I was recently forwarded this email from Al Gore’s WE Repower America website. They have a call to action based on their belief that a majority of Americans support carbon “cap and trade”, even though recent Gallup polls suggest Americans are otherwise preoccupied with things like their own economic survival.
WE suggests writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to counter what they say: “misleading statements were repeated on TV and in newspapers across the country.”
Gosh.
Read the letter below.
I agree, WUWT readers should make their opinions known (pro and con as we have both here) about carbon cap and trade. I suggest using the handy dandy link from the WE email above (or here) to let your local newspaper editors know just what you think about it.
The letter link has a handy dandy 3 step wizard where you can use forms to write a letter to your local newspaper, complete with an automated sender to the letters to the editor section of every newspaper in the USA. They’ve kindly included shrink wrapped talking points ready to cut and paste so you don’t have to think for yourself. All you have to remember is your ZIP code.
Bear in mind, short letters of 150 words or less usually get preference, although some newspapers will allow up to 250 words. Also, letters “usually” must be your original work, as newspaper editors have a way to detect email campaigns where common phrases are repeated. And, I suggest that you don’t post your letters here in comments, this should remain your individual communication, should you choose to participate.
Thank goodness we live in a Democracy where free speech is allowed. Exercise it today. We can do it!
Bah. Now I have to copy the “denial” comments up here.
After a while.
My fingers keep doing a funny thing. I think “denial”, fingers type either “denile” (which I am afraid to visit but would like to) or “denali” which I would dearly love to visit again.
‘They’ve kindly included shrink wrapped talking points ready to cut and paste so you don’t have to think for yourself. All you have to remember is your ZIP code.’
‘so you don’t have to think for yourself.’
Sounds like something Madoff would say to get you to invest with him.
“In one case, opponents of clean energy misquoted an MIT study so badly that the author wrote to them”……
Hmmmm, sounds familiar.
Frist there was a BTU tax. Then came a CO2 (tax) Cap and trade. How it’s been renamed again.
The new and improved term.
Carbon cap and trade.
How’s that, Matt? Was your MIT study so badly misquoted that you had to write to “them”?
Well you couldn’t just have the entire country powered by wind for example unless you want every square mile of every remaining natural vista, national forest, and national park covered in windmills and half of them breaking down in a year. Better have those little windmills in development that can go on rooftops, plenty of room in cities and plenty of wind tunnel effects between buildings.
This country has well over 100 years of coal left, while burning the coal and letting the plants enjoy the extra CO2, that’s 100 years to figure out how to power America when the coal runs out.
Matt B – What does clean energy have to do with CO2’s influence or non-influence on the earth’s temperature?
Absolutely brilliant!
Recycle nuclear waste, we have thousands of years of energy available without generating CO2 if we want using existing technology. We don’t need additional economic hardship in these tough economic times. We already have the technology to generate gigawatts of emission-free power.
Heh, and I just got the confirmation message from my local paper that my letter had been forwarded. Absolutely stellar.
I see a phone number is required.
Don’t you think using their form to send your email to the newspapers in your area will end up putting you on several of their related call lists?
Better off doing it directly yourself.
Reply: (321) 555-1234 seems to work, however most newspapers require a working phone number (in case they wish to confirm you as real) and to my knowledge the news department never shares phone numbers with circulation. – Anthony
Matt B – the human race exhales over 3 Billion lbs of CO2 per day.
Is this clean energy?
People really should read this PDF. It explains it in language most can understand.
Wow,
I sent emails to lots and lots of papers. I just got a confirmation from the L A Times! Even Matt Howes, of The We Campaign, thanked me for sending my email to those papers! I hope my letter is printed in every single newspaper and the people of America slam cap and trade!
Thank you, Al Gore for helping me express myself.
Mike Bryant
I just “tweeted” (is that a word?) this. Hope you get a lot of response.
thanks for the tip Anthony. I did send an email and was nice. I even used my spell checker to insure they wouldn’t get the wrong impression of this old boy from Alabama. I do hope to hear from some of them. I do expect to start to get emails from mr. gore. Perhaps I will answer him also.
Again thanks,
Bill Derryberry
REPLY: thanks Bill
Reply 2: That should be ensure, not insure ~ charles the (I only did it cuz you mentioned the spell checker) moderator and part time grammar nazi.
Splendid :). I enjoyed using The Alliance for Climate Protection’s form to push nuclear fission and fusion as the only logical and reliable source of clean energy. Made me feel good, that did – even more so when I got a confirmation email from The We Campaign thanking me.
I shall sleep well tonight… ;).
This country has well over 100 years of coal left
And in 100 years, we’ll probably have 500 years of coal left. Assuming we’re still using the stuff. That’s how it works. (That’s how the Club of Rome screwed it up so badly.)
Thanks for the opportunity to express myself to so many locations using the letterhead of “Repower America.” I hope it backfires on them, but it probably won’t.
REPLY: Actually, given this Alexa analysis, I think we have a pretty good chance of getting a message out: click to see comparison – Anthony
I’ll take the opportunity to write my letter as well, but here’s a couple thoughts. The Internet is a wonderful thing, for example allow us to express our views here. On the other hand, well funded propaganda machines like this one can really control the agenda. Kind of scary.
Joe,
“the human race exhales over 3 Billion lbs of CO2 per day”…
And if you think that’s got the SLIGHTEST thing to do with why excess fossil carbon is such a danger then you have a truckload of reading to do to get yourself up to speed.
All our emissions combined form only a small fraction of the carbon that is transferred throughout the cycle annually. Now, try finding out WHY that extra (minus the half that nature absorbs for us) is of critical importance. You can do it.
It is amazing how this Gore groups try to present the media as being biased against them… If indeed it was true why would blogs such as WUWT and Climateaudit be revered as some of the best source of information? We would just open our newspaper…
Just sent my letter in. I was compelled to use some of their talking points, but with phrasing they probably did not intend.
This part, in particular, is the fully political art of this issue. This campaign of Mr. Gore was not taken on to test their strength against the opposition. It was to assure that the right message gets out. Count on a biblical flood of letters organized by supporters and sympathetic newspapers confirming public concensus in support of Al Gore’s CO2 or Carbon, or “anything I say” tax. Any thoughts of influencing this poll is folly.
Instead, write a letter a month directly to your local papers. Bring up new debunks each time. Put this sight, Climate Audit, and others in your posts, make it factual and witty, catch their attention. Get to know the editor of the opinion page. Make him/her your freind.
Don’t make your concern part of a protest or an organized movement, make it personal. Show the impacts on the average family, on farming, on local industries, on future generations. Point out the vast divergence between the predictions of alarmists and the weather outside, between the computer games in NASA and this year’s Arctic Ice. Point them, for God’s sake, to the freak show called the Catlin Expedition, to Surface Station’s pictures of Temperature measuring devices on roof tops, airports, sewage treatment plant and on and on. Tell them how (with references) food prices in poor nations have been hiked by “Biofuels”. The list of topics are endless.
I had an interesting conversation with a local Alarmist at a “Community Conversation” sponsored by my local newspaper, the Tri-City Herald in Pasco/Kennewick/Richland WA. My antagonist on the paper’s blog for more than a year confessed that AGW “Scientists” fare poorly in public debate, noting a well known Alarmist “Scientist’s” debate with a “Hack Denier” where the post audit audience shifted significantly towards the “Denier” argument. His rationalization was that the public is notably lazy and quick to take the “Easy Way Out”. When was the last time James Hansen accepted a questioin at a press conference, much less stand for a debate?
Get involved, not as part of a movement, but as a real live human capable of thinking on your own and judging arguments on their substance, not their style.
Funny how the Goroupies are starting to bite the hands that fed them. They will learn that if you start attacking the press, they will turn much faster against you. This is the kind of journalism we have today!
I think I created a very good letter. Since I live in the land of Eco-zealotry (the NW), I chose a message I think anyone can embrace. Like you, Anthony, I love the technology behind solar and wind energies, because I like gadgets and independence… not for reasons related to C02 fantasies. I’m just not going to pay 40k for a system to take myself halfway off the grid.
Thanks Al!
That “WE” organization sure knows how to empower a guy. Thank you, WE!
Will they send me a green WE button?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_Inflation_Now
. . . urged by U.S. President Gerald Ford “. . people who supported the mandatory and voluntary measures were encouraged to wear “WIN” buttons . . . ”
Ya know I dont object to wind or solar power but why are we using old technology? I have a wind power book from back in 1988, same thing they are setting up now. You would think that we could evolve the technology a bit? It simply makes no sence to me to set up “power plants” of solar and wind that are ancient mechanics.
You know what my favorite WE commercial is? It goes something like “a square patch of land 98 miles wide could repower all of America” Then they show this god awful field of solar collectors sitting on a surface that looks like blacktop. Gee no land distruction there. Of course we know nothing lives in the desert. I was thinking we (little we) could stop that the same way we did the underground nuke tests in Nevada .. wheres that desert tortoise:)(actually that only kept them from chasing us down on their three wheelers when we crossed the fence) but they could use that old land they nuked.. oh wait.. they gave that back to the Indians.
Just finished using the tool to make myself feel a little better. I used my own points but also took one of their writing points and modified it slightly ! Great !
Impressive figures Anthony.
China, India and Indonesia represent a lot of traffic.
I am surprised by the German traffic figures and I am wondering why you have no traffic from France.
Anyhow, Wattsupwiththat is a truly international site.
Very impressive.
Wattsupwiththat.com traffic rank in other countries:
* 10,576 Australia
* 11,338 Canada
* 231,514 China
* 31,857 Denmark
* 44,146 Germany
* 81,862 India
* 77,818 Indonesia
* 12,960 Ireland
* 13,035 Netherlands
* 14,016 New Zealand
* 83 Northern Mariana Islands
* 1,781 Norway
* 27,409 South Africa
* 11,570 United Kingdom
* 14,230 United States
Glad to use their form to throw a little sand into their campaign. It is especially satisfying since our Governor Taxngougeme is a dullwitted proponent of cap-n-trade. We are not supposed to even count our abundant hydro power as green.
Thanks Anthony, I feel much better now.
Re my comment: Bob Koss (19:29:13) :
Actually I was think more about Repower America getting your personal information rather than the newspapers. The information goes through their site doesn’t it? I can’t imagine they wouldn’t harvest it.
REPLY: Actually, given this Alexa analysis, I think we have a pretty good chance of getting a message out: click to see comparison – Anthony
Percent of global Internet users who visit wattsupwiththat.com:
Yesterday 0.0039%
Just another order of magnitude to go and WUWT will be more prevalent in the blogosphere than co2 is in the atmosphere.
I see a tipping point looming 🙂
Matt Bennett (19:01:46) :
“In one case, opponents of clean energy misquoted an MIT study so badly that the author wrote to them”……
Hmmmm, sounds familiar.
Indeed it does, one scientist had to threaten the IPCC with legal action to get his name removed from their report after their editing of his work made him feel misrepresented.
Quite corrupt behaviour to speak for the majority of a population in order to further your business interests, Mr. Gore.
I wonder how he sleeps at night and what his children will think of him in the years to come?
“Heh, and I just got the confirmation message from my local paper that my letter had been forwarded. Absolutely stellar.”
Trouble is that the AGW luddites read these columns as they are one of the best sources of climate info around. I bet within a day or two, all these posts will be routed through local AGW moderators instead of direct to the newspapers. Lets hope that the do not simply amend the body to pro-AGW whilst keeping the contact info the same.
They have done worse already so don’t be too surprised.
Unbelievable, This shows how desperate the Goracle is becoming. Not even our cack handed prime minister ,the one eyed scottish idiot, would contemplate anything as farcical as this.
If you really want to get at biased reporting in a newspaper, target the
Directors individually, better still buy a few shares and write as a shareholder complaining that the editor is biased in his reporting , nothing scares a Chairman of the Board more that a shareholder at an annual meeting holding forth. No editor likes being put on the mat either. I’ve tried it twice with great effect.
Carbon-Kevin (Rudd) and Penny Wong get a heads up from the geological profession:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/15/2543797.htm
How will our masters of political expediency make this U-turn with grace? Or will he just go: “It was HER fault!” and move on..
LK
I wonder how much that awful logo cost? And why is the ‘we’ so written – it looks like ‘me’ with the em inverted?
That would be quite clever if it was intentional.. 🙂
my letter
If you see letter to editor with the following talking points be sure that they are phony letters from the democratic party operatives known as Repower America and have an IQ lower than a dog.
A cap and trade was a bad idea in europe and a worse idea for USA.
Please do not fall for a marketing scheme from snake oil salesman, con artist, self promoting lobbyist Al Gore who could not get more than a D in the science courses he took in college..
————————————————–
I want our leaders to know that here in [CITY], we support bold action on climate and energy, including a cap on carbon pollution.
Capping carbon pollution will ignite the transition to clean energy, end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and put America on a path toward economic recovery.
A cap on carbon pollution will create tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.
Consumers and businesses will benefit from stable energy prices, and with greater energy efficiency, we can get more from the energy we have which will mean lower electricity bills.
Now is the time for action. The economy can’t wait. The climate crisis can’t wait.
Thanks Anthony, sent off to four local papers. I wonder why they couldn’t afford a graphic design with the letter ‘W’, and had to use an ‘M’, inverted. I suppose they wanted to avoid any connection to the source of all social ills, GW Bush. I am not commenting on our ex-prez, just trying to parse out how Gorites think. Perhaps the subliminal context is ‘me’ rather than ‘we’.
And if you were wondering why MSNBC so relentlessly pounds the AGW message, look no further than its parent company’s plans to make a fortune off Green products, including green energy production.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7791657/
Why are we surrounded by crooks?
–Mike Ramsey
Ron de Haan (22:19:07) :
The French are nuked up already with with 16 multi-unit stations, 78% of load as of 2006 and the remaining load could be tidal and hydro, so electricity generation is not an issue for them. They figure that supplying their nuclear power stations will be a nice bit o’ green business for them. They do not want the myth of AGW + CO2 rubbished, hence no traffic, perhaps???
At one stage they were even selling us electricity. In fact that still might be happening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness_Power_Station
The IAEA reported there are 439 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world,operating in 31 countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
Regards,
Perry
Having read the We message again I find at least five heavy duty acts of misinformation.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7100/weletter.png
1. How did you find out that over 50% of 308 million Americans support a cap? Are you deliberately using the term ‘cap on carbon pollution’ because you don’t want to say cap and trade?
2. Who wants America to be addicted to fossil fuels? If you say oil companies, think again. They invest plenty of money on developing other sources of energy. More than Al Gore and his supporters do.
3. Who is an opponent of clean energy? If you say energy utility companies then you ignore how many improvements they have delivered over the years to make energy production cleaner.
4. How can you say the media play along with opponents of clean energy when they hammer us over the head with global warming hysteria almost daily?
5. What are these misleading statements referred to and why aren’t they contested scientifically?
Just released, a list of eleven new nuclear power stations for the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7999471.stm
Regards,
Perry
Steve Keohane (04:08:16) :
Perhaps the subliminal context is ‘me’ rather than ‘we’.
Try GE.
–Mike Ramsey
I visited Cragside yesterday, the 19th century home of Lord Armstrong of hydraulics, guns, ships etc. fame. He had the sort of wealth that allowed him to build his own reservoir to supply his own power station making Cragside the first house in the world to be powered by hydro-electricity, very green not to mention planting a few thousand trees and shrubs.
Initially using arc lamps it was also the first house in the world to be lit using Joseph Swan’s incandescent filament lights.
When relying on nature, sometimes even your own personal power station can not guarantee supply.
Fortunately Armstrong had the sort of wealth that allowed him to build his own gasworks to power the generator when required and supply the nearby town of Rothbury.
Things were much simpler then. The servants wrote home praising the fact that their rooms were heated and Armstrong was able to seriously impress the Prince of Wales merely by providing a flushing toilet. How things have improved in less than 150 years yet it seems that the present Prince of Wales and Al Gore would like to take us back to the time when peasants lived in the cold and dark, not very long ago.
People say that Al Gore is a hypocrite for buying a beach front house while preaching that the seas will rise to flood the land and so on, but perhaps there is method in his hypocracy.
This report on the climate bill being rushed through Congress informs us that anyone suffering harm or expecting to suffer harm from any effect of air pollution, (including climate change), can sue the government or any business for failing to take adequate steps to curb the pollution.
Should be another nice little earner for Al and his pals.
Meanwhile, we can all sit back and watch as America sues itself back into the Stone Age.
I began writing anti-AGW letters to the local paper in Dec., ’07, and had perhaps a half dozen appear last year. Up to now, I had only written one so far this year, but this “WE” thing, and the handy online tool they very kindly provide did spark my letter-writing again, this time to a whole bunch of newspapers.
Thank you, “Repower America”!
And, thanks Anthony.
Their little ruse is going to backfire beautifully.
The cool and scary thing about modern technology is how easily a tool used by one group of advocates can be co-opted by the opposition. Here the cap-and-trade profiteers go to the effort of creating a mechanism to promote their scheme and with absolutely minimal effort those who would be ripped off pick it up and use it against them. Usually it’s the bad guys who employ the tools of progress as weapons against it. Nice to see the shoe on the other foot for a change.
“Carbon-Kevin (Rudd) and Penny Wong get a heads up from the geological profession”
LK
What do you mean, “Who the hell’s Kevin Rudd?”
He’s our Australian prime minister
(Sorry, we thought he was a giant on the global stage..)
Confronting the media with anti cap&Trade view more important than ever:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/04/epa-co2-regulation-back-to-courts.html
and http://planetark.org/wen/52434
Cap&Trade could seriously damage Obama approval rating according to this posting:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/04/lines-will-soon-cross-if-he-keeps.html
EPA to regulate CO2 emissions via the “Clean Water Act”.
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/04/epa-to-regulate-co2-via-clean-water-act.html
Hey Ron (de Haan), not so fast!
I live in France and contribute comments from time to time to WUWT.
OK, they never get published, so what, there must be a line around the block, of commentors striving for airing their darlings in (or is it “on”?) WUWT.
Mine are usually boring anyway, and probably just plain wrong, so not to publish is probably a right decision.
Didn’t Kipling try 40 times before he was accepted for publication?
Anyway Ron, it would seem from your moniker that you are a Dutchman, one of the 13035 in your list. It is well known that you “Pays Bassians” speak better English than us Englishmen, so to be sure your stuff will be more deserving that mine.
About French contributions. On the whole they are a likeable lot, well educated, knowlegable and with a strong interest in the environment. However there is the well-known thing they suffer from, a seemingly inborn disinclination to speak English unless they have to do so.
So they’ll just have to remain under represented in the WUWT community, except, perhaps, for me, and I am that wondrous thing, an Englishman.
Cap & Trade? Cap and tax ripoff is what is intended, without doubt.
As to the “concept” of “clean” energy, sounds great . . . until the cost is considered. A better name for it all would be “die of hypothermia in the dark”.
My email…
Cap and trade is a bad idea at any time but in these difficult economic times we do not need a complicated policy that increases energy costs to already strained working families. It’s ideology over reality. We just saw how overly complex financial policies and instruments can be scammed and the devastating results of their ‘unexpected’ implosion. People claiming that cap and trade is simple and transparent are disengenuous at best. Just how transparent has been the dispersal of those huge stimulus payments despite prior assurances?
Anthony, what a great idea!
http://algorelied.com/?p=1242
You have to give Gore’s PR organization some credit> They put forth a scheme that will (1) provide personal IDs and information for incorporation into a data base of proponents of AGW; and (2) influence newspapers to believe that the public supports AGW. Rather than give ” WE” my personal data, I sent the following e-mail to the Seattle Times and Seattle Post Intelligencer (now Internet only).
“An organization fronted and/or funded by Al Gore, “We Repower America” (http://reposeramerica.org) has launched a letter writing campaign to newspapers throughout the nation. Please consider the following comments about the subject and the “We” organization.
1. It is physically and financially impossible to switch from fossil fuels for energy production and transportation in 10 years. Clean energy replacements and fuel manufacturing facilities cannot be designed, sited and permitted, much less manufactured and installed in 10 years. To contend that it can be done is delusional.
2. All clean energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind and bio-fuels cannot replace electricity generated and transportation fueled by fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas. Nearly all hydro site have been exploited. Nuclear power has too much opposition to overcome to be considered feasible now. NYMBY opposition, including mainstream and fringe environmental organizations, are actively blocking development of solar and wind projects now in California, Nevada, Texas and Massachusetts. Geothermal sites are limited and development is problematic. Technology is inadequate for other plausible alternatives does not exist.
3. Clean energy is promoted as a solution for a non-existent problem, global warming caused by anthropogenic sources (AGW) of CO2 and other trace greenhouse gases. CO2 and other greenhouse gases are not pollutants. They are natural and essential components of our atmosphere. Life on earth cannot exist without atmospheric CO2. Any climate warming that occurs is due to natural variability and should be welcomed. The current cooling poses a potential, known danger to life on Earth if it continues and worsens, many scientists believe is happening.
4. THERE IS NO EXPERIMENTAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INCORPORATING EMPIRICAL CLIMATE AND WEATHER DATA THAT PROVES THE MAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING HYPOTHESIS. Mathematical models are not proof or even factual. Computer models, the sole basis of AGW, yield hypothetical scenarios based upon hypothetical assumptions of the modelers about climate that are not understood.
5. Clean energy does have its place. Strategically, we are dependent upon and transferring our wealth to foreign crude oil producers. Development of clean energy sources can provide partial relief from foreign oil imports. But, other than nuclear power, clean energy sources need to become cost effective without massive subsidies to be useful. 2d generation bio-fuel technology is yet to be commercially feasible. In the interim, coal, oil and nuclear power provide the only means to become independent from foreign oil imports.
6. Al Gore represents a cabal of individuals, entities, governments and NGOs including the UN, and his own personal interests. Their objective is to propagandize the public to accept AGW as scientific and valid. The solution they promote is a system that controls and taxes energy production and consumption, carbon emission cap and trade and/or direct taxes on carbon emissions. They stand to profit enormously from investments and direct interests in the global trade of carbon credits and offsets that make up carbon cap and trading. This cabal is predatory and determined to destroy capitalism and replace it with trans-national socialist governance that they control.
Conclusion: In terms used by the common man, repowering America with 100% clean electricity in 10 years is total unmitigated BS.
Paddy Lenihan, Kirkland, WA USA”
Thank you Anthony for this exercise in participatory civics. I wrote to my favorite southern Cali papers and did not fail to mention Al’s investment company. Who would believe a pitch for world industry to pay a clique of bandits for an atmospheric trace gas? It is literally grabbing money from thin air. Only, the money belongs in someone else’s pockets.
Nice tool WE got.
Split Atoms not wood or Birds…
I’m on here’s mine
SubjectCarbon Taxes
MessageThese are both wrong and immoral.
They threaten to tax innocent people to enforce a solution to what is an overblown “problem” that has no reason to be fixed as it is a non existent issue. We must oppose these taxes.
I’m intrigued by the notion of a “Carbon” tax. Think of how many, many things contain carbon! The revenue generating potential is almost limitless. 😉
Got here a little late, but want to say there is so much disinformation written above. As Ronald Reagan said, “It’s not that our friends don’t know anything, it’s that so much of what they know just isn’t so.”
Regarding wind in the U.S., there is more than enough to power the place.
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
for a map of wind speeds and locations in the continental U.S. from DOE.
http://www.mms.gov/5-year/PDFs/2010-2015/DPP%20FINAL%20(HQPrint%20with%20landscape%20maps,%20map%2010).pdf
and page 13 for discussion of offshore availability of renewable power, including wind, wave, and ocean current.
The energy storage issues for excess generation from renewables are being solved, with my leading candidate being splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, compressing the hydrogen and storing it for later use as fuel in a gas turbine power plant. The electrolysis and hydrogen compression would be performed with electricity from renewable energy.
There is no need ever again to build or run a nasty nuke, with all its toxic waste and outrageous power price due to high construction costs.
There is no need to import foreign oil, but we can retain our money in this country. We can use domestic oil for petrochemical feed, lubricating oils, asphalts, and jet fuel. The price of crude oil will decrease to around $10 to $15 per barrel, due to lack of demand. Natural gas price will also drop to around $2 per Million Btu, due to lack of demand. Home heating via natural gas or electricity will be very affordable, as will air conditioning.
Other countries can adapt this strategy as it suits them and their resources.
This is controversial, and sure to draw fire from WUWT readers, but I write this not out of any desire to cap CO2. Creating hydrogen from renewable energy is purely an economic and toxic waste avoidance issue. Hydrogen as fuel also eliminates air pollutants from coal-burning, including mercury, sulfur, and fine soot particles.
evanmjones (20:12:59) :
“{This country has well over 100 years of coal left”
And in 100 years, we’ll probably have 500 years of coal left. Assuming we’re still using the stuff. That’s how it works. (That’s how the Club of Rome screwed it up so badly.)
At present usage rates, prices, and estimated reserves, we have between 250 and 400 years of known coal. There will still be coal in the ground when that is used up…
There is no energy shortage and there never will be, there is only a shortage of willingness and imagination to use what we have:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
[REPLY – Agreed. That’s how it works for all so-called “finite” resources. ~ Evan]
Well my local newspaper has totally been had. Today an LTE has appeared in it that is identical to the talking points of this campaign.
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=287884&src=
Isn’t that Plagiarism?