By Acclamation

Denver -- Last night when Hillary Clinton moved to make the nomination of Barack Obama unanimous, it was clear (as it was when she made her speech the day before, and when Bill Clinton made his impassioned call for the election of Obama earlier in the evening) that the Democratic party is coming together -- whether the media likes it or not. One of the remarkable things about being with the delegates this week is that the buzz about the Hillary-Barack split has been vastly less than the media's emphasis on it would indicate. Unity, it appears, doesn't sell papers.

Another kind of unity was on display at the bloggers' "Big Tent," as John Podesta, T. Boone Pickens, and I agreed that we could not solve our nation's energy problems by drilling and that, as I put it, the current political emphasis on whether or not to open up more of the coastline to drilling is a Karl Rove-style "head fake." 

I think Pickens is real -- but he is a conservative Republican, so there are lots of skeptics out there.

But one of the big issues swirling around the Pickens plan is that  much of our current natural gas production is irresponsible and poorly located and regulated (although Pickens is not calling for an increase natural gas production). So, after the event, the blogging community was focused on that issue, as well as on how to break the gridlock that is blocking progress on energy. You can watch the interview with the bloggers here.

Comments

[sheila]

Actually, the problem with Pickens is the massive waste and fraud caused by projects like his, which externalize all their costs onto the planet, ratepayers and taxpayers, while privatizing all the profits. Same exact crap we come to expect from Big Energy Monopolists, no matter what the fuel...

Big, Centralized power plants are an eco disaster of both types - ecological and economic. They will destroy millions of acres of valuable ecosystems, will emit more GHGs than they prevent from the massive new transmission infrastructure they will need, and they will result in further supply and pricing manipulation... ALL while we are perfectly poised to implement a REAL revolution and to build a massive, clean, affordable DECENTRALIZED POINT OF USE RENEWABLE MODEL which has enormous advantages for global warming prevention, ecosystem conservation, ratepayers and taxpayers. THIS is the only winning policy.

With respect, we want to see you partnering with the 38 nations which already offer generous feed in tariffs - policies which reward people who do the right thing. We don't want to see you partnering with the New Boss, same as the Old Boss, and subjecting the planet and people to another round of devastating policies. We count on SC to stand up AGAINST people like Pickens and to preserve our open spaces. Please, will you??