From The UpTake
At the Netroots Nation conference this past week, Al Gore made a surprise visit and struck out hard against Republican "hair of the dog" solutions to the connected energy and global warming crises.
"The idea that we're going to [offshore] drill our way out of this is just so absurd as to not warrant consideration... if you're in a hole, stop digging!" He says to cheers.
And later: "Proposing to get a slight increase in oil by drilling for fuels to be sold to China ten to fifteen years from now as a solution to our rising gas prices makes about as much sense as responding to an attack from Afghanistan by invading some other country."
Does anyone have information on coal imports? I was unaware that we lacked coal resources in the US.
I agree that opening up new land to drilling has no impact on short term gasoline prices. However, I fail to see how changing to renewable energy electrical generation will have anything to do with getting us into electric cars, and in turn weaning us off of foreign oil. Gore even concedes in this speach that the two are unrelated.
Gore can't have his cake and eat it too. He can't criticize the drilling argument and then try to use the same tactics to make an argument for his cause. I have no problem with Gore's desire to move to clean electrical generation, I just don't see why he has to be deceptive about the reason for it. It is about climate change, not gas prices.