Alien Drums

“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.” — Al Gore, quoted in The New York Times

Mr. Gore is doing our political system a great service. He is standing apart from the campaign battle in order to raise broader issues. His latest challenge is commendable — to move the entire U.S. energy grid to a carbon-free approach in 10 years. Even supporters of the direction question the timetable, but it conveys the urgency of this need for change.

There are two basic challenges–technological and political. I suspect the latter is the bigger.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from The New York Times story that I loved:

Like a modern Jeremiah, Mr. Gore called down thunder to justify the spending of trillions of dollars to remake the American power system, a plan fraught with technological and political challenges that goes far beyond the changes recently debated in Congress and by world leaders.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” he said in a midday speech to a friendly crowd of mostly young supporters in Washington. “And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”