Gore calls for major protests

on climate change inaction

By Russell Berman

The Hill

08/17/10 - Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change.

In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need,” Gore linked to and quoted from an Australian wire service report that “tens of thousands of protesters … have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.”

“Across the world, when politicians fail to take action to solve the climate crisis, people are taking action,” Gore wrote.

He added after excerpting the news report: “It is my hope we see activism like this here in the United States.”

Gore noted he trained activists in Australia to deliver the slideshow that formed the basis for the documentary film that won him an Academy Award. A representative of Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection addressed the rally in Sydney.

Gore has in recent weeks stepped up his criticism of the Senate for its inability to pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill that would put a price on carbon. In a conference call with environmental activists last week, he reportedly said “the United States government in its entirety, largely because of the opposition in the United States Senate to taking action on clean energy and a solution to the climate crisis, has failed us.”

Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/114717-al-gore-calls-for-us-protests-on-climate-change-inaction

Entretien avec Carl Davidson, économiste “vert“

Carl Davidson à Paris, le 16 juin 2010

“La marée noire peut aider à faire passer la loi sur les énergies renouvelables“

Quelles sont pour vous les mesures les plus urgentes à prendre après cette catastrophe ?
Le principal problème est d’arrêter la fuite d’hydrocarbure. C’est un problème technique qu’Obama ne sait pas régler plus que moi, il est donc en train de rassembler les meilleurs scientifiques et techniciens pour y réfléchir.
Dans un second temps, il faut s’assurer que BP paiera pour le nettoyage et je pense qu’il y arrivera sans trop de problème (BP a accepté de payer le 17 juin NDLR). ....

[Full English translation follows]

What do you see as the most urgent measures to be taken by President Obama after this ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? Will the oil spill lead to better laws on renewable energy?

The main immediate problem is to stop the leakage of oil. It is a severe technical problem that Obama does not know any more than I do about how to stop it. So at this point it’s first a matter is putting together the best scientists and engineers engaged in this kind of production to think through a solution. Obama knows that will include BP employees, and others as well.

In a second step, Obama must ensure that BP will pay for the cleanup. I think he will get it verbally without too much problem (BP agreed to pay Ed June 17). Following through is another matter.

Bringing the Heat: A Tale of Two Bills

Forget Cap-and Trade.

This is a Climate Bill

You Can Love.

By Bill McKibben

The New Republic, April 5, 2010

This is a tale of two bills—a tale that illuminates how policy-making may unfold under the most progressive administration, and most Democratic Congress, in a generation. And it’s not a tale with an especially happy ending.

The target of both bills is carbon. From the start, President Obama has said that climate and energy legislation would come second in his administrative batting order, only after health care reform. (Originally, he thought that would mean last fall, but health care was like a hitter who fouled off pitch after pitch. Since it took forever, we get to the next priority with the midterm elections already looming on the horizon.) The intellectual problem is relatively simple: How do you put a price on carbon so that we burn less of it, and hence prevent the potentially catastrophic heating of the atmosphere? The political problem is immense: How do you change a system that has rewarded energy companies with the greatest profits of any industry in any era, and that has shaped the American psyche and landscape by providing endless, cheap fossil fuel?

The most straightforward answer, of course, would be a simple tax on coal and gas and oil. Europe began that approach 60 years ago, and, as a result, the continent has dense and livable cities, great train systems, and half the energy use per person. But we live in a society where “tax” is a scary word, and so, from the beginning, everyone has hunted for an alternative, a tax-that-isn’t-a-tax. Both the bills I’ll describe use the same basic mechanism: a cap on the amount of carbon that the country produces, a cap that goes steadily down as the years go on. The law of supply and demand stipulates that such a cap would raise the price of fossil fuel, which, in turn, would cause us to slowly Eurofy.