Agreed, let’s make it a sport. Winner takes all (and gets rich supplying all with the technology for a clean Planet (here))

Please note that technology alone will not get us off the hook.

We need a system change, where institutions, regulations, culture, people’s strivings change. All in sync.

Institutions: reverse the US candy budget ($29bln annually) with the UN-budget ($1bln annually) and solve the obesity problem as well as providing all with clean drinking water and go to the root of the strife in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan: a big mea culpa where it’s due. For starts.

Regulations: all gov’t bodies aquire all their stuffs organic, child labour free, cradle to cradle, 100% clean energy produced and local wherever possible. And demand all parties rendering services to them to follow suit.

Then tune in to your local radio network, watch the blogs and the stock exchange and see what the market does.

Surprise: capitalism needed a little push!

Culture: when the Clintons become outmoded, perhaps some fresh air can come in from one window of opportunity or another

When speakers from the blogtrenches of sustainability (here) come to the fore of the news shows.

People’s striving’s: when cultural creatives (25% in the US; will be approx the same in other Western countries) live up to their better selves and start walking.. Aye, there’s the rub!

Concluding: together these points stand, devided they fall.

Pace e Bene,

Emil M

Victor Luijtjes

The current lax EPA rules for coal plant emissions have got to be changed in any case. The older plants especially emit far too much mercury, NOx, and sulfur oxides.

It will take a while for the transmission grid to be built to support utility scale solar from the sunnier states to the northern states, and a mix of power will be needed, I agree.

Stephen_B

Most of our electricity comes from coal right now. Solar and Wind will continue to scale up fast, probably amazingly fast for solar, but they it will still take time for them to grow to a size that contributes large amount of power to the USA grid. There’s China and India to consider as well. It’s not a question of coal or renewables. It is a question of dirty or clean coal. We need to make the later work to realistically avoid GW.

Recommend chapter 8 of “Apollo’s Fire” by Sen. Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks

It’s good to see the the blogosphere following significant developments in the domain we all -should- care about. Jerome a Paris at Eurotrib made a nice one recently on a silly + fear mongering main article in the FT on Gazprom’s plans in Nigeria (here)

Regarding presidential candidates in the US: Oboma and other democrats I’ve read about are of a different and better ilk than the current person. No doubts about their intentions.

Problems arise when one of them gets into office. Then the usual mechanisms / processes inherent in large organizations have to be dealt with.

As I see it, a candidate should have walked the talk for quite a while. Changing light bulbs now, trading in one’s ICE car for a hybrid now and all that PR stuff, I find not convincing. If not an indication of sloppy and incremetal environmental walking.

I find Dennis Kucinich (here) and his wife being a vegan for a long time a good reason to want to see an in depth interview with him on matters of sustainability. Or a speech like Naomi Klein delivered in the Netherlands a while ago (here).

His campaign paper on energy makes me hopeful he would make a very suitable candidate, regarding content (here)

What I would find convincing, is a campaign with

- public

- non reversable

- non negotiable

- nail hard

agreements to shift budgets & set up regulations enabling market forces serving a global sustainable society (ecologic, social, economic, see also here)

Use the Manhatten project as example for realising what has been proposed in Scientific American of this January: ‘Sunny outlook. Can sunshine supply all US electricity?’ (here).

This would trigger the European Commission to adapt TREC’s whitepaper (here). Since otherwise it would lose it’s sought environmental leadership + lose a huge market when OPEC countries would start investing in these technologies to generate clean energy in the post -cheap- oil & gas era.

China and India will recognize leadership and follow suit.

And consumers will be willing to pay a premium for their products.

[which is actually no premium, but rather the end of an externalization of cost. Or so we wished: the blame for child labour, environmental degradation, supporting dubious regimes and waging -economic and military- wars is on us for all able to see]

Combine this with Project Better Place’s plan (here), Gezen’s Solar Mobilization fund (here) and The Elders guidance (here)

and then there would be something to make all blogs cheer.

Make the Planet and all its inhabitants of all times cheer.

I imagine DeSmogBlog’s initial reaction was based on a -formally premature, but statistically correct- bau frustration. Which they projected to the candidate with the largest tension between offering a hope of a better future and the pitfall of staying in old tracks, leading all of us further astray.

Emil M