Sunday, July 20, 2008

Gore/Off-Shore


Former Vice President Al Gore on efforts by some politicians to alleviate our current economic woes through off-shore drilling: "Going back over and over and over again to the old ways of the past just puts off the reckoning with the opportunity that we need to seize now, to shift over to renewable sources of energy."

2 comments:

LDS Kid said...

Gore said some pretty outrageous statements during that interview. A good example would be when he stated in 40 minutes enough sunlight hits the earth to power a years worth of ...well.... america. Yeah, thats like saying "There is enough water in the ocean to get rid of all thirst." True? yes. Relevant? not really. The problem with wind/solar isn't the goods, we know the light is free. The problem is the technology is still quite pricy. Pollution is a problem that needs to be controlled but lets all be honest here, Gore is just a tiny bit off his rocker. And even if we don't allow drilling in anwar, must we also not allow new refineries, power plants, and other energy freeing expansions of our industry? Much of Europe has accepted nuclear power, why can't we. After all, its not like many americans have bought into the fear mongering about how nuclear power plants will give your kids cancer and blow up... oh wait.... never mind.

Sorry for the long comment. I guess i should take my soap-box over to my blog. ^_^ *ahem* But yes, Gore's interview was definitely of some interest.

highway163 said...

Fair points all, lds kid. I suppose, rocking a bit with Al, I'd emphasize that simply because we cannot (to use your crafty illustration) desalinize all that water now, there's no reason to believe that we shouldn't spend the time and effort to learn how to in the future. *If* you believe that the crap thrown into the air by carbon-based energy production is actually throwing our climate into an emergency, *then* the ten-year Apollo-Program-type timeline begins to make more sense.

And then there's nuclear. I'm all for it, once we figure out a way to get rid of the waste. Much of it can be used for other purposes, I suppose. But any process that requires us to bury it somewhere needs to be rethought a bit.