we need to do all we can to move both candidates on this issue...

Now We Can Solve it has 1,377,690 signatures.  

I admire the Goracle for keeping this issue front and center.  Thank goodness he is because it seems everyone else is wasting time playing election year politics while we go to hell in a handbasket.

imagine if we'd have had a president that took 9/11 as a mission to have gotten off of the addition to the middle east's oil instead.

Why Gore thought it was better for him to not run for President, I'll never understand. I think of the momentum he and his green movement had last summer, and think where it would be now had he stepped up to a larger soapbox...

Sad, sad stuff.

Great speech.  I, for one, have always believed the Iraq War had nothing to do with 9/11 and was about getting our hands on the oil fields.  I am fortunate to live in a city with great public transportation so my car is a luxury used on weekends but as gas prices rise and rise I ask myself all the time how different it would have been if Gore had become President on Jan 20, 2001.

This comes into a further argument about development in the United States.  We're simply going to have to get used to the idea, as a nation, that a solution that costs $x simply will never happen.  We need to calculate in the cost of buying off the ignorant and greedy.  We're going to spend $x on the actual problem and another $x on stupid crap and that's just the way it has to be.  
Sustainable energy infrastructure can be built in the US for $3 trillion.  That means it's time to find at least $6 trillion, it ain't gonna happen any other way.

To be fair to Obama and Schweitzer, it is true that they talk about clean coal (they have State coal constituencies to deal with), but they also talk a lot (especially Schweitzer) about biofuels, wind and solar.

PS- Did anyone see Schweitzer coming in or out of The East Bank Club on Wacker Drive in Chicago last night?
 

at least Iowa Democrats, is that key labor unions advocate building new "clean coal" infrastructure, and the politicians are more afraid of pissing off organized labor than they are of pissing off environmentalists.

In my opinion, that partly explains why the two Democrats on the Iowa Utilities Board cast the deciding votes in favor of approving an application to build a new coal-fired power plant near Marshalltown this year:

http://www.bleedingheartland.com/showDia ry.do?diaryId=1333

The only Republican on that panel voted against it.

The rumor is that Governor Chet Culver would prefer for the coal plant not to be built but doesn't want to be the one to kill it.

If no one steps up to the plate to stop it from happening, we are going to be stuck with at least one more 50-year investment in the wrong direction in Iowa.

The opportunity for a successful negotiation is greatest when both sides really want something, which I think you've touched on here. The proponents of drill-drill-drill are hungry to have the ban on drilling the OCS lifted. And the proponents of alternative energy want a serious commitment to wind and solar.

Given that, I think a compromise is inevitable, and that Reid-Pelosi will end up on the losing side of this issue if they're perceived as obstructionist. The idea that we have to choose one or the other--fossil fuels or alternative sources--is a false choice. Actually, if you accept the concept of "transitioning", these two sources are complementary, rather than substitutes. Drill-drill-drill will be an intermediate (4-10 yrs) solution to the energy crisis, with wind and solar coming on stream--in a meaningful way--approx. 15-20 years from now.

Your last point about W is spot on. I think one thing which marks truly great leaders is that they use a national tragedy to marshall the country's support for meaningful change. LBJ went right to work after Kennedy's assassination, and made Civil Rights legislation a reality. By comparison, after 9/11, Bush asked the country to go shopping.

One final point on drill-drill-drill: Since Bush lifted the executive order/ban on drilling the OCS this past Monday, the price of crude has fallen from $147 to $129 today. His statement on Monday, followed by his press conference on Tuesday, have obviously had a major impact on traders in the commodities markets. This is especially significant, given that on two of those days, the price of gold continued going up, with the dollar losing ground. Usually, that dynamic is accompanied by the price of oil going up, not down. The need for exploration and increasing supply is becoming more and more urgent.

Take a look at the Newt Gingrich "American Solutions" page for 'drill here, drill now, pay less' and you'll see 1,350,831 people have signed the petition. And look over at Al Gore's "We Can Solve It" page and 1,377,689 people have signed the petition to "support repowering America" through clean energy.

And look at any intro-level statistics textbook to realize why online petitions are meaningless.

It must be getting difficult to find some way to criticize Obama in every one of your posts without distorting the facts and leaving off the caveats.  I mean, after all, reading your post I might never have known that Obama supports funding for clean coal only if it is shown to be 20% cleaner than current methods, as well as being a vigorous supporter of cap-and-trade for greenhouse gases and has a 100% rating from the Campaign for America's Future on energy and was endorsed by the Sierra Club.

He's really not THAT hot on the stuff unless there are significant advances in the procedure.

Has anybody been listening to Obama?  He covered this extensively during his talk on the Middle East.

Why...didn't...he...run...for...Presiden t....

He would have been....The Perfect Candidate.

Gore/Obama would have given us, undoubtedly, 16 years in the White House.

Will we be privileged to get Obama/Gore?

You might start by realizing we get nowhere by mischaracterizing those who support clean coal technology funding as "carbon-based advocates".  It's called Global Climate Change because it is a Global problem, not a local one.  It makes zero sense for us to merrily go off on an exclusive non-carbon route and ignore coal plants in India and China.  To want to solve technological problems for international reasons not just local ones is the path we must take.

Gore is right about renewable energies being here and they are already competitive with coal.  Obama should be making a bigger deal about it but he probably doesn't understand it as well as Gore.

However, if it takes 30 years to transition (Gore's number) we are going to need some more oil in the mean time. Rather than set up a false dichotomy of drilling vs. renewable energy we should go after both.  It is not like drilling on our shores is going to lower the price of oil to the point where we no longer want renewable energy.

The fact is there has not been an oil spill from an off shore rig since 1969.  Technology has moved on. So should we.

I agree with with you Jerome..A compromise has to made between both parties or we will sit stagnant for another 30 years.

But its also understandable WHY Obama and Schweitzer backed coal... IT would mean BIG MONEY to their states.  Its why Obama backs ethanol.   Its why Biden backs the credit card companies.  We may not like it, but its easy to understand WHY they support it too.

Likewise, the backers of drilling for off-shore oil are a strong lobbying group, and have plenty of Democrats advocating for it

Such as?

Coal has strong backing and while getting away from coal in the long term is the way to go, its going to hurt (in terms of blue collar jobs lost in poor rural areas that will not be offset in terms of location or education level by renewable resource generation) and its going to cost in both money and political will.  

The 100% in 10 years goal is unrealistic ultimately, but we can strive for it at least.

Imagine what gas prices would be if Bush hadn't helped kill the electric car.  Imagine what 8 more years of research would have done.

IF you really, REALLY want to see what we, as a country of innovators and workers can do, then turn off all the coal plants, and NG plants, and refineries in 4 years.  Period.  Make it into the crisis it really is...don't slowly milk it to death, stop using the bad stuff NOW!  People will conserve, they will work on getting "green", and they will adapt.  Not without a TON of screaming, but that is something we do really well too!  ;)

BTW we just put up 10 wind generators here in Northern MN.  It is VERY green, will supply elec. for the local Industry whose land it is on, and provides 3 good-paying jobs for the techs who run and maintain them.  Sounds a hell of a lot better than the thrice-damned "coal gasification" plant they want to put in 5 miles away.  I would go without elec/oil (I need the Nat gas for heat...find me a way to convert) for a YEAR if it would mean going from Fossil to Green.  Happily.

First, two great posts in a row. Welcome back, Jerome. I came to this site in the first place because it represented the voice of progressive activists with experience in electoral politics.

As to coal. As with most social choices, there are competing goals at play with energy choices. (Think modern cars. Make a care safer--not too hard. Make a car less polluting--not too hard. Make a care more fuel efficient--harder, but doable. Make a car all three at the same time and keep it affordable, and the engineering solutions start bumping into one other really hard.)

In the case of energy, we have several different goals. One, slow and then reverse the contribution of energy production on global warming. Two, reverse air pollution from energy production (similar to #1, but not the same). Three, liberate the US from dependency on foreign sources of energy. Four, transform the US transportation system. Five, keep all of this affordable for average citizens. Six, don't create new intractable problems in doing the first five.

Most of us cheer on wind power and other renewables. That is great, but most experts say it is not sufficient on its own in the short term, esp. if energy independence is a priority.

(Pose the question this way. If we shift to assorted domestic energy production and not just renewables, do we save enough by reducing military deployments and assorted spending to curry favor with Saudi Arabia et al to devote to further development of renewables? Do we lessen the real threat of terrorism in the bargain?)  I think the answer is that it is damn complicated.

We have to hold ourselves and our elected officials to a higher standard.

Don't assume Dems will cave to energy lobbyists. They really don't have to and we shouldn't let them off the hook so easily.

Good energy policy really isn't a controversial issue and we shouldn't let the GOP define it as such.  Voters are backing Dems and expecting them to lead the country in changing energy policy.  There's no downside for Dems in Congress & the WH if they insist on it.  Voters will back them.

We can transition from coal and natural gas electricity generation.  For how feasible and cost effective wind and solar would be see for instance today's analysis by Jerome a Paris of Gore's proposal on TheOilDrum:

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4316

While 100% is probably unrealistic, it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to get pretty close to that number (say, in the 50-90% range) in that timeframe, and it is very likely that it makes a LOT of sense economically.

Expect plenty of FUD and propaganda from the owners and extractors of our current dirty energy sources -- about how the U.S. simply can't kick coal, how renewables will lead to unemployment, how the U.S. simply can't transition so quickly, etc.  But at this late date the burden of proof weighs heavily on defenders of our dysfunctional energy status quo.  The vested energy and transportation interests are panicking at the prospect of losing their meal ticket.  I think we'll see solid evidence soon that it simply ain't so.  Besides all the other compelling reasons to quickly transition from fossil fuels I think renewables will prove to be a big net plus for job creation as well.