We aren't running out of energy
Read this selective call to action, from Nobelist Al Gore’s recent energy speech, which contained nary a word about nuclear power.
“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.” (See above). “We need to act now. This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate.”
Well, yahoo, and damn the outrageous cap and trade taxes that would follow.
One of Gore’s dire forecasts drew a rebuttal from Patrick Michaels, National Review writer.. Gore said scientists “...have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire [North Polar] ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.” Yet, responds Michaels, “The Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is now for several millennia after the end of the last ice age. We know this because there are trees buried in the tundra along what is now the arctic shore.”
Further, Gore’s failure to mention nuclear power continued during a follow-up interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. Tom Brokaw must have been warned in advance not to raise the subject. It was the gorilla in the room. Also, nothing on hydro-electric power (those wicked dams). Brokaw failed to ask Gore why he hadn’t debated any of his many skeptics on global warming despite numerous invitations. Brokaw is no Tim Russert.
Gore’s anti-nuke colleagues abound, even preventing scientific studies of the safety of mining uranium in Virginia, where there’s a huge deposit, in Pittsylvania County..
Unlike Gore, other real world leaders aren’t scaredy-cats when it comes to nuclear energy.
In England, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just commissioned eight new nuclear reactors and says there’s no upper limit to the number they’ll build. GOP candidate John McCain has called for 45 new ones to be built here by 2030. Some 439 nuclear power plants are operating in 31 countries. China plans to build another 100 itself.
But by the way, candidate Obama, like Gore, disses nuclear power, instead claiming, "We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires.." Wow. Most everybody already does that.
Which reminds me, here’s a take on the presidential race. I read that Julian Bond, a veteran civil rights leader, said Obama's candidacy doesn't "herald a post-civil rights America, any more than his victory in November will mean that race as an issue has been vanquished in America." You see, if that vanquishing does occur, Bond will be out of a job. And if Obama doesn’t win? Well, all the Bonds will be back on their high horses, with living proof that America is still racist after all.
Moreover, Obama has some more skeletons. Catch this quote from AP: When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." No, that's clairvoyance in reverse.
Back to energy, Al Gore’s apocalyptic utterances have been parroted on the airwaves by T. Boone Pickens, the zillionaire oilman who claims we can’t drill our way out of oil troubles.
Yes, but when you get past his linguistically elegant voice (so refreshing up here for us former plainsmen), his arguments aren’t hugely persuasive. His favorite remedy, wind power, as a big future energy source seems far-fetched.
But his proposal to fuel lots more vehicles with natural gas is right on. They’re economical and time-tested. Here, some 150,000 cars and trucks run on natural gas, and worldwide, more than 7 million. And what a stroke of luck that we can produce loads of natural gas ‘til the cows come home, right here in the USA.
But earlier this year, Bill Clinton concluded that “we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse-gas emissions because we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”
Thanks, Bill, but we old guys have already saved the planet, via WWII, Korea, etc. If our grandchildren have to endure a tiny bit warmer environment, they’ll adjust handily. After all, they do have air conditioning now. Many of us as youngsters didn’t, but did all right anyhow--any latter-day effects of Clinton’s youthful deprivations notwithstanding..
“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.” (See above). “We need to act now. This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate.”
Well, yahoo, and damn the outrageous cap and trade taxes that would follow.
One of Gore’s dire forecasts drew a rebuttal from Patrick Michaels, National Review writer.. Gore said scientists “...have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire [North Polar] ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.” Yet, responds Michaels, “The Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is now for several millennia after the end of the last ice age. We know this because there are trees buried in the tundra along what is now the arctic shore.”
Further, Gore’s failure to mention nuclear power continued during a follow-up interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. Tom Brokaw must have been warned in advance not to raise the subject. It was the gorilla in the room. Also, nothing on hydro-electric power (those wicked dams). Brokaw failed to ask Gore why he hadn’t debated any of his many skeptics on global warming despite numerous invitations. Brokaw is no Tim Russert.
Gore’s anti-nuke colleagues abound, even preventing scientific studies of the safety of mining uranium in Virginia, where there’s a huge deposit, in Pittsylvania County..
Unlike Gore, other real world leaders aren’t scaredy-cats when it comes to nuclear energy.
In England, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just commissioned eight new nuclear reactors and says there’s no upper limit to the number they’ll build. GOP candidate John McCain has called for 45 new ones to be built here by 2030. Some 439 nuclear power plants are operating in 31 countries. China plans to build another 100 itself.
But by the way, candidate Obama, like Gore, disses nuclear power, instead claiming, "We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires.." Wow. Most everybody already does that.
Which reminds me, here’s a take on the presidential race. I read that Julian Bond, a veteran civil rights leader, said Obama's candidacy doesn't "herald a post-civil rights America, any more than his victory in November will mean that race as an issue has been vanquished in America." You see, if that vanquishing does occur, Bond will be out of a job. And if Obama doesn’t win? Well, all the Bonds will be back on their high horses, with living proof that America is still racist after all.
Moreover, Obama has some more skeletons. Catch this quote from AP: When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." No, that's clairvoyance in reverse.
Back to energy, Al Gore’s apocalyptic utterances have been parroted on the airwaves by T. Boone Pickens, the zillionaire oilman who claims we can’t drill our way out of oil troubles.
Yes, but when you get past his linguistically elegant voice (so refreshing up here for us former plainsmen), his arguments aren’t hugely persuasive. His favorite remedy, wind power, as a big future energy source seems far-fetched.
But his proposal to fuel lots more vehicles with natural gas is right on. They’re economical and time-tested. Here, some 150,000 cars and trucks run on natural gas, and worldwide, more than 7 million. And what a stroke of luck that we can produce loads of natural gas ‘til the cows come home, right here in the USA.
But earlier this year, Bill Clinton concluded that “we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse-gas emissions because we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”
Thanks, Bill, but we old guys have already saved the planet, via WWII, Korea, etc. If our grandchildren have to endure a tiny bit warmer environment, they’ll adjust handily. After all, they do have air conditioning now. Many of us as youngsters didn’t, but did all right anyhow--any latter-day effects of Clinton’s youthful deprivations notwithstanding..
posted by Ben Blankenship at
1:00 PM
