'Our Choice; A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis' by Al Gore exemplifies the problems and challenges presented in solving the climate crisis and economic crisis simultaneously-the book is available in hardcover paper or audio but not as a free or low cost digital download. The former U.S. Vice President could have distributed the new book to hundreds of millions of people for free with little environmental cost if he (a former Nobel [Green] Peace Prize winner) had chosen to expedite the publication and move faster toward the resolution of anthropogenic global warming. I will need to wait until the cost at Amazon, for a used copy, drops to less than three dollars and pay that much in postage to have fuel wasted in delivering the second magnum opus. Other former journalists have written books too-perhaps as well as Mr. Gore. I believe he has good access to news sources.
I was able to read Scientific American's November edition with an article on how to move within thirty years to a planetary energy economy with no fossil fuels. With wind, water and solar power efficiency would increase too, and the 15 trillion watts of electricity the world will need in a few years annually would drop to just 11 trillion or so. Fossil fuels vehicles waste most of there energy as heat rather than for motion. Yet another interesting article was published in Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 2009 by C. Fred Bergstein on 'The Next Financial Challenge'. This article indicates that the United States will have a 50 trillion dollar public debt by the year 2030 and send two and a half trillion dollars overseas each year to finance the debt. The remedies to the conventional economy are a little complex for the ordinary American to find interest in.
Fossil fuels are invariably finite in quantity on Earth. Since the U.S. post space shuttle N.A.S.A. will become a cadre of hitch-hikernauts riding communist designed space-ships to the pawned brokered space station they will not soon be capable of venturing to Neptune or Saturn to bring more methane gas down to Earth to help increase global warming if winter fuel supplies from the middle east run low or go too high in price. Fossil fuels are inhernetly economically destabilizing for the United States yet profitable for OPEC nations.
Solar power has a great capitalist prospect ahead for reducing cost of supply with increasing efficeince in solar panel cature technology. Like the computer industry solar panel technology should continually decrease in price. Oil prices will probably increase in price-dropping just long enough to trick consumers to reply upon it long enough to disinvest in solar power. Oil and gas for national energy infrastructure is implicitly economically destabilizing. Foreign powers and corrupt corporatist C.E.O.'s create radical economic cycles of gouging and crashing of the U.S. economy in order to reallocate profit to themselves. That is done simply through the political influence they have nationally and internationally regarding supply and oil costs, as well as in the forestalling of alternate energy infrastructure developments. U.S. reliance upon oil and gas is the basic adverse economic fact of life the government has nnever adequately addressed.
The troop surge in Afghanistan at one million dollars per soldier per year (54 billion dollars) is cheap compared to the costs of more than a trillion and a half so far of the Iraq mission so badly bungled by the former (Republican administration). The national health care debate would at least bring better health to Americans if defense could be accomplished against foreign terrorists in the United States and when abroad through more efficient economic-military methods. The economy of war is an essential factor itself in the strategies of the larger political conflict of the redistribution of political power from the United States to OPEC, Muhammadanist nations. The oil affiliated politicians such as former president G.W. Bush seem to care not at all about the economic well being of the public sector of the United States, nor that of poor, uninsured Americans. The incompetent, oil and Halliburton friendly policies enriched the military-oil industrial sector and impoverished much of the rest of the United States.
At a million dollars per soldier one hundred foreign mercenaries might be hired at ten thousand dollars per years to serve in Afghanistan for the price of one U.S. soldier. If there is some nation that could send some mercenaries to serve in Afghanistan that would subsequently destabilize neither U.S., Afghan or the source nation's policies that might be a practical approach to helping the Afghan government defend itself. Few have any reason to believe that a purely Afghan military would not defect to unfriendly allegiances once U.S. military expenses cease. The financial power of Muhammadanist extremists from OPEC countries can easily afford to finance destabilizing terror upon Afghanistan for decades. Some may choose to do so because of the very stupid, profligate U.S. financial responses militarily that create a gross profit for the Muhammadanist resumption of the ancient expansion of the Dar al Islam into the Dar al Harb.
One Hundred CEOs have banded together to urge that the U.S. Government support a radical increase in the green car fleet in the United States through electric vehicle production. The United States should also fund super-conductor power line research and development to power lines inn highways to recharge electric vehicles. This is a way of winning the war against fundamental Muhammandan oil economic terrorism loops. Non fossil fuel based national energy self-reliance is a vital interest of the United States.
A generation trained for consumerism and soaking up loans from Arab and Chinese export to America producers in an economic cycle has to change. Americans need to save money and export goods rather than import them. The value of the dollar is a problem, as is it's use as an essential global currency. The difficult and austere remedies for the U.S. economic crisis required have no recognizance of the other economic crisis occurring simultaneously in the ecological non-renewable foundation of classical economics. There are actually two concurrent economic crisis along with the problem of global warming. The first economic crisis with which we are more familiar has the attention of maybe 25% of the public regarding interest in changing to different yet challenging patterns, the second ecological economic crisis has the interest of environmental 'wackos' such as Al Gore and perhaps just 5% of the rest of us. When the planet's ecological health become a partisan political issue it is unfortunate
The ecological economics guru is Herman Dailey, author of the classic Ecological Economics textbook. His approach to the construction of an economy based on renewable stock fund resources (these are natural stock funds such as ocean currents for electric power) that are existentially public assets is brilliantly plain and consistent with the laws of thermodynamics and scientific measurement of physical resources quantitatively and qualitatively. Dailey had an articles published inn Scientific American in 1994 outlining the ecological economic efficiency of national self reliance on the production of select vital resources in order to conserve the cost of transportation and other hidden environmental costs.
In the United States and perhaps the world concentrated wealth has a tremendous competitive advantage in economics. Because of global stock markets ownership of many corporations by individuals through shares is common. That forms a de facto corporatist political core economically that has little ability to change significantly the fundamental non-renewable economic structure of nations. To transition to a renewable economic basis would undermine the phenomenal competitive advantages inherent in capitalism that create vast social inequalities such that elites enjoy financially and politically. It is notable that Harvard University graduates do fall on both sides of the debate about renewable economics, global warming and the reform of the present economic recession. Harvard in the White House, Larry Summers the former Harvard President, Al Gore Harvard grad, the Commerce Secretary Gary Locke of Harvard, Ralph Nader of Harvard; I believe that even Mr. Sachs-the ecological economic number two guru is a Harvard Grad. This makes the discussion of global fate something of a Harvard graduate intramural affair. I am not sure that the green team will win over the non-renewable sector. If worst gets to worst we can have another Harvard low-brow such as G.W. Bush appear on the scene to get the 'real people' to support the Harvard solution in ascension at the moment.
Solving the U.S. recession on a long range basis would require that Harvard Grads prioritize the United States first as their nation of interest. They would need to second rate their global corporate interests. They would need to support security of the southern U.S. border instead of encouraging the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S.A. Even today the congressional faction supporting Mexican illegal alien interests is holding a national health care bill for poor U.S. citizens hostage. They demand that citizens pay for the illegal proletariat health care too. With enough globalist in congress it will eventually become impossible for the Congress to pass any legislation of advantage to American citizens without grafting off the entire globe. This recession was a phenomena of getting rid of the deadwood U.S. employees for a second round of profit taking in the years ahead. It is improbable that an ecological economic policy founded on a decreased disparity in income between rich and poor required for a renewable economic structure could pass through a U.S. Government so influenced by graduates of Harvard University in support of global corporatism and essentially unwilling to ever reallocate power from the advantaged by non-renewable global corporate business to ordinary American citizens. The smoke and mirrors is mildly interesting to watch, of course lifetime expires in the process and what can be observed is the comfort of the rich and treasonous globalists that amuse themselves in the pursuit of win-win global economics while the environment and American security declines.