He wants to eliminate carbon-based fuels within a decade:
“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Gore said.
In a speech at Washington’s Constitution Hall, Gore touched on an array of the nation’s current woes, saying the economic, environmental and national security crises are all related.
“I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously,” Gore said.
To begin to fix all the problems, Gore said, “the answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.”
He actually went even further and said that “the future of human civilization is at stake.” And as if all if this isn’t melodramatic and unrealistic enough for you he wants a completely bizarre taxation system in place as well:
Mr. Gore said the most important policy change in the transformation would be taxes on carbon dioxide production, with an accompanying reduction in payroll taxes. “We should tax what we burn, not what we earn,” he said.
It gets even crazier:
“We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry,” he said by way of example. “Every single one of them.”
The energy crisis is serious and solving it will require realistic proposals. This, on the other hand, is absolute insanity, even by Gore’s standards. I can’t imagine anyone, other than possibly the guy who hires Directors of Greening, to give this pitch serious consideration.
2 Responses
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July 17th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
It is times like this, that I am glad the Supreme Court decided that George W. Bush had fewer legitimate votes and was therefore the ‘rightful’ heir to the White House in the year 2000.
All Gore is interested in, is a sustainable energy plan and a sound environmental strategy for America. That is NOT the sort of good planning and wise foresight that a Republican-run America wants! Gore should go back to writing books and winning prestigious international awards, and leave the governing of the USA to greedy white religious crackpots and their corporate puppetmasters.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Someone had to say what Al Gore is saying; someone has to be intellectually honest and willing to speak out and clearly as Al Gore is doing.
Emergent and convergent global challenges, ominously looming before the family of humanity on the far horizon, threaten the future of human civilizations, life as know it and the efficacy of Earth as a fit place for human habitation:
the human overpopulation of Earth;
the pending loss of adequate fossil fuel reserves and other vital energy sources due to unrestrained international plundering;
the dissipation of limited resources due to reckless per-capita overconsumption;
the problems of global warming in particular and climate change more generally; and
the insufficiently bridled pollution of air, land and water as well as precipitating irreversible degradation of the planet’s frangible ecosystems services due to relentless industrialization and unregulated economic globalization.
Who knows, perhaps necessary change is in the offing.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php