In the wake of the current credit and banking crises, many pundits have been predicting that the presidential candidates will have to curb their proposed spending plans drastically when the winner takes office in January. With home foreclosures skyrocketing, pumping money towards renewable energy may seem like a luxury. Yet, an investment in these technologies could create jobs and set us on the path to energy independence. Though the initial investment might be high, the cost of feeding our oil addiction may prove much higher.

Aside from voting and petitioning our state and federal representatives, there’s little we can do as individuals to impact federal spending on eco-friendly options. However, on a micro level, we have a chance to save both money and the earth through the many little (and the few big) choices we make on a daily basis. Just as with the federal government’s expenditures, being “green” may cost a little more up front, but could save us money in the long run.

In a recent piece at Grist, Miles Grant observes notes an obvious parallel between tips to help you save money – and tips to help you save the environment:

Who are you to deny me my two-car garage filled with junk, an elegant dining room I’ll never use, and massive heating/cooling bills?

That’s the basic response from critics when greens question McMansions in particular and our consumer culture in general. I mean, isn’t newer, bigger, better the American way? Didn’t President Bush urge us to go shopping more?

But one financial advisor says trying to look rich by buying so much stuff is keeping some Americans from being rich. And while he never once mentions the environment, his prescriptions for building your savings have a lot in common with tips for cutting your environmental impact.

Being green and being frugal aren’t mutually exclusive, you see. Oftentimes, the two go hand in hand.

This year’s Blog Action theme is poverty; because I’m all about intersecting oppressions (such as classism, environmental destruction and the role of the megatheocorporatocracy in each), I thought I might offer some food-related tips for positively impacting your cash flow and your ecological imprint. Since we’re in the midst of the Vegan Month of Foods – for which I’ve been baking, cooking, drying and otherwise experimenting like mad – I’d like to focus on food, specifically, how one can eat green to save green.

Grow your own food…

Growing your own fruits and veggies is a fun way to save some money. As I wrote in my first VeganMoFo post, there’s nothing more satisfying than cultivating the earth, planting little seedlings and watching them grow, coveting that first grape tomato until it’s red and ripe, and then savoring the food you’ve nurtured all on your own. Whether you live on a lush 20 acres or in a small, third-story apartment, you can grow something, even if it’s just a small patch of herbs on the windowsill. Though it’s impossible for most of us to be entirely self-sufficient and off-the-grid in these modern times, growing your own food can help cut down those food bills – particularly if fruits and veggies comprise the bulk of your diet.

To get started, check out the gardening section at about.com. The “Small Space & Urban Gardens” and “Container Gardening” are of specific interest to those with small or indoor garden spaces.

…and preserve it for the coming winter!

If you have a garden of any size, you probably find yourself with more food than you can possibly eat in one season. If this is the case, look into methods of preserving your food. Canning, dehydrating, drying, freezing, vacuum sealing – all are viable options with varying start-up costs and skill levels. Use the internets to find more information.

If you enjoy toiling away in the kitchen – but don’t have a spot to grow veggies – team up with a friend or family member to split the work and responsibilities. Recruit a fellow frugal enviro with a yard to grow the produce, and pledge to preserve the bounty when it starts to overfloweth. Or volunteer to do the gardening if your BFF will can all the goodies. Share the start-up costs, workload and food. Strength in numbers, am I right?

Go Veg!

Even apart from animal welfare concerns, our insatiable desire for meat has grave environmental concerns: according to the U.N., factory farmed animals are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases; ranching is the major driving force behind global deforestation; feedlot pollution washes into water, killing coral reefs and creating dead zones; and, overall, meat and dairy production are an inefficient use of food and water, such that “the 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef” and “it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.”

Meat and dairy are also bad, bad, bad for our health; E Magazine notes, “There is some evidence to suggest that the human digestive system was not designed for meat consumption and processing (see sidebar), which could help explain why there is such high incidence of heart disease, hypertension, and colon and other cancers. Add to this the plethora of drugs and antibiotics applied as a salve to unnatural factory farming conditions and growing occurrences of meat-based diseases like E. coli and Salmonella, and there’s a compelling health-based case for vegetarianism.” And don’t forget the bird flu!

If you’re thinking about going veg*n (i.e., vegetarian or vegan) – or even if you’re just looking to reduce your meat consumption – there are a plethora of resources online. Google “go veg” – or hop on over to easyVegan.info (my AR blog) and have a look at the blogroll.

My dad, who’s been a vegetarian for 40+ years and used to do his shopping in a small co-op located in the basement of a Unitarian church, will tell you that there’s never been a better time to go veg than now. Even the Cheesecake Factory has vegan options!

Buy in Bulk

Join a CSA and/or join a wholesale store such as Sam’s Club (they have Boca Burgers!) or Costco. If you can’t use or store such large portions, pair up with a friend or family member, and divvy up your purchases.

On the enviro side, bulk purchases usually reduce the amount of packaging you consume.

Buy Generic

Generic and name-brand food is usually similar enough that you won’t notice a difference. When in doubt, buy one of each and sample them side-by-side; who knows, you may even like the no-name option better!

BYOB – Bring Your Own Bag

Invest in a few high-quality canvas tote bags. Keep them in your car (if you own one; that’s another green quandary altogether!), and use them every time you shop.

Some stores will give you a small refund if you return and reuse their grocery bags; other businesses, such as Whole Foods, will give you a discount if you bring your own bag, no matter what type it is.

Americans plow through plastic bags to the tune of 100+ million per year. The lucky few (2%) will be recycled, but even these use up precious petroleum and natural gas and are sometimes decorated with lead, a toxin. Most end up in landfills, or become ocean litter, sapping life from the creatures which reside there. Reusable cloth bags can help to break this pattern of pollution.

As an added benefit, if you’re forced to budget precious sack space while shopping, you just might find that you stop making unplanned impulse purchases that you don’t really need.

Got any food-related tips for saving money/saving the planet? Leave ‘em in the comments!

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: blog swarm blog carnival blog action day blog action day 2008 poverty food gardening diy green environment frugal money go veg fruits veggies plastic bags veganmofo vegan vegetarian

It’s a great piece – really, I could excerpt the whole damn thing – but this piece in particular is worth noting:

Palin pushed hard, along with sport hunting and guiding interests, to help defeat a ballot initiative that would have stopped the state’s current aerial wolf control program, which had been criticized by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council for flawed science. Now her administration has pointedly refused to respond to repeated public information requests (I’m one of the petitioners, and a potential litigant), regarding the apparently illegal killing of 14 wolf pups at their dens on the Alaska Peninsula this spring by state personnel, including two high-level Department of Fish and Game administrators. A biologist at the scene admitted to an independent wolf scientist that the 6-week-old pups were held down and shot in the head, one by one. This inhumane practice, known as “denning,” has been illegal for 40 years. But a simple request for information on the details of this operation, including to what extent the governor was involved in the decision, has resulted in a typical Palinesque roadblock and a string of untruths.

Sarah Palin, “my friends,” is a “pro-life,” God-fearing evangelical. And yet (according to her and hers), it’s atheists like moi who lack morals.

Anyway, Jans explains how Palin can claim to be a genuine Alaskan while simultaneously working to destroy the land she calls home, vis-à-vis her policy of pillaging the environment, to hell with the consequences:

In the broadest sense, Palin is a poseur. Alaska is too large and culturally diverse (it’s only a bit smaller than the entire lower 48 east of the Mississippi, and once was divided into four time zones) to be summed up by some abstract, romanticized notion. And even if it could be, it sure wouldn’t be symbolized by Palin. “The typical Alaskan? She couldn’t be farther from it,” says Alaska House Minority Leader Beth Kertulla.

Still, Palin is a genuine Alaskan — of a kind. The kind that flowed north in the wake of the ’70s oil boom, Bible Belt politics and attitudes under arm, and transformed this state from a free-thinking, independent bastion of genuine libertarianism and individuality into a reactionary fundamentalist enclave with dollar signs in its eyes and an all-for-me mentality.

Palin’s Alaska is embodied in Wasilla, a blue-collar, sharp-elbowed town of burgeoning big box stores, suburban subdivisions, evangelical pocket churches and car dealerships morphing across the landscape, outward from Anchorage, the state’s urban epicenter. She has lived in Wasilla practically all her life, and even now resides there, the first Alaska executive to eschew the white-pillared mansion in Juneau, down on the Southeast Panhandle.

Go read the whole thing.

Note to the rest of the Salon staff: this is a perfect example of how to criticize a female politician without resorting to misogyny and sexist slurs. It’s the policies, stupid! (As opposed to, you know, the vag-n-mams.)

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare 2008 elections sarah palin wolves aerial hutnign hunting aerial gunning denning pups wolf pups environment alaska nick jans

Bread and cheese
Maple-glazed acorn squash
Green beans with onion sprinkles
Golden-crusted Brussels sprouts
Turkey with gravy
Sage, walnut, and dried-fig stuffing
Rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes
Cranberry sauce
Pumpkin pie
Vanilla ice cream with ginger-pear preserves
Artisanal dark chocolate bars
Hot apple cider
Beer, red wine, and sparkling cider

Turkey, cheese and ice cream are not “green” – not even close. Factory farmed cows – you know, the milk machines who produce all those bodily secretions found in your dairy products? – are, according to the U.N., “responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.”

As summarized at treehugger, the U.N. also reports that:

“Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.

The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.”

Dairy is not “green.” I repeat: Dairy. Is. Not. Green.

Now let’s talk turkey – which, ahem, isn’t green, either.

Says the HSUS:

Each year in the United States, 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for meat, eggs, and milk. Statistically, farm animals comprise 98 percent of all animals in the country with whom we interact directly, and that staggering percentage does not even include the estimated 10 billion aquatic animals killed for human consumption. [...]

Of the 10 billion land animals killed annually in the United States, 95 percent are birds, and the overwhelming majority are “broiler” chickens raised for meat, 1 million killed each hour. Additionally, nearly 300 million laying hens are raised for eggs, and more than 250 million turkeys are slaughtered for meat.

On factory farms, birds raised for meat are confined by the tens of thousands in barren sheds, unable to carry out many normal behaviors, including roosting and foraging. The most significant assault on their welfare is fast growth. The poultry industry has used selective breeding and growth-promoting antibiotics to produce birds whose bodies “are on the verge of structural collapse.” To put their growth rate into perspective, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture reports, “If you grew as fast as a chicken, you’d weigh 349 pounds at age 2.”

As I explained to one young featherhead who was trying in vain to troll my Flickr account (she took issue with my dogs’ vegetarian diets), such conditions have grave environmental, public health and animal welfare consequences:

Though chickens are smaller than cows and thus produce less waste per animal, the sheer number of chickens raised and killed means more waste. And, just like fecal matter from cows and pigs, chickens’ waste pollutes the environment.

For example, the enviro magazine Grist ran a piece called "Finger-Lickin’ Bad: How poultry producers are ravaging the rural South" back in February ’06:

Since the early 1990s, observers say, thousands of chicken houses have cropped up across the South as consumer demand for poultry has grown. Today, the U.S. is the world’s poultry leader, with production of broilers, turkeys, and eggs valued at $29 billion in 2004, according to the National Chicken Council. Broilers — chickens raised for meat — generated $22 billion of that. The leading broiler production states in 2004 were Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, which is home to the world’s largest poultry producer, Tyson Foods. [...]

More frightening than the economic balancing act may be the health and environmental hazards posed by chicken farms, from the arsenic, ammonia, and other chemicals found in feed and manure to threats from diseased animals. While traditional farming can carry similar risks, CAFOs are especially hazardous because of the tight confinement that defines them. [...]

Last year, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson (D) filed suit against Tyson, Cargill, and several other poultry companies, seeking to stop water pollution caused in his state by soiled chicken litter dumped in Arkansas. Polluted runoff, also known as non-point source pollution, is the biggest remaining water pollution problem in the U.S., according to the EPA, which cites agriculture as the largest source of such pollution.

Aside from environmental concerns, the overuse of antibiotics in poultry production (e.g., to cheaply prevent unhealthy animals from becoming sick) leads to bacterial resistance (i.e., "superbugs), and factors such as overcrowding and live animal markets made avian influenza (bird flu) an increasingly likely risk.

If you’re specifically interested in poultry production, I highly recommend Michael Greger’s Bird Flu – the full text is available online at birdflubook.com/g.php?id=5. In the context of discussing bird flu, he also examines the environmental consequences of factory farmed chicken/poultry.

Of course, this doesn’t even begin to address the unnecessary cruelty and suffering that makes up your “holiday” meal, nor does it touch upon the interconnected nature of oppressions. Women and animals, we’re not that different, see. Especially when we’re talking about exploiting and commandeering the reproductive systems of human (e.g., anti-choice policies, forced sterilization) and non-human (milk and egg production) animals.

Given that you’re a fluffyfunfeelgoodfeminism mag, you probably don’t much care about animal abuse, not even as it relates to the abuse of women. So I won’t go there.

But proclaiming meat and dairy “green” – especially when there are genuinely green alternatives, such as tofu, Tofurky, soy ice cream, and faux cheeses – is bullshit. Seriously, gals, get a fucking clue. The United Nations aren’t exactly a bunch of dirty, unwashed, hippie liberal, vegan potlucky, eco-/animal rights- terra-ists. And yet even they recognize that animal flesh and animal by-products are harmful to the environment. And that was two+ years ago.

A plate of Thanksgiving turkey is filled with antibiotics, salmonella, campylobacter, ammonia and feces. Your cheese and ice cream add a side of bodily secretions – literally – to the mix.

So eat up; enjoy! If you’ve still got some room left over, you might find that FAIL is a complimentary dessert to serve with your greenwashed dinner.

Regards,

A vegan feminist

P.S. I believe this is my last and final issue of Bust, so you probably won’t have to suffer my terraistic complaints any longer. Happy happy, joy joy.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare environment bust thanksgiving turkey meat green food diet climate change united nations dairy milk cheese vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism feminism factory farming hsus

Via the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club, by way of Deb at Invisible Voices, an eloquent illustration of intersecting “isms.” In this case, racism/xenophobia (“ZOMG! ILLEGAL ALIENZ!!!1!!1!”) and speciesism (“ZUH? THERE ARE ANIMALS ON TEH BORDER?”):

The Border Campaign of the Sierra Club – Grand Canyon Chapter has completed a 20 minute video about the environmental effects of the current border policy, “Wild Versus Wall.” This video covers the ecological effects of enforcement and infrastructure in the four states that share boundaries with Mexico.

Tucson-based filmmaker Steev Hise has been working on the film since January, 2007. He traveled to Texas and California during the spring to interview land managers, scientists, and activists who are working to limit the ecological impacts of border wall construction.

“I have been covering border issues in southern Arizona for a while,” said Hise. “One of the great things about this project was traveling to other places along the border and to see how people concerned about the recent border militarization have the same outlook as people do here. They are also trying to stop the Department of Homeland Security from running roughshod over natural resources and constitutional rights.”

Hise also gathered footage from a diverse array of sources, including some of the Border Patrol’s own employment videos, which show agents blazing along on off-road vehicles. Numerous photographers contributed images of the rich ecosystems and species that are impacted by border infrastructure projects and local biologists lent their eyes and ears to the factual background of the habitats at stake.

Order your DVD today! Send $20 to 738 N. 5th Ave., Suite 214, Tucson, AZ 85705. Be sure to include Wall vs. Wild in the memo line of the check.

Understandably, the Sierra Club focuses on the environmental impact of the border wall, since that’s what they do and all. Even so, this is an area that’s ripe for coalition building between pro-immigration/anti-racist and environmental/animal advocacy groups, since they share a somewhat similar goal: sensible immigration policy, specifically pertaining to border security.

The Center for Biological Diversity has has written extensively about the US-Mexico border wall; Google search here.

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: sierra club arizona border wall border fence immigration racism xenophobia speciesism center for biological diversity animals animal rights animal welfare wildlife video environment

A 26-year ban on offshore oil drilling will be dropped as part of a year-end spending bill, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey.

Eliminating the ban will allow the measure, which funds government operations through March 6, to get through Congress and be signed into law by President George W. Bush, Obey said.

“At least temporarily, the moratorium is lifted,” Obey told reporters. “This next election will decide what our drilling policy is going to be.”

Ah, right. “Just elect Obama, and then we’ll reinstate the ban. Trust us.”

Because the Dems have been all about wish fulfillment and promises kept. I mean, look at how well y’all have served the base since your 2006 mandate!

Not to mention, Obama’s a big flip flippity flip flopper on the issue:

The bill would end a months-long fight over the drilling moratorium. The push to end the ban picked up in July as the price of oil hit a record $147.27 per barrel and the average pump price of gasoline topped out at $4.11 per gallon. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both altered their positions on the matter, saying they would support new offshore drilling.

Heh, yeah, right. I’ll trust Obama. About as much as I’ll trust the guy to defend my civil liberties or maintain that pesky wall separating church and state. Which is to say, not at all.

The announcement was hailed by Republicans. “House Republicans have fought for months to lift these outdated bans on American energy production, and the capitulation by Democrats today is a big victory for working families, seniors, and small businesses struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner, of Ohio.

Capitulation? Totally. Victory for working families? Eh, not so much.

And now that the goal post’s been moved, I guess it’s onward to ANWR for the asses and their Republican overlords.

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Tagged: offshore oil drilling oil drilling republicans democrats environment wtf 2008 elections

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”

- Dr. Rajendra Pachauri,chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in an interview with BBC News.

The BCC explains the 18% figure further:

The FAO figure of 18% includes greenhouse gases released in every part of the meat production cycle – clearing forested land, making and transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles, and the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep.

The contributions of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – are roughly equivalent, the FAO calculates.

Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind’s greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.

So unless you start your day with a nice plate of Tofu Scrambles and Smart Bacon, don’t waste your afternoon harassing Hummer owners. You’re not walking the ethical high road either, my friend.

Seriously. Change? Starts on your plate. Emphasis on your.

(H/t, Vegan Bits.)

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Tagged: environment climate change meat food vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism livestock farmed animals factory farming

Obviously, that’s a not the real ad, but rather a version made by a film student. (Betty Crocker features the real spot on their website, but with no option to embed; you can view it here.) I’ve yet to decide whether said film student is poking fun at the product, or if this is a genuine attempt at marketing useless merchandise to lazy, wasteful Americans.

Because that plastic? Um, it’s not really reusable like the bowl and utensils you’d normally use to mix your pancake ingredients. Even if you recycle it (assuming it’s recyclable; I wouldn’t have any idea, since I’ve never so much as ladyhandled the bottle in the grocery store), the recycling process itself consumes energy.

So take the extra five minutes to mix your own damn pancake batter. And if you happen to use Bisquick, recycle the box please.

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Tagged: environment commercial betty crocker bisquick plastic recycle reuse shake and pour pancakes wasteful consumption video

“We are a nation of consumers. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

OK, Discover Card marketing peoples, I’ll bite. Yes, ’tis true, we are a nation of consumers. But this isn’t something we should boast about, so much as be ashamed of. Rather than brag about our astounding levels of consumption, we should be striving to reduce the amount we consume. The last thing we need is a bank encouraging us to buy more, more, more. (But encouraging us to save money by – gasp! – not spending money wouldn’t much help fatten Discover’s pocketbooks, would it?)

We’re a nation of consumers. And if we continue on our current path, we’ll consume the earth – as in, all of it – in less than 50 years:

Let’s put this in perspective. Earth has about 22 billion acres of ecologically productive land. This is comprised of about 3.3 billion acres of arable and crop land, 8.4 billion acres of pasture land, and 10.1 billion acres of forest land. Not all of the arable land is of high quality, and improving agricultural productivity by use of fertilizers and insecticides, or shifting to monocultural forestry, affects ecosystems in other, often deleterious, ways. Expansion of land use in any of those categories can only be done at the expense of one of the other categories, and development of the land for human structures of all kinds competes for this same area. Not only that, but we have to share this land with the other organisms on Earth who might not be able to tolerate our land use ‘improvement’ measures, or to survive as a group as environmental fragmentation becomes extensive.

If we maintain our current footprint and the human population of 2050 (estimated at 9 billion) reaches consumption levels similar to ours, which is a practical goal for the developing world, humanity would need 13.5 billion acres of land for food production and 14.4 billion acres for wood products on a steady-state basis to be sustainable, and we would have degraded about 3.6 billion acres for human structures. For humans alone, excluding the needs of other organisms, there is not that much land available simply by considering these three computable sorts of personal footprints!

Furthermore, the food footprint calculations cited above used U.S. yields, which are significantly higher than average global yields. If global yields were used in those calculations, our food footprints would be closer to 3 acres. Earth’s carrying capacity for a population with 3-acre food footprints might be no more than about 4 billion people (12 billion acres of arable, crop and pasture land ÷ 3). Each year more of our most productive farmland is buried under human structures, and both good and marginal farmland becomes unusable due to poor farming practices, so even the estimate of a sustainable carrying capacity of 4 billion people eating and living as we do may be high.

So yeah, there’s something seriously fucking wrong with that.

By the by, is “saving by spending” the private sector’s version of “sacrificing by consuming”?

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Tagged: discover card consumption credit card capitalism environment ecological footprint video

At a town hall meeting in Berea, Ohio, [Tuesday], Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, pushed back against the GOP attack on his advice to a voter last week that having a tuned up car and fully inflated tires would help save energy.

“Let me make a point about efficiency, because my Republican opponents – they don’t like to talk about efficiency,” Obama said.

“You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, ‘well, what can I do? what can individuals do?’ Obama recalled.

“So I told them something simple,” Obama said. “I said, ‘You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels…” [...]

“So now the Republicans are going around – this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’

“Now two points, one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.

“You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”

It’s also funny-yet-sad because McCain claims to support a comprehensive energy policy, i.e., one that includes conservation. You know, like keeping your tires properly inflated so you conserve gas and shit.

Obama touched on this point again today, and also took the opportunity to mock McCain for his undeserved “Maverick” moniker:

So, I know that Senator McCain likes to call himself a maverick, and the fact is there have been times where, in the past, he did show some independence, but the price he paid for his party’s nomination has been to reverse himself on position after position, and now he embraces the failed Bush policies of the last eight years, the politics that helped break Washington in the first place—and that doesn’t meet my definition of a maverick. You can’t be a maverick when politically it’s working for ya, and then not a maverick when it doesn’t work for ya and you’re seeking your party’s nomination.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of Senator McCain contradicting himself, a few days ago, somebody asked me what they could do personally to help America save energy. So I said something that some of you have heard, which is all of us could get better gas mileage, and save oil in the process, just by keeping our tires inflated. Turns out the experts agree. Turns out that we could save three to four percent on our total oil consumption just by keeping our cars tuned up and inflating our tires.

Senator McCain and the Republican National Committee, though, mocked the idea. They’ve been going around sending tire gauges to reporters saying ‘Barack Obama’s Energy Plan.’ Well, that sounded clever, except, last night, after all that, Senator McCain actually said he agreed that keeping our tires inflated was a good idea. [laughter and applause] Which makes sense—because it turns out, uh, NASCAR, which knows something about tires, apparently said the same thing. So did the Triple-A.

And so, in the coming days, it’s going to be interesting to watch this debate between John McCain and John McCain.

(Video and transcript via.)

Now if only he’d rethink that whole compromising on off-shore drilling thing…

* Someone watches The Colbert Report, eh?

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Tagged: 2008 elections barack obama energy republicans john mccain offshore drilling conservation

Ladies and gentlemen:

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.

I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse.

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: 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.

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation’s problems, we need a new start.

That’s why I’m proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It’s not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy.

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months – year after year, and that’s what’s happened for 40 years in a row.

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”

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. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change.

I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.

What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it’s meaningless. 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.

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

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.

America’s transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.

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. This is the single most important policy change we can make.

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world’s agenda for solving the climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they’re going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, 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.

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I’ve got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I’ve begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president’s term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.

So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I’m asking you – each of you – to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at www.wecansolveit.org. We need you. And we need you now. We’re committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy’s challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket’s engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

- Al Gore’s “Generational Challenge to Repower America,” delivered July 17, 2008 at a Washington D.C. energy conference. Transcript via We Can Solve It.

Photo via Steve Rhodes

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