Although things have been a bit dismal as the pro-pollution forces like the Koch brothers & Sen. Scott Brown have blocked real conservation laws & regulations, there’s encouragement out there: Cape Wind has scored a victory! This clean energy effort could be started within a year, to provide electricity for Cape Cod and mitigate the global warming effects which will really damage Cape Cod in the future.
And President Obama has the power to stop a dirty energy project, the Keystone XL pipeline, which will open up some of the dirtiest carbon energy under Canada and pipe it over South Dakota & Nebraska. If America starts burning that energy, it’s game over for the climate. You can send the White House an email to make sure the President understands how important it is to block Keystone XL and preserve our clean air & water. More pollution is not in the national interest, and stopping dirty energy would do a lot to raise the spirits of environmental voters in 2012.
And when you have 42 minutes to really concentrate and watch a talk, check out this one by Lester Brown, a key figure in US environmental law. He points out how much global warming is going to damage world markets, especially in agriculture, but (in the last 10 minutes) he makes a fantastic case for how wind power is already gearing up to out-compete coal, oil, and nuclear. Texas has wind power generation equal to 7 nuclear power plants. (4200 MW = 7 * 600 MW, the Pilgrim nuke’s capacity) Of course, wind power is a LOT safer than nukes.
Hat Tip to The Benshi, a website with some important ideas for actually getting results on preventing climate change.
