Al Gore's Electricity Plan 100% Renewable in 10 Yrs.

Will this nonsensical silliness ever end?

 

What's nonsensical? My blood sugar is a little high this morning, but I still find mine to be a logical assessment. I find that it is people like you who often cannot see the forest for the trees.

 

Generally speaking, dividing any issue into only two logical extremes is dumb.

 

I understand, and I can speak.

Think of it this way. I am trying to convert you to my religion, and my religion is absolutely, categorically opposed to any drink with an alcoholic content. Then several leading members of the church, you and I go out drinking and get really wasted on a Saturday night. Sunday morning I pick you up for church and tell you what a horrible sinner you are for drinking and that you should stop it so you can join my church. Wouldn't you ask me, "Hey, you and some of the deacons were out there getting drunk with me last night. What's the difference?"

I say, "Do as we say, not as we do?"

Now, are not all the arguments for joining my church tossed out the window? The church is good in and of itself. But why, pray tell, would you join it when the membership is so hypocritical?

 

Not really directing this to you, KingCheetah (you just repeat commonly-held sentiment), but this is the biggest crock of **** of them all. It gets repeated over and over again, like "war stimulates the economy", but it is a scientifically invalid statement, and even the most rabid Keynesian, when pushed, admits it. It creates "green jobs" (like "defense jobs") while diverting talent from other fields. It promotes "green investment" (like "defense investment") while diverting investment from other fields. Everyone sees the job and economic growth in the field where all the investment is at, without seeing the lost opportunity in whatever industries the investment in new "green jobs" and "green investment" was diverted from. The ONLY way that a government program like this stimulates the economy is if the government finances it by increasing deficit spending, and then they're just sacrificing the future growth in the economy for present growth in the economy.

 

This is not a very good analogy - in fact, it's terrible. Once again, you've painted it "black or white" with no inbetween.

But I get your point. However, demanding that Gore completely remove himself from the fossil-fuel sphere is silly. Nevermind that he buys carbon offsets as appropriate, but you can do just a small amount of research and find that Gore has, as best as he can, responded to these complaints. Heck, you can just do a quick search on this message board and find all the info you need to probably assuage your feelings of irritation.

More importantly, he is a man with a considerable following and considerable responsibilities. I don't fault him for having to live in a manner that compromises some of his positions if the end result is a wider appeal of his generic message.

 

You misunderstand me. I am delighted Gore is leading the environmentalist movement, and I am delighted he is making progress. I am just trying to tell you and others that he and other environmentalists (RFKjr always comes to mind) would have a greater impact if they didn't commit actions that, on the surface at least, make them look really hypocritical.

As often and as much as I have disagreed with Ralph Nader over the years, he pretty much adheres to his principles. I respect that.

 

Nonsense weslinder -- new ideas create new industries, which creates new money -- when West Texas is filled with wind farms and solar i'll guess we'll see who is right.

 

"On the surface" is a terribly important disclaimer in this instance! I'm not in the mood to bore you with some long-winded rant about Gore's efforts to minimize the unfortunate impact of his environmentalist spokesperson role, suffice to say that I think he has done an admirable job in that regard. Of course, this has not stopped various media outlets (primarily right-wing) from exaggerating those same impacts while misconstruing (or ignoring entirely) any efforts to balance those same impacts out. Seriously, the information is out there, often from interviews with Gore himself.

 

There are no new ideas or new industries being promoted. Wind power has been around since the 7th century. Solar since the 1830's. If they were the most viable sources of energy, they'd be the dominant source right now.

 

Keep telling yourself that weslinder -- massive change is coming, we have the 21st century tech to make it happen.

 

You appear to be presuming that as currently constituted, investment is ideally and optimally distributed in the energy field, and that any "diversion" would, at best, get us back to the optimal level. That's simply not true. Our current model of power generation is ineffeiciently distributed because the numerous externalities aren't effectively priced into the system - accordingly you get people burning fossil fuels for less than the overall cost, which are passed on collectively. Green power and the like goes a long way towards limiting these externalities.

 

I don't doubt that. But if we mandate different energy sources before they are viable, we will put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage until they are viable. China and India will keep using old, cheaper energy sources, and build up capital until the new energy sources are viable, and then convert much more cheaply.

 

And creates new externalities like predictability of supply issues that are passed on collectively.

 

which pale in comparison to the ones that they are displacing...though I don't really know if that would technically qualify as an "externalilty".

 

wrong.

 

Thank-you weslinder -- your candor is appreciated.

 

King Cheetah,

You win at the internets.



SamFisher,

In the chemical industry (one of the few exporting industries left), the number two concern (after only transportation) when building a manufacturing plant is consistency of power supply. Interuption in supply brings about a shutdown. Startups and shutdowns are the most expensive thing in the industry. My plant can lose a year's profit on one unexpected shutdown. Large enough companies can afford to create their own power on-site, as the loss of efficiency of scale is offset by the value of consistency, but marginal producers cannot.

Germany has mandated the largest wind-power investments in the world. Their consistency of supply issues has just about completely stopped investment by commodity chemical companies in their country.

 

I couldn't have done it without the support of Big Al Gore and his sublime energy plan.