Gore: 100pc renewable electricity in 10 years
In 1961 JFK set down a challenge to the people of America to put an American on the moon by the end of the decade. No one thought it could be done but, with 4 months to spare they made it. This story was retold by Al Gore in a speech to Washington yesterday as he lay down his own challenge for the American people - to move to 100pc renewable electricity within 10 years.
There is no getting around it, this is an impressive challenge to be met. It will need the houses (Senate and Representatives) to stop bickering. It will need a vastly different type of president than Bush. And it will need the commitment, taxes and incentives to all be there but the technology is already coming through. Greenbang believes it is possible and everything from wind, wave, microgeneration, solar, basically you name it, will be needed.
As Gore states:
“This is a generational moment… we must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history… our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for human kind.”
Fyi — Gore dropped the phrase “the carbon age” into his address — a topic that I have given an enormous amount of thought to. Last week in fact my book of that title, The Carbon Age, came out, the result of four years of reading thousands of journal articles, interviewing hundreds of people, and reading many, many books.
I’m a former climate reporter for Time magazine. The book emerged from my conclusion that “carbon” — in climate, energy, what to eat (or avoid), aerospace, sporting goods — is the most important word people know the least about.
Rob Cahill Says:
It is great to see this kind of leadership from Gore. Clearly, the lack of a coherent national energy and climate policy has led individuals like Gore and T. Boone Pickens to try to fill the vacuum. Gore’s plan, however, has challenges, notably trying to scale up renewables and convert our transportation fleet to electric. Read about more of the challenges here: http://cleantalk.org/2008/07/6-reasons-gore-will-fail/