In January of 1776, Philadelphia essayist Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet that changed the world. Within three months, Common Sense had sold 150,000 copies -- in a land of just 2.5 million people -- framing the terms of debate for the American colony's epic break from British rule. By July of that year, the national conversation charged by Paine's work culminated in the Declaration of Independence.
In that hallowed tradition, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has penned a modern classic in revolutionary thought. Titled Clean Energy, Common Sense, this book calls on us, as a nation, to rise to the challenge of climate change while there's still time to act.
Time is of such essence, Frances writes, that every American of conscience must
be engaged. Reading this essay is an essential first step.
Like Paine's pamphlet, Clean Energy, Common Sense is small enough to fit into your pocket and brief enough to read in two hours. It is accessible and timely and destined to shape the climate conversation now, when it matters most.
Because right now, the Senate is debating the single most important environmental bill of this generation: a clean energy and climate act that could generate millions of jobs and slash our global warming emissions.
But the stakes are higher still. In a few days, President Obama will travel to China, where climate change and clean energy will be top of the agenda. No doubt both nations will be positioning themselves for the international climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
This is a pivotal moment in our nation's history, a time when complex and fateful decisions must be made.
There are people of good will who hear claims on both sides of the climate change debate and aren't sure what to believe. If that feels familiar, this little book is for you.
In a clear and compelling tone, Beinecke draws from the most current and authoritative sources anywhere to lay out the case for American action against world climate change. She outlines solutions that can help get American workers back on their feet, strengthen our country and set us on the path to a clean energy future.
And she calls on each of us to take up paper and pen to urge Congress to act.
This is what I find so inspiring about Beinecke's book. I believe that the act of making our voices heard is the best of American politics. I have seen it work time and again -- I have seen citizens, neighborhoods, entire communities carry the weight of truth to our lawmakers. But in order to succeed, we must raise our voices loudly and fully. This is what Beinecke moves us to do.
I have known Beinecke for more than 35 years, and I admire her unwavering commitment to protecting the environment. Beinecke's dedication and intelligence make her a formidable fighter, but she is also an optimist. She trusts that green solutions and smart policies can diffuse the climate crisis. And she believes that we can create a cleaner, healthier planet for our children.
This is the spirit that infuses her book. Beinecke writes:
This book is a call to action, one citizen's honest appeal. It is not a political treatise. It is not a partisan screed. Maybe that's because my politics on this are simple. I believe Democrats and Republicans alike have a real chance here to lead, to look to the future and show us the way to a brighter future.Two centuries ago, Paine wrote, "I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense." That's precisely the approach Beinecke has taken in her stand against climate change. Simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. It's all there in her book.
Frances Beinecke: Talking With Ban Ki-Moon About His Hopes for Copenhagen
On Tuesday when we met in Washington, Ban Ki-Moon said he was hopeful that the December climate conference in Copenhagen will be elevated to the head-of-state level.
While low emission energy should certainly be provided as Frances Beinecke suggests,
notice that that does not necessitate the extensive efficiency regulations of the Waxman-Markey House bill and
to a lesser extent Kerry-Boxer Senate bill
The argument, commonly made, that
“Energy reduction and Carbon emission reduction in electricity production and distribution is too slow and expensive for all concerned,
we must also act on consumption, banning products that don’t meet defined efficiency standards”
doesn’t hold up:
1. Because the lowering of emissions from electricity generation and distribution can be addressed in several ways
( http://ceolas.net/#em1x )
not all of which need take time, and some of which need organizational skills rather than money.
Grid interconnections can relatively rapidly spread low emission electricity from a specific source.
2. Because there are numerous disadvantages to consumers of efficiency-defined bans.
( http://ceolas.net/#cc211x )
3. Because energy and emission savings from such bans are not as great as assumed anyway.
( http://ceolas.net/#cc214x )
4. Because -while it should not be needed- appropriate and temporary taxation on products that would otherwise be banned, not only raises funds for relevant environmental projects, it quickly limits and redirects consumption for the time required, with more adaptability regarding scope and application than bans.
( http://ceolas.net/#gg5x ) .
text referral is for those who might want to know more
The US government is no longer much in the hands of the people. It's out of control & there is a free for all going on with the American workers' tax dollars. Few in Congress have time to be bothered about clean energy.
The prerequisite I see to any positive change:
Note that we do not need the US Congress to do this. We only need to demand action from our local reps who serve us in our state legislatures--reps who live nearby & are more accessible and accountable than those on the hill.
Americans must lobby their STATE legislatures to pass a Constitutional Amendment that outlaws campaign donations & favors & mandates publicly funded elections in which each candidate is given the same amount of money & exposure. This way, the best man will win, not the person who has collected the most donations & OUs from special interests.
US Constitution
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, OR, ON THE APPLICATION OF THE LEGISLATURES OF TWO THIRDS OF THE SEVERAL STATES, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, WHICH, IN EITHER CASE, SHALL BE VALID TO ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, AS PART OF THIS CONSTITUTION, WHEN RATIFIED BY THE LEGISLATURES OF THREE FOURTHS OF THE SEVERAL STATES, OR BY CONVENTIONS IN THREE
If they take money, they're ineligible for my/your vote. One simple 'litmus test' campaign picked up on and carried forth by someone well-known (listening Hollywood celebrities) and everything would change forever. Getting money out of politics completely, can be done, but is not popular because it's so tempting to try and beat the other guys down with money, or amplify your ideas with the same. We all must go back to winning with strong arguments that convince.
The left and right could support a taking no money litmus test because it favors neither 'side'. The left and right would finally get what they voted for (a rep who actually represents them and not corporations). My litmus test plan doesn't require ratification by 38 states, just willpower and unity, until we get things straightened away. Anyone with confidence in their own ideas and faith in mankind would benefit. Voters can eliminate money from congressional races right now! Vote me in and watch the other 434 dominoes fall! Joe Ryan for congress in California's 52nd district, 2010 (if I'm not in jail by then).
I am so excited to read what you are doing, Joe. I totally agree with your approach. The most immediate thing Americans can take right now today to have a voice in government again is to simply stop voting for any candidate who accepts donations.
Don't give up. The tipping point is near-- and it seems certain that Americans are starting to recognize that for any rel change, we must get the money out of elections.
"We all must go back to winning with strong arguments that convince."
Absolutely. Let the best person with the best and most persuasive positions win.
"The left and right could support a taking no money litmus test because it favors neither 'side'. "
We are on the same page here. Having our reps answer to we the people is one thing all American can agree upon, which is why all Americans should not only stop voting for anybody who takes donations but also carve this in legal stone by passing an amendment to the Constitution that outlaws donations.
WHAT IS CHINA GOING TO DO? Not a word in this article about that.
We need to concentrate on renewable energies along with making the US energy independent.
Screw carbon dioxide. Wind, sun, natural gas and clean oil and coal is what we need to concentrate on.
Who wants to get the ball rolling? Why not make these circuits cheaper so we can rid ourselves of high power consumptive circuits?
Half the world goes to bed poor and hungry, made so by a comfortable elite that opine in lofty terms while pursuing the gratification of their basest urges (including but not limited to fame, wealth and power) with the tenacity of swine swilling in offal.
The current climate crisis is the result of our lack of humanity. Nothing more. It can never be successfully addressed until we repair the greater deficit. But who among you will sacrifice your comfort? Who among you will forfeit your gain? None. Instead you deceive yourselves as you attempt to deceive others - yet another example of the instinct for individual survival trumping the greater good. Unless Ms. Beinecke lives a life as austere as Jesus, Ghandi or the Buddha, she is but another of the deceivers. (Remember, it was not Paine's Common Sense that won America its independence, but the blood of patriots spilled in abundance!)
Robert Redford is a son of the soil of North America. As an aboriginal North American I understand his message. "It goes without saying" although many of my ancestors said as much lo these many years, before and after >Thomas Paine addressed the patriots.
Our reward? Death, Poverty, Exclusion, extinction. (genocide is a word appropriated elsewhere and without weight when it comes to my forebears).
I agree the blood of the patriots accounts for Americas existence.
I would also like to think that the death of most of the Original inhabitants of the New World were able to leave a message that thoughtful people could anchor the notion of Truth to. Because we know,we should know better. We have always said so. We had our own Thomases. Once the buffalo are gone, so are we we said and in the main this has proven so.
We need but to remember. Not a little green book.
When I was in grad school, there was a big chart in the engineering dept. - Nuclear Fusion Time Line. a) Break-even power w/i 10 years, b) 10 times break-even w/i 15 years, c) 100x, i.e., full pilot plant level engineering w/i 25 years. Seemed great, except that THAT WAS 30 YEARS AGO!
Here are a couple of comments from Wikipedia on nuclear fusion: On May 30, 2009, the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, primarily a weapons lab, announced the creation of a high-energy laser system, the National Ignition Facility, which can heat hydrogen atoms to temperatures only existing in nature in the cores of stars. The new laser is expected to have the ability to produce, for the first time, more energy from controlled, inertially-confined nuclear fusion than was required to initiate the reaction. I.e., they HAVEN'T EVEN REACHED BREAK-EVEN YET!
Also, from wikipedia: Several fusion D-T burning tokamak test devices have been built (TFTR, JET), but these were not built to produce more thermal energy than electrical energy consumed. Despite research having started in the 1950s, no commercial fusion reactor is expected before 2050. An editorial in New Scientist magazine opined that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
Polywell has US Navy financing and its first prototype demonstrated the concept might be viable. Results of the second phase are due in 2011.
Focus Fusion is well into design/testing work
TriAlpha Energy supposedly has 75 million in Paul Allen's money. Secretive.
Who knows but if any of them work costs will drop to tens of a cent per kwh
No big government grants though like those given to estoteric way out there "renewable" ideas.
Hyperion, factory sealed, hot tub sized $30 million (122 sales, 2013 delivery) nuke, runs for 7 to 10 years then spews a softball sized bit of waste before factory refueling.
Texas wind farm - 56 sq miles of concrete, roads and steel, $1.5 billion. 125 Mw(avg), excluding storage, transmission, and millions annually for load balancing natural gas. Same energy as two Hyperion units or electric power as five located in nearby substations for 4% and 10% wind cost.
Arcadia Fl, America's largest solar PV, 5 Mw(avg), 180 acres of arsenic,steel and concrete, cost $150 million. 7% the thermal or 20% electric energy of that Hyperion hot tub buried in a substation nearby.
Arizona Solana Generating Station, 75 Mw(avg), 3 sq miles, $1 billion, excluding storage, transmission, and millions annually for load balancing natural gas. Same energy output as one, power output as three Hyperions - 3% of the energy cost, 10% of the electrical fits in a substation.
With modern nuclear waste fueled efficient fast breeder reactors like Sandia's Right and Argonnes IFR there is sufficient nuclear fission fuel to last hundreds of years.
$1.5 trillion in these nukes, paid by ending $1 trillion in fossil use using a tiny fraction of US industrial capacity and American GHG emissions end.
.This “Renewable” nonsense is worse than the Deniers at driving us to certain disaster.
Nuke power tech is the same as nuke bomb tech, else we wouldn't care about Iran's Power program.
Nuke power leads to increased proliferation, hastening the day we have a rogue nuke leading to global nuclear exchange.
All for power we can get cheaper, FASTER, safe,clean and forever from 3 cent rooftop pv and organic waste BioChar.
See my profile for more porof that Nuclear is insane and that our best path is rooftop pv and waste biochar.
Rooftop solar has been proven to be so inefficient, it is utterly useless.
2. What kind of convoy would be a terrorist's preferred target? One carrying, a) wind turbine parts, b) solar cells, or c) radioactive waste?
And, thank you also so very much for making yet another powerful and unforgettable film, 'Lions for Lambs'. I didn't get to see it until this year, but it struck nerves of personal meaning for me on many levels. I can only hope any deciders of such things un-consider the thought of EVER leaving 'human bait' out somewhere to draw out their enemies, though its likely still happening daily. Because NOTHING has changed there yet and instead only gotten worse, Lions for Lambs is just as relevant as when it was made. Please KNOW, sir, that in any 'Universal Book of Good Things Done for the Right Reasons', that might possibly exist, you've logged several entries now - and some folks are indeed paying attention.
we are storing waste in the size of many football fields stacked to the top of the posts!
We are getting chemtrailed 20 days straight in NH and VT!!!!
Please take videos and pictures and post them on youtube.
Every time there is a blue spot in the sky jets chemtrail it into overcast crap.