Newsweek has a new interview with Nobel Prize winning Former Vice President Al Gore, and they cover some interesting ground, including the auto industry bailout, climate change reactions around the world and the myth (it doesn't exist!) of clean coal.
As far as the car makers go, Al puts the blame squarely on the lame, outdated and lazy leaders who resisted new technology for so long.
It was so frustrating to be reminded that the government invested abillion dollars in the Big Three during the 90s to develop high-efficiency vehicles. If the car makers had built on that momentum we'd have lots of choices now, but as soon as the Bush cabal took office in 2000 they dropped the ball. Toyota got a huge jump start and today the auto industry is looking for a hand out.
So what now? Al says full speed ahead to plug in hybrid electric vehicles. No screwing around this time, and no getting complacent when oil prices go down.
In the interview, Al talked about taxing gas and carbon, but avoiding adding to the burden on the poor and middle class tax payer, as well as the concept of "tax what we burn, not what we earn." That would certainly get people to start paying attention to their energy consumption!
Regarding climate change around the globe, Al says (again) that as soon as the U.S. takes some real steps to fight climate change, the rest of the world will follow. China and India always use our lack of response as an excuse for inactivity. That's an easy one to fix.
My favorite part of the interview was when Al called shenanigans on "clean coal" aka the unicorn of alternative energy. The technologydoesn't exist! We keep building coal burning plants and promising to retrofit them "someday" when the science catches up with our intentions.
As Al says "We cannot allow an illusion to be the basis of a strategy for human survival."
What can you add to that? He's a greenius.
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