Bill's Big Diamond Blog

America's Future and Clean Energy

Where ink is being spilled at all over Al Gore’s call for a carbon-free electrical grid in the United States, so far it’s mostly been used to ridicule the totality of the goal. It’s fascinating to see resistance and denial mount, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that humanity is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. What is it that makes climate change so hard to face?

It’s been suggested that our denial stems from the more immediate challenges we must deal with, what with our tanking economy and a lack of public confidence in the direction of the country generally. It’s certainly true that the U.S. faces huge economic issues; rising joblessness, a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions, and huge increases in energy costs. But addressing these problems could easily dovetail with addressing global warming.

Here’s how:

An investment in clean energy development could spur major increases in employment— in the short term. If the federal government were to favor clean energy production in some of the same ways the Germans already do, a boom in solar and other energy companies would make for a hiring boom in this sector. Development of electric cars with higher MPG ratings would help Detroit dig out of the crisis it’s now in, fighting layoffs and factory closings. Additionally, increased investments in mass transit would require construction workers get to work now, rather than waiting for housing starts to come around again in the distant future.

The prospect that more domestic energy production is on the way soon would ease the leverage that OPEC countries have over America’s long-term strategic interests. The outflow of military money and diplomatic energy that currently goes towards keeping Saudi princes in power and towards securing oil fields in the Middle East and Persia, with all of the attendant exposure to tribal and religious conflicts in that region would diminish. This reduced security exposure could strengthen the struggling U.S. domestic economy.

The ever-present schism in American politics between those who oppose foreign intervention to protect domestic economic interests and those who unflinchingly support U.S. military strength would tend to lessen, as both goals would align more closely. The often tortured logic that separates human rights and self-interest would be less pragmatically attractive to our leaders. As our energy footprint became more independent of foreign raw materials sources, our security interests would change in a holistic way too.

The current cynicism and lack of enthusiasm for the future that plagues the American economy and political system would be tremendously lessened by a patriotic and forward-looking goal that addresses the biggest problems facing the world. If Americans look back with fond feeling on the optimism that built the post-World War II boom years in our nation, a fresh dedication to new challenges facing the 21st century world would provide a positive outlet for the can-do attitude that made that American era of prosperity possible in the first place.

The broad outlines of our choice are starkly clear. Either Americans embrace the challenge of clean energy— and national renewal— fully, or we retreat into denial and defensiveness, also limiting our future view to the immediate and pessimistic horizon. Either we divide further into haves and have-nots or look for common solutions together. The goals outlined in the climate change fight are up for discussion and refinement. The facts facing us are not. America has led the world, for better and for worse, to the crisis we now face. It’s up to us whether we choose to lead the way out of it as well.

Karadzic Arrested in Serbia for War Crimes

Radovan Karadzic was arrested by the Serbian secret police “not far from Belgrade,” according to government officials. He will apparently be extradited to The Hague for trial on war crimes charges stemming from his involvement in the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

Karadzic’s arrest leaves Ratko Mladic, also charged at The Hague, still at large. The new Serbian government has pledged to bring the country into the European Union. The status of Karadzic and Mladic, who have remained free for years in Serbia has been cited as an obstacle to Serbia’s acceptance into the trading bloc.

NY Times:

The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The
Hague indicted the former leader on July 24, 1995,
just days after thousands of unarmed Bosnian men
were executed in and around Srebrenica, a United
Nations-protected enclave that was overrun by the
Bosnian Serb military and the police. Their forces
were assisted closely by Serbian troops sent by
Belgrade.

The prosecution charged him with genocide,
persecution, deportation and other crimes
committed against non-Serb civilians in Bosnia
during the 1992-95 war.

He was indicted together with his chief military
commander, Mr. Mladic, who is also believed to be
in Serbia.

More Timetable Endorsements from Baghdad

It’s show-time in Baghdad. After meeting Obama, the Iraqi PM-beat goes on.

Now the official spokesman for Prime Minister al-Maliki, Ali al-Dabbagh, is saying, (and not in German either), exactly what he claimed the Prime Minister was misquoted as offering to Der Spiegel about endorsing Barack Obama’s timetable for withdrawal of American troops by 2010.

One can only imagine what’s going on at the White House and at McCain headquarters. I guess one McCain consultant's frank quote to Marc Ambinder the other day may be the party line by this evening.

Was there another issue McCain was hoping might break his way?

The Unreliable Puppet

It looks more and more likely that the Iraqi government has decided it will do better with an Obama Administration than it is doing with its current US partners.

As many speculated last week, it seems the Iraqis have decided there’s more to gain by stretching out currently stalled negotiations over long-term U.S. troop postings in Iraq than by signing a pact now. The Iraqis probably hope for better bargaining with a President Obama in 2009 (or that this position enhances Iraqi strength at the table now). Accepting U.S. carte blanche on a Status of Forces Agreement the Bush regime has been pushing on them is becoming politically distasteful within Iraq and throughout the Middle East and Persia, even to a puppet regime.

Maliki’s resistance must be a tremendous slap to our President. However, there’s zero likelihood that Bush will allow things in Iraq to devolve militarily during the remaining months before the election (except through massive incompetence, which is always a possibility with his crowd), even if the al-Maliki regime provokes him tremendously. Bush’s main goal still has to be making Iraq look stable for the electorate back home, no matter how angry the Iraqis make him.

So when the Iraqi Prime Minister gives a nod to candidate Obama’s U.S. troop withdrawal timetable in his Der Spiegel interview— and then only weakly denies the translation— we can assume he hopes the U.S. electoral fallout will help him at home. He’s not playing the reliable puppet right now.

This could get interesting— and become a complex game— if Maliki keeps calling Bush's bluff.

The Electric Horseman

You have to hope that we’re seeing the advent of an era of challenge and effort on clean energy and cleaner transportation. If we aren’t, we’re all surely cooked (literally). Perhaps, Al Gore’s declaration about moving to a carbon-free energy grid in the coming decade will set down a piece of the challenge.

Gore has demanded an Apollo-scale effort towards changing the energy grid over. As the former Vice President laid out in his address yesterday, our geopolitical and economic problems have a direct overlay with our climate problems:

…when you connect the dots, it turns out that the
real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same
measures needed to renew our economy and
escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices.
Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we
need to guarantee our national security without
having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

Al Gore says what politicians who are running for office can’t— that our culture is running out of time to change our ways. He can afford to point out the drastic nature of the energy shift required. If we don’t stop burning up all the carbon on the planet for electricity and transportation, heating it up and disrupting the climate, our progeny won’t be around for long. While transportation is a huge portion of the problem, the energy grid is related. Gore’s goal addresses this important piece of the carbon puzzle and the economic needs of consumers:

We could further increase the value and efficiency
of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling
auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in
electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply
reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution,
and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid. At
the same time, of course, we need to greatly
improve our commitment to efficiency and
conservation. That’s the best investment we can
make.

The economic fallout of the climate crisis is huge— and getting Americans in line with facing it also means supporting economic justice in the process. Gore is cognizant of this:

Of course, we could and should speed up this
transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based
energy include the costs of the environmental
damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp
reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made
up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not
what we earn.

According to Gore, there’s even more good news for strapped consumers in electric power renewal from a transportation perspective:

…there actually is one extremely effective way to
bring the costs of driving a car way down within a
few short years. The way to bring gas prices down
is to end our dependence on oil and use the
renewable sources that can give us the equivalent
of $1 per gallon gasoline.

One can hope he’s getting through to enough decision-makers to open up some political space for discussion about the biggest crisis we face as a species. However, if press and blogosphere reaction to Gore’s speech yesterday is any indication, we have a long way to go in the U.S. before we take climate change seriously. Gore himself may be partly responsible for the mixed reaction to his speech (with comments like those on tornado activity), but largely, it’s the inertia in our political system that’s to blame for a lack of MSM-ruckus today.

Gore’s yardstick— a total, decade-long shift to carbon-free energy production, may not be totally achievable, but it’s only possible to motivate the nation with a complete goal (50% of something only inspires people halfway, no?).

In the end, with due respect for honest critiques and realistic qualifications, any goal to clean up the energy grid has to aim high and take the risk of falling short. The only way to put this challenge in context is to consider the other option:

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I
respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s
scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we
don’t act in 10 years. The leading experts predict
that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic
changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose
our ability to ever recover from this environmental
crisis.

Gore points out that a decade may be as far away as Americans will believe in a goal being meaningful, especially to a political system which responds not at all to longer-term goals, but at least has experience with the space program:

Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a
nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.
When President John F. Kennedy challenged our
nation to land a man on the moon and bring him
back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we
could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2
months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
walked on the surface of the moon.

The telling factor for energy success may be seeing how much Gore has learned about realpolitik since the 2000 Florida debacle. Whether the We Campaign creates enough leverage as a movement to address climate crisis depends heavily on whether the once-would-be President Gore is still willing to step politely aside for those who would grab power more rudely— or whether he’s learned what a street fight is all about.

Whether Gore is the perfect leader or not, we ought to hope he’s ready to fight and win this battle. When it comes to global warming, the loser won’t be around long to look dignified in defeat.

MSM Unpacks Viral Dirt— By Attacking The New Yorker

After days of MSM craziness about the Obamas in the Oval Office New Yorker cover, perhaps the best comment I’ve read is by illustrator Steve Brodner. From a political art perspective, he sees Blitt’s cover succeeding beyond any expectation. If the goal was to unpack the viral whispering campaign branding the Obamas with vicious rumors about “terrorist fist bumps,” Black racism, and a secret Islamist Manchurian candidate—it has. The unexpected help from a “shocked” MSM only serves to make the point to a much larger audience.

Brodner (in The Nation):

…basically we have the Wolf Blitzers pretending not
to get this to rev up ratings which rely, largely, on
the "outrage of the day." However, in that process a
dialogue is forced, satire is discussed, the truth
about Obama is put on the table. And so, even if it's
taking the long way to get there, Barry Blitt's strong
image does what we need it to do: put these issues
up for discussion and in a very real way, educate
America.

(PS- If anyone's still interested, the Ryan Lizza article about Obama's Chicago political roots inside the New Yorker is worthwhile too.)

Obama's Speech to NAACP Delivers More Than 'Sister Souljah Moment'

In yet another sign that he intends to win the 2008 election, rather than simply score points with his base alone, Barack Obama “re-admonished” African-Americans over taking personal responsibility and most particularly over parenting issues. What’s more, Obama was received with a standing ovation by conventioneers at the national meeting of the NAACP in Cincinnati for doing so.

Jesse Jackson is probably particularly irked at being ignored for his criticism of Obama for “talking down” to African-Americans, but even in that, Obama has picked a sparring partner who helps him with White voters and with a younger generation of African-Americans who view Jackson as part of the past.

The full speech, however, shows Obama’s less publicized, but more significant comments— and provides the context in which his advocacy for greater responsibility within the community is so well received. Here are some excerpts from the full speech that aren’t being covered much today:

…social justice is not enough. As Dr. King once said,
“the inseparable twin of racial justice is economic
justice.”

…it matters little if you have the right to sit at the
front of the bus if you can’t afford the bus fare; it
matters little if you have the right to sit at the lunch
counter if you can’t afford the lunch. What they
understood is that so long as Americans are denied
the decent wages, and good benefits, and fair
treatment they deserve, the dream for which so
many gave so much will remain out of reach; that to
live up to our founding promise of equality for all, we
have to make sure that opportunity is open to all
Americans.

…When CEOs are making more in ten minutes than
the average worker earns in a year, and millions of
families lose their homes due to unscrupulous
lending, checked neither by a sense of corporate
ethics or a vigilant government; when the dream of
entering the middle class and staying there is fading
for young people in our community, we have more
work to do.

When any human being is denied a life of dignity
and respect, no matter whether they live in
Anacostia or Appalachia or a village in Africa; when
people are trapped in extreme poverty we know
how to curb or suffering from diseases we know
how to prevent; when they’re going without the
medicines that they so desperately need – we have
more work to do.

…We’ll guarantee health care for anyone who
needs it, make it affordable for anyone who wants it,
and ensure that the quality of your health care does
not depend on the color of your skin. And we’re not
going to do it 20 years from now or 10 years from
now, we’re going to do it by the end of my first term
as President of the United States of America.

And here’s what else we’ll do – we’ll make sure that
every child in this country gets a world-class
education from the day they’re born until the day
they graduate from college.

…And if people tell you that we cannot afford to
invest in education or health care or fighting
poverty, you just remind them that we are spending
$10 billion a month in Iraq. And if we can spend that
much money in Iraq, we can spend some of that
money right here in Cincinnati, Ohio and in big cities
and small towns in every corner of this country.

Here's the full speech:

Retooling America to End Oil Addiction

Care of the lovely folks at Gristmill, I’m excerpting today from a piece by Jack Hidary of SmartTransportation.org about what’s needed to address the oil crisis and our economic woes in Detroit. Read the entire post at Gristmill:

To decrease the use of oil in our cars we need the
kind of retooling we did for World War II. In 1941 we
asked Detroit to refit all their factories from pumping
out cars to manufacturing planes and tanks.

Now we are in another war. A war against this
debilitating addiction. We must ask Detroit and all
automakers in America, foreign and domestic, to
retool immediately to make cars of more than 30
mpg, hybrids of 40+ mpg and the mass scaling of
plug-in hybrids that connect to our electric grid.

We must give the automakers the means to do this.
Automakers are in trouble and cannot retool on their
own. We should offer them loan guarantees and
give incentives to private capital to invest in an
immediate restructuring of all car plants.

…Our national energy labs have concluded that we
could replace more than half of all cars in the U.S.
with plug-in hybrids and not have to add even one
power plant. There is plenty of spare capacity at
night.
We should give the utilities the ability to make the
same profit off of efficiency gains as generating
electrons and give them the capital to upgrade our
to a smart network. This will create millions of high
and low-tech jobs as we move to a 21st century bit-
enabled electricity grid.

... let's leverage private capital to build out
public transport. While replacing cars is critical, we
must move more Americans around using shared
systems. High gas prices have already pushed
public ridership to new highs. Let us meet this
demand by putting at least $100 billion of public and
private money into this infrastructure.

…We need to get U.S. workers back on the job and
retool our economy now for this new reality. We are
up to this challenge, but we must act now.

Obama on Iraqi Government Request for Timetable: Let's Agree to Withdrawal Schedule

As we thought, Barack Obama is embracing the al-Maliki government’s indication that it wants a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. Obama is going on the offensive against the McCain Iraq strategy. He has a Times op-ed out framing the issue around the Iraqis’ pushback to the Bush Administration request for an open-ended Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

From Obama’s article:

…the Bush administration and Senator McCain are
refusing to embrace this transition — despite their
previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s
sovereign government. They call any timetable for
the removal of American troops “surrender,” even
though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign
Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a
strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of
the Iraqi people, the American people and the
security interests of the United States.

The Dark Side

“I don’t want to hear about that anymore!”

— John Ashcroft on the presence of Al Qaeda operatives (soon to be 9/11 hijackers) in the United States, 2001.

Is anyone still wondering why the Bush Administration didn’t want a 9/11 Commission or why their cooperation was so poor once the Commission was inevitable?

(See Frank Rich on Jane Mayer’s book, The Dark Side)

excerpt from Rich:

In her telling, a major incentive for Mr. Cheney’s
descent into the dark side was to cover up for the
Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda
threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for
the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002,
told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all
preventable.”

from Random House:

In the days immediately following September 11th,
the most powerful people in the country were
panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to
combat terrorists and strengthen national security
were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but
the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and
his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington,
used the crisis to further a long held agenda to
enhance Presidential powers to a degree never
known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional
protections that define the very essence of the
American experiment.

Iraq Resists SOFA Agreement for Permanent U.S. Presence

A consensus, rare on any subject about Iraq, is growing around Iraqi lawmakers’ resistance to a permanent Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States. The al-Maliki government is under both domestic and Arab pressure to refuse any agreement which is open-ended with the Bush Administration and would provide for permanent bases in Iraq. The possibility is growing that the Iraqis will hold out for a deadline, possibly flexible, with a new Administration.

This means that the current internationally recognized basis for coalition forces in Iraq may expire in December without a new agreement in place. The effect this developing reality will exert on the U.S. election could be significant, since Barack Obama backs a U.S. withdrawal and John McCain supports an open-ended commitment to an Iraqi occupation. The acceptance of a deadline as a part of any agreement will tend to reinforce the Obama campaign's position that a long-term occupation can't work.

Bush Tanks at G8

In today’s Bushism, from the UK’s Telegraph, we note an awkward moment at the Japan summit of G8 leaders, as our President found a novel way to end the meeting with fellow world heads of state:

The American leader, who has been condemned
throughout his presidency for failing to tackle
climate change, ended a private meeting with the
words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as
the rest of those present including Gordon Brown
and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

How to lighten up the moment, Bushie. Perhaps lighting up an oil spill would have really been a fitting send-off.

Reich on Bullies

In today’s NY Times Magazine, Robert Reich is asked about various things, including what advantages accrue to being only 4 foot 10-1/2 inches tall. Along with the fuel-efficiency of being little, Reich has to admit— there are drawbacks:

Q: What are the disadvantages of shortness?

REICH: I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. I was
actually beat up because I was little. People
frequently tell me in interviews that they were bullied
as children. But no one ever steps forward and
says, “I was the bully.” They don’t want to admit to
being a bully.

Q: What do you think playground bullies grow
up to be?

REICH: Right-wing Republicans.

Kennedy Begins Process, Meetings, to Enact Universal Care Early in 2009

Here’s an item of significant interest. Apparently, Senator Kennedy’s office is holding meetings intended to ready the upper chamber to introduce universal healthcare legislation immediately next year. The meetings sponsored by Kennedy are intended to open communications between Senate staffers now, so that major issues to be resolved between Democratic leaders in the body are not an obstacle to passage.

According to the Boston Globe, “Kennedy believes it is extremely important to move as quickly as possible on overhauling the healthcare system after the next president takes office in January in order to capitalize on the momentum behind a new administration.”

The legislation would achieve Kennedy’s lifelong goal of enacting universal care in the United States, even as he fights a brain tumor threatening his own longevity.

Welcome to Heaven, Jessie

Since the unrepentant Senator Helms had already lived to see an African American nominated for President, all that's left for his spirit now is a trip to heaven—in San Francisco.