this issue must be important to you and I laud your concern. You said we shall see what the future holds and that you doubt it would be like Star Trek. Granted, we may not see a "Beam me up, Scotty" technology in our lifetimes but we could, too.

Look at the stupendous advancements in science the U.S. has made since WWII. In 1961 when JFK challenged us to be on the moon by decade's end, I don't even think Alan Shepard had been launched into space yet. But we landed on the moon as planned in '69. In medicine, anti-biotics were developed: polio was conquered; organs were successfully transplanted; non-invasive arthroscopic surgery was developed; and magnetic resonance imaging came about, among many other discoveries.

It's this somewhat wild-eyed, can-do, shooting-for-the-stars attitude that Americans have, or maybe used to have, that has resulted in these many advancements. Energy issues are global concerns. We must face these issues head-on with all we have.

I like solar. I like geothermal. Check out the traditional Pueblo culture and their low-tech environment control system for the domicile. We can do all these without federal or even state involvement. And we won't need UN oversight or Big Brother or global-scale solutions either.

What bothers me about Gore, former Ozone Man turned Carbo Nixer, is this: everything has to do with carbon. He thinks carbon is poison. It is not. Biological life on earth is carbon-based. He wants to reduce carbon-based life and replace it with silicon-based life, and eventually to replace that with quantum-based (non-silicon-based) life. That's his "higher, more noble cause."

Why? Because some of his best friends and financial supporters live in Silicon Valley. And their ultimate agenda is to replace all of us with Post-Humans. Don't believe it? Check out "How Humans Are Becoming the Subspecies of sillyConValley" at:
http://www.sillyconvalley.net/buildingposthumans.html

The way solar energy panels have been 'costed' in our society makes me crazy. Apparently, solar panels are expensive because of the energy cost of making them. Hello? WHAT ARE SOLAR PANELS FOR?

Its like finding a tall natural dam in the wilderness, behind which was a huge lake, and then learning that your investors wouldn't let you drill a hole at the base of the dam and put turbines there because the ENERGY COST of drilling the hole was too high!

We should apply capitalist accounting methods to most products in our society. After all, these are the methods that profitably confuse a Big Mac, a Coke, and fries with FOOD.

But when you're talking about energy producing technologies whose major cost IS the energy of production, I think it does a disservice to use 'lowest common denominator' accounting on them.

Just possibly, that energy cost can be met by the technology itself.

Galen: I am glad to listen yo you, and am sorry that I missed your earlier posting(s).

Maybe what you are calling for will someday be implemented in some form (hopefully more luxurious than you envision...), but where you fall down is in the area of superstructure.

How do you imagine this coming about? Is everyone just going to spontaneously decide that we should live in tribes of happy people, and it will be so? This is idealistic in the extreme, and would simply result in the crushing of the early adopters by the non-adopters. You are in for a rude awakening if you think that the Dick Cheneys of the world are going to simultaneously find living in a low-budget village acceptable, and give up their priveleges and power. And what about when your small merchants are successful and want to expand, so they can have a computer of their own?

I am in my late fifties, and am quite familiar with the failure of my generation's attempt at 'communalism', in the form of various 'communes'. Sweet as such impulses were/are, they are ahistorical, and ultimately serve to distract good people from battle for the reigns of society, which serves the vile imperialists just fine.

In short, your proposal is reactionary and immature.

We cannot really know from here what a truly civilized society would look like. We must first establish an egalitarian global socio-economic framework, where the basis of war, poverty and greed are erased. At that point, we might choose a network of small communities similar to your vision, but that is unknowable. For now, the right prescription is the building a global communist movement, starting with a Leninist party.

If there were no alternative to fossil fuels it would be reasonable to discuss the nuclear option. But we do have good alternatives, and I'm not talking about some pie in the sky plans either. See this article:

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2008) — Rock Port Missouri, with a population of just over 1,300 residents, has announced that it is the first 100% wind powered community in the United States. Four wind turbines supply all the electricity for the small town.

Read the article here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715165441.htm

Also search the site for new discoveries that are making solar energy more economical. If we as a nation would put a small part of the brainpower and funding into finding new renewable energy that we did into making a nuclear bomb we could get off fossil fuels in short order.

PiNo - I did present a turn around.

Nobody listened.

I proposed a return to cottage industry, and a drastic restructuring of modern life, where we disassemble the cities, salvaging what we can from them, and rebuilding smaller, earth friendly communities with a MUCH lower technology base, that feed and clothe themselves. And would result in near complete employment. Ya don't work, ya don't eat. Simple as that.

It would result in a reduced 'Western' standard of living. Granted. And many here might not be ready to surrender their computers.

But we would gain a lifestyle that would be closer to the earth, the seasons and nature, and ultimately, each other. How many of us actually know our neighbors by name? Who their children are? Modern society has reduced us to units of production in the corporate machine.

It is time to break the machine.

I am NOT advocating 'Communism'. That has proven to be a societal failure almost as great as 'Capitalism'. (On a side note, I think we should dig up Adam Smith, shoot him, piss on him and burn him before mixing his ashes with salt and scattering them for what his vision has done to the world!)

I AM advocating COMMUNALISM (note the difference in spelling). We must return to being smaller communities, where people actually know each other, and everyone has an interest in keeping the community whole and healthy.

And we do have the knowledge to do this.

Between the various historical re-creation societies in the world, living museums, cultural anthropology studies, university 'green technology' programs (research into 'cob building' techniques is EXACTLY the kind of thing we CAN do) and historic references, the knowledge IS there.

Try looking at a book called 'The Forgotten Arts' by John Seymour. It is wonderfully entertaining, inspiring and instructional.

We can do this, people. If we don't, we may as well submit to wearing collars and chains. At least until the lights go out for one last time.

Wolf - Dead on!

Hemp4victory - Legalize hemp. Grow it on the street corners, yes. No argument. I'm with you. I agree with you an many points. Yes, hemp can be made into a multitude of products.

But it DOES NOT have the gross energy density that petroleum does. And it can not be made into the vast array of products that oil can. Perhaps you can tell me if hemp can be turned into asphalt, car tires, pesticides (yuck!), pharmaceuticals, high density plastics, and ALL the other products presently made from oil?

I know hemp can be made into SOME plastics, animal feed, wearable fiber, low density lubricants, *natural* fertilizer, and a partial car fuel replacement. But think of all the things presently made from petroleum, and you start to get an idea of the hurdles that we are facing.

Since its present and growing consumption is not sustainable, society clearly needs to reduce petroleum consumption. Untamed population growth, bad/absent planning, and irrational use of resources (especially oil) have already caused unspeakable suffering and environmental damage in the last century, and are taking us directly into the next major war.

Why can't we get our arms around these problems? The answer lies in the economic system that dominates the world - capitalism. Capitalism is anarchy - a paradigm of every person and nation for themselves, and to hell with everyone else. Very few of us feel this way on a personal level, and we all have our little tribes that we strongly support, but from ten miles up, it is all us-versus-them madness. Al-come-lately Gore has no real solutions, only bandaids. Buying a Prius will, at best, delay the inevitable carnage. There simply is no solution within capitalism. We NEED to establish a global socialized economy. The way to do that is to build a Leninist party, integrate it into the major sectors of industry, and sieze power through coordinated workers' action.

Dozens of times on these pages, I have asked, begged and taunted CD readers to propose an alternate solution, and nothing worth discussing has come forward. Pathetic psycho-babble, religion, and naive reformism occasionally ooze out, but they are never substantial, and are easily wiped up. This is no surprise, because my pleas are precisely intended to show that there is no alternative. If you want to stop war, poverty, environmental destruction and inequality, you simply must become a communist. Anything else is rearraging deck chairs on the Titanic, and amounts to betrayal of future generations.

meditation groups have been passing this around....healing ecology...interesting...but long (david loy speaker)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77mGxHlV8nM

By the way, if "Galen" thinks that hemp cannot replace OIL, a simple google search on HEMP and PEAK OIL. Want to stay a LOSER? Then keep crying about "Peak Oil"? Want to be a WINNER? Then quit complaining and fight to give HEMP a chance by ending the phoney "War On Drugs" and overturning the ban on Cannabis.

What "Galen" does not want to tell you is that HEMP can replace OIL 100% and can in fact be used to make better solar panels. When will the left get rid of negative thinkers and put in people with real solutions for a change? Folks like "Galen" sound like nothing more than paid spokespeople for BIG OIL. Of course the oil is running out but what's your solution "Galen"? Cry about it or give other solutions and technologies a chance? And stop acting like a rightwing lunatic on badmouthing hemp as "pot" because hemp isn't marijuana and can in fact be used on everything that depends on OIL.

And for the author to suggest that Al Gore is inching towards solar is to forget that Al Gore did nothing in the 1990s to get solar going. Hell, he didn't even ask Bill Clinton to put those solar panels back on the White House roofs !

Al Gore is a filthy Democrat,

If you believe in lesseroftwoevilism, you are STUPID.

He is a Corporate Whore who has done nothing for America. Nothing.

The Republicans and Democrats are EXACTLY the same.

Signed, I learned it on CD threads.

I have a hard time believing you sun freaks. Number 1 problem is the electrical grid of this country SUCKS. You must spend hundreds of billions to NOT fix it but rebuild it. Number 2 problem is solar panels might be good to supply electricity to a house BUT take a mid sized insurance company with 50 to 75 servers, an HP unix mainframe, and the ac units to cool every thing and you will need to carpet 20 football fields worth of land with solar panels to hopefully run it, the best and most expensive solar panels give you a conversion rate 12 - 16%, that SUCKS, you will also need a warehouse full of battery to back it up. Get 3 or 4 days of rainy overcast weather and your solar panels are useless and your batteries are dead - NOW WHAT?? Solar is not the be all end all answer. When you get a conversion rate of 75 - 80% per panel you will then have something viable.

TurnoffyourTV July 19th, 2008 9:27 pm

http://www.ansamed.info/en/top/ME13.YAM14593.html

EGYPT: DEMOGRAPHIC ALERT, 217 BABIES PER HOUR ARE BORN

"(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JULY 17 — Every hour in Egypt 217 babies are born, for a total of almost 2 million newborns every year (1,854,048, precisely). This is the data at the basis of a demographic alert launched by the secretary general of the Peoplés National Council (NPC), General Mohamed Khalifa, according to whom with this birth rate in 2058 the Egyptian population will reach almost 173 million. The forecast is dramatic when compared to the liveable surface of the country, in which out of some 1.0 million sq km (997,739 sq km, precisely), only 45,000 are habitable (less than 5.0%), along the Nile and in the river delta."
This is going on in EVERY moslem country from Indonesia to Morocco. Islam is the fastest growing religion not because of converts (more leave than join) but because they breed like hamsters.

Do something real for the environment, but Al Gore still is a rogue, political opportunist, corporatist, and so on. He's NOT needed at all and is NOT someone to give any real respect to. He's also a major waster of energy with his luxury, elitist lifestyle.

Treating the environment the way we need to is not something I need others to teach me. Anyone dumb animal enough to not be able to understand that we must respect our natural environment is certainly no leadership individual; as also is anyone who thinks Gore deserves [respect]. He's a con.

I also don't need others to teach me that murder, rape, war, etcetera, are damn wrong and to be forbidden; but many people evidently are clueless without being baby-walked or hand-held throughout their entire lives.

Yet, we still don't get all these scientists and so-called experts people like Gore refers to for supporting his corporate opportunism campaign to correctly address the claims that drastic climate changes have been simultaneously occurring on other planets of our galaxy and due to the sun having gone through some characteristic modifications as cause. If that's indeed true, then it needs to be [scientifically] addressed and included in the evaluations of the causes of global climate changes on Earth, for if the sun's really cause, then this will of course mean increasing levels of CO2 and methane in our atmosphere, to which we, our industrialisation, would be a contributor, but not sole cause.

Those scientists have NOT addressed that other theory and this means that they are not providing science arrived at correctly. They're deliberately hiding the events on other planets and the sun being the cause.

If indeed happening, then all we can do is to try to work on reducing our contributions, and then hope that this will be sufficient to avoid catastrophic environmental changes on Earth. After all, we certainly can't stop the sun from doing what's natural for the sun to do.

MiMi - Funny you should mention cutting back on the population.

I agree. We are well past the carrying capacity of this planet. 6+ billion is far too many.

But the funny thing is, with the coming events of climate change (which you so often deny), the collapse of oil powered society (which you also deny), and the coming wider war in the Middle East (which your golden boy McCain will insure, which will just hasten the collapse of the oil powered West) you will get your wish.

Too bad Americans are on the war, famine and disease hit list along with the rest of the world.

But then again, Death never played favorites.

As Jim Morrison of the doors said 'Nobody gets out of here alive.'

Whether we become a solar society or stay with fossil fuel. We have to practice for real C O N S E R V A T I O N!!
Look at 07 and how many billions of miles Americans drove less. Hey we are all still breathing!
We can do without many of these manufacture overseas things.
There is a movement back to clotheslines. original solar energy project.
You would be surprised just how much heat a window can take in on a cold winter day.
The same with capturing solar heat on a dark color roof or even a tin roof nevermind slate.
All original solar heated. Been doing it for many years .
Or houses build covered partly with earth
far from new but they work and you can have them now . Windbreaks of trees!
Now what we do not need is more electric slaves. Instant on appliances.
How about getting rid of our old light bulbs.
And just the act of painting rooms lighter captures light from windows or in the evening you can use less lamps to light your living space.
How about outside solar lighting? how about getting rid of all these batteries ?
It has been many years we have been ablbe to run calculaters and wrist watches on solar or just light alone. Why are we using more and mmore batteries?
Don't look to anyone including Al Gore to become your savoir. It is you and me that have to do the hard work. If we don't then our kind will soon be among the missing on EArth.
It Is Up To US and we have to do it today.
TOMORROW the sun and earth will still be here but not us.

Besides Solar,and other alternative energy, less people would be another way to take better care of the planet, and ourselves. And I'm talking 2-3 billion less. One kid, per family, then two when the population is under some control! We're stupid, greedy monkeys. And if we really want a better world, that means less of us. But "religion", will nullify any kinda real discussion, or change.

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.

I LOVE IT...! not a "typo..." then spells public "pubic."

That's rich.

Lobo - We shall see what the future holds. But I'm pretty sure it's not Star Trek (tm)...

Galen: I appreciate your magnanimity. No, the making of panels is not carbon-free yet as I pointed out earlier, when the power paradigm has shifted, the energy used to make panels will be cleaner. I'll admit coal and natural gas will continue to be major power sources in my lifetime (57 years now) but as supply of these diminish, coupled with the pollution they produce, solar and wind--as their technologies improve--will provide the answer. The foundation of oil, as you call it, is already in collapse. Even the Saudis see there's an end in sight so they're trying to diversify their economy while flush with cash.

Oil and its distribution is in the hands of world's rich few. Solar and wind, on the other hand, gives private citizens and businesses more control over future energy costs. Producing power on your roof or elsewhere on your property takes the production and distribution of electricity away from the few. And be advised, solar is still an emerging industry. The best is yet to come.

Each breath we and our animal friends take, we exhale CO2. Our plants release CO2 in the evening, and eat CO2 during the day. Our oil came from dead plants and biomass who lived due to CO2 in the air. Yet somehow, CO2 from burning oil is this great evil, and the 3% of global CO2 being released into the air by man is going to cause dramatic climate change and wipe out the planet and all life.

Trying to discuss it on progressive sites is like trying to discuss creationism or intelligent design on the right wing sites. It is futile since both views are based on religous beliefs and faith, and questioning these beliefs provokes outrage. On one side, man is born a sinner and is at war with Islamic terrorists, and their religous leaders are popes, priests, pastors, etc. On the other, man is also a sinner, guilty of consuming Gaias finite resources, and is at war with terrorists - all of mankind, and it's leaders are consensus climate "scientists" that work for corporate government that wants to globalize you. Bad man.

I look forward to the next ice age so both sides can freeze to death while Bush and the rest of the elite move to their ranches in South America and Africa where it will be warmer. Perhaps the human race in the 90,000 years before the next interglacial will evolve to a point where the average man can think, and not just the elite.

For those wanting to go back to the preindustrial era where life expectancy was under 40, and 40% of all children made it past the age of 15, whats stopping you. Get off the internet-made possible with petroleum based computers and carbon based electricity, live off the land, go hunting or grow your own food. If you starve to death, no great loss, at least you won't be consuming what you do not produce for yourself. The world population in 1800 was 1 billion (life expectancy under 40), since we would have to depopulate by 5.6 billion to go back to this utopian world, thank you for your voluntary contribution in advance. Only 5,599,999,999 left to go.

The only way to convince big corporations and big money to go solar, is to tell them that they are going to have life-long profits from it , and a better guarantee of a long life. Provide investment and profit tax incentives and say that its going to be the next really big energy monopoly. Solar concentration power stations work. They can be built in a few years.

Why keep your money in dying industries of coal and oil, when even their short term prospects lead to wars, political and climate hell? The purpose of the carbon industries must be to fund the growth of Solartopia, and to quietly reduce the need for and rate of extraction of these limited resources, so that they and we can last.

The next problem is to reduce the breeding rate of humans, so that it is not a competition to see which national ethnic or religious group can out breed the others for the privilege of overwhelming Gaia. The Darwinian overproduction and killing off the excess in desperate wars is probably not leading to long term evolutionary success. Western materialism and acquisition, and social stability and rights of women, plus contraceptions, can slow down birthrates. Perhaps what I really object to in both Catholic, fundamentalist Christian and Muslim religion and culture, is their insistence, even when they deny Darwinian Science, that they must out breed all others, using their god given traditions of control of womens rights and reproduction as a design for explosive population growth, and growth of their own creeds. Religions are Rutting and Reproductive organizations, or they die out.

I'm not saying support all of Gore's policies or actions.
I just oppose any "hand out" attitudes that talk about U.S. only opportunities for education and technical jobs.
I don't believe that will work, in my opinion.

This is not a blessing for all corporate policies.
While we are upset with the current state of affairs in our country, lets not forget that we have powers to innovate and push ourselves to evolve as well.
Not all the blame can be directed outwards.
I worked just as hard as the H1-B visas, and If I can do it, so can the other Americans.

Mike Corbeil - (re: Gore)

I'm anti war and support self sustaining energy solutions, and better education for US citizens. I support most of the progressive agendas.

However, I'm not opposed to H1B-Visas. I worked in high tech industry and in the 90's we had a difficult time getting qualified candidates who were U.S. citizens. When I was in college (which i paid for, not my parents), there was a shortage of U.S. students who wanted to study computer information systems. I worked with many good people from around the world who just wanted to work, and they had H1-B visas and are still waiting on their green cards. They have been peaceful and their input to our architecture and strategies improved our organizations.

I'm not supporting corporate policies that are taking away benefits every day of workers, because they are hurting H1-B visas. My point is that if I'm training for a sport, I want to train with the best in the world. If I'm in the class room, I want to be surrounded by the best students, because I will get better. And when I'm at work, I want to be surrounded by the best minds.

Maybe others have had a different situation than me, but I've worked with some of the best people who had H1-B visas, and we learned a lot from each other. I definitely don't want to limit the quality of candidates to only 1 country. Sorry, but I don't agree with hand outs, and the American population continues not to push themselves in the hard sciences like India and China.

One thing you will be happy about is that people from India no longer want to attend U.S. universities or come to work in the U.S. like they did in the 90's. The opportunities are now in Asia and their students out number us possibly by an order of magnitude.

I support more individual rights as opposed to corporate rights, but limiting highly educated people from other countries to educational or employment opportunities is the wrong answer, in my opinion. We all have a right to our opinions. I'd rather not with only Americans, sorry. I do not believe that Gore made a wrong decision by promoting H1-B visas. We should be happy that the U.S. had these high tech start here in our country, and that movement required intellectual horsepower from all over the world. Let's take responsibility for our own actions too.

Lobo - I will. But can you understand that the process of making the solar panels is energy intensive and not carbon free as many seem to think.

Modern technology comes with a deliberately concealed price tag. And as soon as the means to acquire the raw materials of alternative technologies goes by the way side, so do the alternative technologies.

To build a decent house you need a good foundation, right?

The foundation of our 'house', for the last 150 years has been oil. As soon as that becomes as difficult to find as it is getting to be, the 'foundation' starts to collapse.

You go, ubrew12! And thanks for the link.

Galen: Again, do your homework.

Carbon and pollutant free? Not quite. But better than what we have now. See: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/man_pro_implications.html

Solar power is not carbon emissions free. The biggest part of the emissions come from power consumption for the various refining and vapor plating steps during manufacture. That said, solar has an entireably acceptable carbon footprint.

Typical carbon footprints:

Coal:......900 grams/kilowatthour
Nat Gas:...400 "
Solar:......45 "
Nuclear:....25 "
Wind:.......15 "
Big hydro:..10 "

The above cited number is for PV solar. I do not have an equivalent number for thermal solar but I imagine thermal solar without storage is probably comparable to wind power.

For decentralized "every rooftop" type installation PV solar is the preferred technology. For centralized utility type installations thermal is generally the more economic and preferred solar technology.

The last I read, PV solar panels are hard to come by because of manufacturing capacity issues. There are no such limitations on thermal solar.

Bill

Galen, "Solar works best in climes where there is LOTS of sunlight with long days and moderate temperatures. It doesn't work so well at higher latitudes with less sunlight." Really? I guess the Germans didn't get the memo: Cloudy Germany a Powerhouse in Solar Energy

Galen said: "'Solar' is NOT carbon free...of the basic technology (wires, metals, plastics) that go into making solar power components are heavily dependent upon hydrocarbons and petrochemicals just to be extracted and processed."

A solar panel is sand and dirt, to which energy has been added. Properly engineered, a solar panel producing plant parked in the desert Southwest has everything it needs to produce solar panels for basically free.

To me, it represents a HUGE lack of imagination on your part to be unable to imagine any other way of reducing crystalline Silicon from sand (SiO2) and iron and aluminum from dirt (FeO2, Al2O3) by any means but fossil-fuel fired refineries.

The problem with this country is its 'can-do' about war and oil, and 'cant do' about everything else. I repeat: a solar panel is just sand and dirt and energy. And, of the three, the energy is the easy part. Just because no one has put up the up-front investment to make this come true doesn't mean it can't. Thermodynamically, a solar panel is sand, dirt, and energy. And thermodynamic realities have a way of becoming economic ones as well.

kman2: You are sure right. Not one of these absolutists bothers to respond to the dead children Nader's money helps kill.

No I'm treated to sophomoric rants vilifying Democrats, worshiping Nader, that, with a self-satisfied flourish, ask inane rhetorical questions at the end.

Maybe if some of Raytheon's Cluster Bombs blew up in their OWN precious faces, instead of a Lebanese children's, Ralph's disgustingness would be driven home.

Divest your Death-Money Mr. Progressive. You're making an idiot of your acolytes.

"...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."

You got spun Harvey... he didn't actually say the word "nuclear", but he referred to it when he said:

"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."

Part of that 100 percent he referred to *IS* nuclear... he just spun that into the "truly clean carbon-free sources" category (along with fantasyland clean coal). Of course nuclear is anything BUT "clean"... but because it does not add directly to the carbon problem in the same respect as burning fossil fuels (plenty of indirect carbon additions however), it only takes a little spinning to make you believe that he isn't including nuclear into the mix. In fact, he admitted so in an interview after the speech according to a NYT article:

"He said he envisioned nuclear power retaining its current share of domestic electricity generation, about 20 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/washington/18gore.html

Now... there's the second spin... He believes nuclear should retain its 20 percent share. Don't make the mistake of reading that statistic to mean that he believes that nuclear generation should remain fixed at the current level of generation, just that it should remain fixed at the *proportion* of generation... and since electrical demand will grow exponentially, that of course means that the nuclear generation sector will be adding many more plants to maintain the 20 percent proportion.

It's easy to lie with statistics. Gore has always been an advocate of nuclear generation. Don't believe otherwise.

mankind's only hope for an adequate energy base is fusion technology, and breeder reactors to bridge us there. concerning solar, wind, etc., do the numbers. a world limited to these is doomed to repeat the Dark Ages and worse.

Galen: So you want to do nothing?

Look, the whole power paradigm needs to shift. You're talking archaic fossil-fuel technologies. By going solar--and wind--we can get away from coal, natural gas and oil-powered electricity for industry in general. Even T. Boone Pickens, an veteran oilman, gets the solar picture. We need to get away from gasoline-powered vehicles and go to electric, hydrogen, and eventually PV panels to charge batteries to power drive-trains.

Here's what Montana Green Power (www.montanagreenpower.com/ says about solar panels:

"It is clean energy. Even when the emissions related to solar cell manufacturing are counted, photovoltaic generation produces less than 15 percent of the carbon dioxide from a conventional coal-fired power plant. Using solar energy to replace the use of traditional fossil fuel energy sources can prevent the release of pollutants into the atmosphere."

Solar is NOT "just moving carbon from one place to another." Carbon emissions can be reduced drastically with technologies available today. People like you who continue to think in a 20th Century mindset are holding our country back. Your stubborn, backward thinking only obfuscates the energy issue and offers no alternatives (and nuclear power, aside from being dangerous, is not a renewable form of energy). You probably were a naysayer in the 60s when we were preparing go to the moon. Like then, we need a national will to conquer our ever-increasing demand for electricity--from a readily available and FREE source: The Sun.

Galen is right. The idea that we are consuming less because we get more efficient has been proven to be ineffective. We got more energy efficient appliances and all we did was buy bigger ones. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Lobo has some great points as to technology. My brother who is an MIT grad and works in metallurgy has been talking about how they are working on "printing" solar panels that would be disposable. Guess they use something like the plasma ink they use with TVs. Don't ask me to give the specifics. I just know there is lots of technology out there too.

But without stewardship and conservation it will not be enough.

Me, I'm for rationing. I say we get 15 gals a week gas, rolling electricity at so many hours a day and so many gallons of water a week (urban dwellers). All else is egregious consumption. The last thing people want to do is modify their coddled lifestyle. God forbid.

Hell, lots of the Palm Beachers down here use 10,000 gals a month in water for their landscaping et all. Can you imagine how put out they'd be with having to do with so much less. As long as their money cushions them from having to take action they will choose to do what they want. That is until their overconsumption proves to be fatal to the rest of us.

How long will we all wait to take this into our own hands? Is the government going to do this for us? One word. Katrina.

kman2 July 19th, 2008 2:57 pm,

"The nader people come out every four years like cicacadas."

How dare you disparage cicadas!

"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."

1) Al Gore is NO scientist.

2) Al Gore is a war criminal.

3) Al Gore never opposed the NAFTA and the H-1B and L-1 programs for importing workers to [replace] U.S. citizens in their own country.

4) Al Gore is nothing but another political opportunist.

5) People cheering him on are like people who've been dummily cheering on Obama, that other hypocrite, war criminal, economic criminal, political opportunist, and so on.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9616

That's a very good article on Obama, providing a much more [real] picture of who, what, ... he really is, and by Bill Van Auken, July 18 2008.

Remember all of the so-called Peace&Love groupies of the 1960s? Do you also remember that many of the filthy rich and corporate pig elites of today were among those P&Lust groupies?

Obama vs McCain? I'm more worried about the number of crazy assholes behind them than by either one. In that department the Repugs beat the Dems by a mile.

In Florida, the Sierra Club has lauded Charlie Crist for doing some positive things for the environment. Now this. It shows you can't trust Republicans.

Barack, I can understand your not wanting to dismiss nukes and face powerful nuke industry attacks prior to the election, but don't go crazy and choose Hegel as your running mate.

Lisa: "But Ralph Nader IS invested in Raytheon=cluster bombs"

Lisa, I am sure the CDers here don't like to be shown their own brand of hypocrisy. Nothing will piss off a left wing purist more than to be shown they are not pure.

The left wing wants us to vote Nader (or McKinney?) like the good little nonquestioning, goosestepping left wingers CommonDreams.org wants us to be. The nader people come out every four years like cicacadas. They appear, they make some breeding noises on blogs in an attempt to multiply, and then disappear after the election like the spoiled brats they really are. "whaaa.....Obama's not pure... whaaaaaaa.... I won't help with working with anybody then.....whaaaaaaaa....."

yes CD is a breeding ground for anti-Dem propaganda by the American leftists, Canadian leftists, and a few Republicans posting in stealth to tweak the left wing cicadas into a buzzing fury that's just hilarious to watch.

It's especially funny to watch when the nutjob 9/11 conspiracy theories get posted.

Lobo 72 - To make modern glass, you have to collect the silica (sand), transport it (via gas powered truck or train) to the plant, clean it, mix it with some other additives (also extracted and moved by oil/gas), melted in a natural gas heated furnace, which is probably lit by electricity provided by burning coal, processed in commercial quantities by electric powered machines (see above), and moved to the end user by... oil and gas powered transport. And then it is further processed into solar panels for instance, using more energy probably provided by oil/gas/coal, and then has to be installed in locations by using oil/gas powered vehicles to get there.

And all this work is done by people coming to work in oil/gas powered vehicles. Living in oil/gas/coal/electric heated homes.

See? Solar is NOT carbon neutral. You are just moving the carbon from one place to another.

Civil Behavior - Go nuts. Use my slightly later rant about the US political system too if you want.

Solar works best in climes where there is LOTS of sunlight with long days and moderate temperatures?

Actually solar heating works very well in places like Minneapolis, Minnesota with it's cold CLEAR skys. As for costs, I read that MIT has devisied a method of collecting and concentrating sunshine using organic dyes to power photovoltiacs on the parameter of a window, house, barn at a fraction of the normal cost. A few of these things on your house can make your meter run backwards. :)

nevermind the messenger. Sure Gore has issues but at least he's pushing forward with the effort to clean our power system. NaTIONALIZE THE UTILITY COMPAINES AND REMOVE THE ROBBER BARONS FROM THE EQUATION AND WE'D BE WELL ON OUR WAY TO A TRULY SUSTAINABLE POWER SYSTEM.

Adele- 'Solar' is NOT carbon free. As I mentioned above, much of the basic technology (wires, metals, plastics) that go into making solar power components are heavily dependent upon hydrocarbons and petrochemicals just to be extracted and processed.

You are just moving carbon from one point to another. And you are still using up finite resources that the ENTIRE world will be demanding.

Modern Western based lifestyles and technologies are the PROBLEM. Not the solution. And solar will not come anywhere close to providing enough power to run trains, and factories, and homes, and businesses, and schools, and, and, and... do you start to see my point? in addition, solar power and other alternatives CANNOT replace oil as a source material that comprises the majority of our consumer lifestyle products, and the lifestyle itself as we know it.

Humanity, viewed over the whole of history has lived longer WITHOUT high technology and electricity than with.

Yes it was hard. Brutal. Dirty.

But humanity survived.

We can do it again.

We will have no choice.

Galen: Obviously, solar power (photovoltaics or PV) produces more kilowatt hours in the southern tier of states than up north. But northern climes still produce significantly. In fact, a PV system operating on a cold, clear day in Michigan can produce at optimum because heat build-up reduces panel efficiency. PV systems in the deserts of California and Arizona can drop 10% and more in production and can even shut down if inverters overheat in temperature extremes. Thin-film PV can mitigate this by absorbing less heat.

Germany is farther north in latitude than most of the U.S. but it sure hasn't stopped that country from delving into solar since the mid-90's. In fact, Germany today is #1 in PV use worldwide followed by Japan and California. Now Spain and Italy are getting active in solar power.

Also, in your first post you say:

"Then you have the technical problems. The materials to make the solar panels, the wires, sun tracking motors and storage batteries are all mostly heavily indebted to OIL for their existence. Add making EVERY SINGLE HABITABLE STRUCTURE in the continental US solar dependent would strip the world of the necessary materials and drive the cost beyond the reach of those who need it, thus defeating the entire plan."

Pardon me, but this is a half-baked contention. First off, synthetic oil and lubricants have been available since WW II. Glass for panels is hardly a problem as silica (sand) is one of the most common compounds on earth. Some thin-film PV uses teflon-like (plastic) material that require oil but much of this can be had from recycling and developing plastics from new organic compounds. Batteries are only needed in remote areas; 90% of all systems are grid-connected and operate by net metering (do your homework!). Finally, we won't need every habitable structure in the U.S. to have a PV system. It's been calculated that just 1% of our land mass in solar would be enough to power the country. Besides houses, systems could be placed on large flat commercial buildings, on parking structures and on tracts of non-arable land like south-facing mountainsides and remote deserts.

The Big Picture could make solar a global reality. If the nations of the world could work together like we have on global telecommunications we could produce a worldwide power grid running 7/24. As the world turns the sun would constantly produce power where it's illuminating Earth and where it's not. Terrorist threats would be stopped with localized breaker systems....As for solar dependability, well, let's just say it's as reliable as tommorow's sunrise. I make a living in the solar industry so I'm aware of these things.

Sun827: I agree with nationalizing the utilities or turning them over to local control. The LA Dept of Water & Power rates are very fair compared to those of Southern California Edison rates right next door. Ratepayers should not be victims of for-profit utilities and their current stock prices, stock splits and quarterly dividends. --David

I've got an idea.

How about the posts that each of us like the best (say Galen's) we copy and send to our local papers.

I've got the Palm Beach Post down here. I would love to send Galen's post at 1:15pm to the local paper minus the first sentence. Galen, do you mind?

Seriously, sometimes the posts are just too good to be preaching to the choir. Imagine how many more papers would hear the argument if we used each others posts. I don't always have the time to write constantly.

What do you say folks?

Common Dreams is once again posing Al Gore war Criminal as being the New Pope of Ecology. Sick.

John Wages,

I clicked on your link and explored your bio and links and home page. You sound like you could help so some butt kicking in Congress. Sorry I don't donate. Didn't before when when I had an income of less than 25K but certainly not now. Just lost a job I had been working at for two years. Guy decided to close the office after inheriting some money.
Lucky me.

Anyhow, good luck.

As for Solartopia the population needs to understand that technolog is not going to save us. Galen has it right. It is time to look to "us" for the solution because one thing alone isn't going to do it.

The debate over HOW to sharply reduce global warming seems to be coming down to two world views:

(1) "This week he [Al Gore] advocated getting to an electric power system that is 'carbon free' within ten years." (Harvey Wasserman)

(2) "I am advocating nothing less than the return to cottage industry and small holder farming ... humans are this planet's cancer." (Galen, above)

I know the new world I want to live in: it's (1) above. A massive move to solar/wind/tidal/geothermal electricity will create millions of good blue collar jobs, bringing our economy back to health -- and in terms of convincing the public, it's easy to imagine using "green" electricity to run your car or truck; heat, cool and light up your house; run trains on catenary systems as they do in Europe, etc. In other words, green power doesn't turn people's worlds upside down! And it doesn't insist that millions of suburbanites start riding buses (you'll never sell that one).

There are a few systems that can't use electricity: planes, for one. But that's no excuse not to convert the REST of our power to green electricity! And Harvey's right to reject nuclear; no need to list again the umpteen reasons why it's a dumb, and dangerous, choice. I firmly believe that both Al Gore or Barack Obama are smart enough and informed enough to know that nukes are not the way to go, when we have so many benign alternatives already developed, and developing.

Right on Galen.

Vote for any one but repubs or dems.Two sides, same coin.
The multi-national corps rule the world which means profit at the expense of people and the environment. The mainstream politicians are simply figure heads, Simply!

Educate the children about how MS media works.(corporations selling audiences to corporations) Turn off cable news. Read the news wires. Stop worshiping capitalism and demonizing sharing. Stop participating in the 'global economy'. Eat right and exercise. Only shop locally. Run for city council. Don't have more than one baby per couple. Write letters, grow a garden, sell your car, buy a bicycle, quit praying, start working, and learn how to use a firearm. This world won't change until most people can't afford gasoline, cigarettes, cable, and booze. Then it gets ugly.

Lisa321 - I trash both Dems and Repubs. They are self-serving corporate bootlicking lackeys, who would sell their mothers if they had a shot at high office.

Answer me this: Would you honestly vote for the person who said "We are a nation of bloodthirsty, greedy, self-absorbed, ignorant, superstitious lazy consumers. We engage in criminal activities that range from drug trafficking to genocide."

" We abuse human rights, and turn a blind eye to others who do so as long as we make a buck off it. We will sell weapons to anyone, and reserve the right to bomb poor countries with resources we want back to the stone age, just because."

" We will invade any country that does not have the capability to harm our homeland, overthrow popular local governments that happen to oppose our goals, and commit acts of sabotage, terrorism and assassination, and directly employ people who do so, but appear in public to defame our enemies in the eyes of the American people."

"We will commit any act, no matter how evil, just to maintain our unsustainable lifestyle. We will pollute, despoil and ravage any landscape if it has resources we desire. We will exterminate entire species. We will over fish, over hunt, genetically modify and 'domesticate' any animal we think is tasty."

"We will spy on you, open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone, intercept you e-mail, monitor you cell phone, and infiltrate and subvert any group that promotes peace and tolerance. We will pass laws that enable corporations to collect every single scrap of personal information about you, and sell it to each other."

"And every four years, we will trot out a slate of pre-selected 'candidates' for you to 'choose' from, thinking that you actually have a chance to influence the government of your country, and the whole time they will rant on about God, Gays, and Guns, 'Family Values', 'Trust', 'Change', 'Leadership', 'Experience' and a host of other meaningless drivel that will be spoon-fed to you in Corporate Media sound bites."

"And on the off chance that a viable third-party candidate will appear, they will be sidelined and ignored, forced out of public debate, and made to appear as part of the 'tin foil hat brigade', and not a real choice. Very occasionally, we will allow a distraught parent of a victim of one of our wars to 'win' a seat, but they will be marginalized and compromised, edged into the rest of the political herd before being culled in the next 'election'."

"Vote for me instead of that other guy."

So, Lisa321, would you HONESTLY vote for someone that brutally honest about how US politics REALLY works?

Despite Nader's failure to build a base, a progressive base has been building itself in the form of the Green Party. Several state Green Parties now hold primaries, including CA, IL, and AR, and hundreds of local and state-level candidates are now in office. Take a look at the Green Platform (www.gp.org/platform.shtml) and Cynthia McKinney's website (www.runcynthiarun.org). You'll see the platform is comprehensive, which is what we need because you won't have Solartopia without campaign finance reform, you cannot have peace without justice, and we need to end militarism, not just the occupation of Iraq.

John M. Wages, Jr.
www.VoteJohnWages.com

There shouldnt be any puppies under the Christmas tree.

Screw the Dems.
They keep sucking up to Bush and the Republicans, dont care who gets in.
If its Mccain the Dems will stand up right behind him.

Common Dreams has become nothing but a place to trash the Democrats.

Bring it on. It's Obama or McCain. Nader was INVISIBLE for these last 4/8 years: He just trots his ass out for photo-ops and DOES NOTHING TO BUILD A BASE, TO BECOME ELECTABLE IN INTERIM YEARS. NOTHING. NOTHING.

But Ralph Nader IS invested in Raytheon=cluster bombs.

Talk to me about lesser of two eviilism and CLUSTER BOMBS.

They maim and kill children. But that is no problem for Ralph's supporters on Common Dreams as they trash Nobel Prize winner AL Gore.

Maybe you are what you call trolls, Republicans enjoying effing around with progressive threads.

Obama '08. Grow up CD, "there's no puppy under the Christmas Tree this year."

Lisa321 - Obama is just as much an organ of the Corporate Machine as McCain.

'No matter who you vote for, the GOVERNMENT gets in!'

Democrats and Republican are just the two public faces of the Money machine. Both start wars, both bend over to help the corporations rape the planet. both are willing and enthusiastic participants in the charade you are spoon fed every four years that You Have A Choice!

You don't.

It's an illusion, smoke and mirrors.

McCain has stated he will stay in Iraq for a hundred years. Obama has said he will pull some troops out of Iraq, but send them to the other war in Afghanistan.

NEITHER has said they will END the wars!

And the wars are about oil, and access to oil, and control of oil.

OIl is the only thing that has enabled the past 150 years of modern 'progress'.

And oil is at the very heart of the production of most of the so-called 'alternatives', responsible for the extraction and processing of the very components that make the 'alternatives'.

Technology is not the answer. It is just a reframing of the problem.

We will not escape the VERY deep pit we have dug ourselves until there is a public paradigm shift in the consciousness of humanity that WE ARE AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH! Our toys are literally killing us!

The cost of one day of the Iraq war, according to analysis by the American Friends Service Committee, equal renewable energy for 1,274,336 homes. As technology prices come down the ratio rises.

War is a material, psychological, socio-economic and terrestrial short circuit. It is characterized by the 'use' of resources to destroy resources, human and otherwise.

Mr. Gore knows that honey rather than vinegar is more attractive. All he needs to do is present the facts, and keep presenting the facts. The most powerful evolution is when people themselves (like Mr. Pickins)
experience the "ah ha" effect. His coattails may very well spread very wide and spawn the exponential spread not only of information but innovation.

I was surprised to read that, with realistic conversion efficiencies and proper spacing, etc, all of California's energy needs could be met by a solar collector farm the size of Lake Mead.

I'd previously read that 100 miles of California's 1200 mile long coastline gets enough power in ocean waves to power the entire state.

Al Gore is an Asshole?: just read the VERY FIRST post. And more.

Fuck Nader with HIS INVESTMENTS IN CLUSTER BOMBS.

Al Gore Sir, Thank You for all you have done for us.

Screw anyone who attacks Al Gore.

Obama '08.

While solar power is a part of the solution it is not THE solution.

Solar works best in climes where there is LOTS of sunlight with long days and moderate temperatures.

It doesn't work so well at higher latitudes with less sunlight.

Then you have the technical problems. The materials to make the solar panels, the wires, sun tracking motors and storage batteries are all mostly heavily indebted to OIL for their existence. Add making EVERY SINGLE HABITABLE STRUCTURE in the continental US solar dependent would strip the world of the necessary materials and drive the cost beyond the reach of those who need it, thus defeating the entire plan.

And what happens to the rest of the world if they decide to follow the Gore Solatopia Plan? Wars over platinum and selenium, the minerals needed to make photovoltaic systems?

What we need (and I know I am going to get flamed over this...) is to ABANDON modern high tech consumer society as we know it, shrink the size of the bloated nation states to more manageable regions, start deconstructing the massive human hives we call cities, and going back to a MUCH lower technological profile, and living and eating locally, with each habitation producing what it needs in house.

I am advocating nothing less than the return to cottage industry and small holder farming. I know that.

I also know that we do not have a choice. We cannot sustain this insane pace of 'development'.

There is a medical word for sustained, uncontrolled growth: cancer.

And humans are this planets cancer.

One cannot separate the environmental from the economic. The massive restructuring necessary to adapt to the very different reality brought on by global warming is also the answer to a failing economy. If we do not build a green national power-grid and convert to electric transportation systems and if we do not cut carbon output by 80% in the next decade then nothing else much matters. Gore gets it. Even Slim Pickens gets it. I doubt that any candidate backed by and recognized by the corporatocracy gets it or has the backbone to do what is needed.

I'd love to have solar panels on our home. As would millions of Americans. Its our next home project. But at current prices it will take us 3-4 years to save for. But if we can get the ball rolling, this could be what gets the economy up and running again! I hope this is a dream we can get industry and government behind.

Everyman needs a myth or a Star in the East to follow - this seems like a splended goal for our Age of Aquarius.

Is Gore still in bed with past advisors who suggested Joe Lieberman as Gore's VP? Is he still FRIENDS with Lieberman? Bleeck!

Had Gore run this far to the left in 2000 he would have blown Bush completely out of the water, won his own state, won Florida, won New Mexico, won Iowa, etc.

Ralph wouldn't have had to run.

Once again, Ralph has to run because the Democrat, again, doesn't get it: you don't run to the center-right, when the public is on the left.