We've heard, almost ad nauseum, about carbon footprints, green jobs, and the standard "lose our dependence on foreign oil" until many of us just want to say "all right, already. we get it". While all these things are good, we have yet to hear what we as a country need to hear--a serious smackdown challenge to the entire nation. These things we talk about, such as the recent cap and trade legislation, are all nice but they don't go nearly far enough. We need the president to say the following:
We will be completely off ALL fossil fuels within twenty years
That's right, I said ALL fossil fuels. Oil, natural gas, coal, you name it. And within twenty years. Especially now, forty years after Apollo 11 showed us how far we can advance in less than a decade. When President Kennedy told us we would do it, we didn't know how to do it, or what we were doing, we just did it. That's the goal here--clean, renewable, and dirt cheap (like almost free) energy and fuel sources.
I know it sounds like an unreachable goal. It will take a complete invention of a totally new technology. Technology for manufacturing, for power generation, for transportation, for power consumption in the home.
What will it take? A one hundred percent committment on the part of schools and universities to focus on science. Tax grants and benefits to researchers. Grants for ideas, no matter how bizzarre. To pay for it? Here's the fun part. The major oil and energy companies which make billions from us can afford a surtax for some of this research and development, and incentives can be offered to them to do much of this research for themselves--after all, if you give them a piece of the action, as it were, they'll be more amenable to change. We will, of course, write into law that the "conversion costs" and rates must be no more than x amount, so no one goes cold in winter or bakes in summer or cannot afford it. Profit is not a dirty word, we just have to make sure it's not exploited. It may also take unprecedented international cooperation as ministries of science all over the world coordinate and governments contribute their share of treasure to achieve this goal.
The benefits? Obviously, for the environmentalists and climatologists, the benefits are self evident. The biggest benefits, however will be non environment related. Think of the gift to the world this would be if we were to share this technology without profit. And if this effort were truly international, think of the progress for true peace if all nations contribute to the effort.
Another benefit? It is an open secret that written into State Department policies is the admonition to keep the oil flowing, as it were. This has polluted our diplomatic, economic, and military brances for decades. We must keep the oil flowing. Kowtowing to repressive regimes, making nice with dictators, looking the other way when women are treated worse than anything we ever did during slavery times. When the oil producing nations start seeing their profits, and more importantly, their political power vanishing as the march towards no fossil fuels continues, we can engage in real diplomacy to steer the way to a path of peace, equality, and justice for all. Plus, it also forces the West into seriously getting involved in the establishment of Palestine.
I know I'm starting to sound all Roddenberry with the sweetness and light, but as these transformational episodes happen (like universal health care), reasons and causes of conflicts vanish, and all that's left are the increasingly irrelevant non-change elements (freepers, ultra rightists, and the like), who will eventually fade away (although there will be noise from them, just not too much we hope).
So Anyway, that's my story. Now it's up to us to start the ball rolling and making noise about the elimination of all fossil fuels. It may be covered as just some noise from the lunatic left at first, but with our net power, we can push it into the mainstream rather rapidly.