Al Gore gave a major climate speech today, urging an enormously
ambitious program to create an electrical generation system powered
entirely by renewable zero-carbon sources within 10 years. It
reflects a approach to life that takes many people decades to learn:
"When you want something, if you don't ask for it, you won't have a
chance of getting it." All the objections about "impracticality" take
on a different meaning for citizens and opinion leaders who realize
what's at stake. Thus, this speech brings us closer to replacing a
"business as usual" global mentality with one that considers the fate
of the earth.

Aside from that, we are very encouraged by its perspective on plug-in
cars (minutes into a 27-minute speech):

"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."

This definitive acknowledgment of the benefits of electrification
gives advocates of steps on global warming a better answer for
transportation than timid suggestions that more people buy more
efficient gasoline cars or drive less. It's in line with what leading
climate change scientist Dr. James Hansen said in February 2006, "The
plug-in hybrid approach, as being pursued by CalCars, seems to be our
best bet for controlling vehicle CO2 emissions in the
near-term." And it's a stronger restatement of what Gore said in
September 2006, "...there are already some solutions that seem to
stand out as particularly promising [...] We could further increase
the value and efficiency of a distributed energy network by retooling
our failing auto giants - GM and Ford - to require and assist them in
switching to the manufacture of flex-fuel, plug-in, hybrid
vehicles...." (See http://www.calcars.org/endorsements.html for
sources for both.)


The rest of the speech, promoting an 'aggressive because we have no
choice' program, responds to 'why power plug-in cars from a dirty
grid?' Our quick answer: even on the national (half-coal) power grid,
mainly because electric motors are so more efficient than gasoline
engines, an electric mile emits about half the CO2 of a gasoline
mile. Our higher-level answer meshes with Gore's vision: plug-in cars
are the only vehicles that will get cleaner as they get older because
the grid will get cleaner.


Below we've excerpted what we think are persuasive and eloquent
statements from the speech given at DAR Constitution Hall in
Washington, DC. Watch the entire 27-minute speech (which includes 2.5
minutes of comments before the prepared text), at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9wZloG97U . (The section on plug-in
cars, including very enthusiastic applause, starts at 18:00.) Read
the complete text at http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/
and read a FAQ at http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/287/ .
And you can watch a 5-minute video at the Alliance for Climate
Protection's home page http://www.wecansolveit.org .

Att "What Others Are Saying"
http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/303/ you can see comments
by Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies; Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute; Bill
McKibbon, author & climate activist; Carol M. Browner, former EPA
Administrator, and Principal of The Albright Group LLC; Lee Thomas,
Former EPA Administrator (under President Reagan); David G. Hawkins,
Director, Climate Programs, Natural Resources Defense Council; Dan
Kammen, Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley; David Yarnold,
Executive Director, Environmental Defense Fund; and Alden Meyer,
Director of Strategy and Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists. And
see analysis and comments at Green Car Congress, Climate Progress,
NYTimes Dot Earth and Huffington Post:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/gores-challenge.html
http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/17/gore-speech/#comments
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/the-annotated-gore-climate-speech/?\
hp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/a-generational-challenge_b_113359.html


SPEECH EXCERPTS from "Al Gore: A Generational Challenge to Repower America"

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.....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.

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.
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.
I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of
the status quo.

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.

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?
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.

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
http://www.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.

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
cell 650.520.5555 voice 650.599.9992
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