And why not? The remarkable thing here is that both Obama and McCain have
agreed to it.
Meanwhile our Government is b****ing about with its Climate Bill as a
pathetic subsitute for actually doing something. One thing about America,
when it decides its going to do something, it bloody well does it. Nuclear
Bombs, Liberty Ships ... some good, some bad, but none of this pathetic
sitting on hands and half baked incomprehensible b****s that we Brits lead
the world (like the Renewables Obligation, or the Hurd-Owen policy on the
Balkans that gave Karadic a free hand to genocide).
Oliver, K2.
=======================================
Make all US electricity from renewable sources -Al Gore
by Reuters News on 17 July 2008, 20:37 PM 0 comments , 216 views
Categories: Reuters News
By Jasmin Melvin and Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) - Al Gore, the Nobel Prize-winning crusader on
climate change, challenged the United States on Thursday to commit to
producing all U.S. electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind
power in 10 years.
"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," the former Democratic vice president and presidential
candidate in 2000 told a meeting in Washington.
"So 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," he said.
Gore also took aim at the Bush administration's policies on climate change,
without mentioning the president by name. Advocates of tougher measures to
combat global warming caused by carbon emissions have long said President
George W. Bush has done too little about climate change.
Gore, who faced a smattering of protesters rallying against big government
outside the hall, likened the fight against climate change to the successful
challenge in the 1960s to send humans to the Moon within the decade.
Gore, who starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient
Truth" about the perils of global warming, also disparaged goals set too far
in the future.
"A political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally
ignored because everyone knows it's totally meaningless. Ten years is about
the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our
target."
Bush has opposed economy-wide limits on the emission of climate-warming
carbon dioxide. Last week, he and other leaders of the Group of Eight major
industrialized nations offered a non-binding pledge to cut emissions 50
percent by 2050 -- 42 years from now.
"WE MUST MOVE FIRST"
The Bush administration and the other rich nations said they could not meet
this goal without participation from developing economies like China and
India.
Gore, noting that an international climate change treaty is expected to be
concluded by the end of the next U.S. president's first year in office,
questioned any delay on combating global warming.
"It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to
join us in this matter," he said. "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."
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he supported Gore's
challenge, and said he would fast-track investments in renewable energy like
solar, wind and biofuels if elected. "It's a strategy that will create
millions of new jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced, and one that
will leave our children a world that is cleaner and safer," he said.
Obama's rival in the November election, Republican candidate John McCain,
also backed Gore's plan. "If the vice president says it's do-able, I believe
it's do-able," he told reporters.
Gore said he had had conversations with Obama, McCain, and with Bob Barr,
the Libertarian Party candidate.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro, Editing by Frances Kerry)
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