It’s Beginning
“America must commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and other clean sources within 10 years.”
Al Gore’s recent speech on a clean energy economy inspired me to finally begin this blog. This blog promotes progress in the name of sustainability in all its forms: ecological, social, and economic. Really, ecology, society and the economy are intricately linked, so when addressing one, you inevitably address the others.
Here is a 5-minute preview to the speech.
Please watch the entire speech. It’s a bit long, but worth every minute.
Despite my political differences with Gore, I was very impressed with his speech, which pulled few punches about the situation we are in today. He handled it the way a politician should: he laid out the problems and then stated solutions, while continuously weaving empowering words throughout the speech. He did not address some of the more gloomy truth. The fact is that our entire culture of consumerism and growth must change, or we will continue to come up against problems relating to resource depletion and unsustainability. But that must be reserved for those of us who work more outside the system. When dealing with the mainstream public, you must spoon feed them one piece of information at a time. Changing the entire infrastructure of a country to suit clean energy is enough for a person to have to deal with, without also being told they must change their entire lifestyle.
Surprisingly, Gore addressed peak oil (though he doesn’t label it as such) and successfully outlined the biggest problems that our society faces today. He even suggests some sort of Just Transition for displaced workers such as coal miners, though he doesn’t specify the policy instruments that will be used.
This blog will address the very things Gore mentioned, but in greater detail. To learn more about Gore’s innovative project to combat climate change, go to the We Campaign website.
