Obama Speech - Reduce Fossil Fuel Use
Obama Speech - Reduce Fossil Fuel Use
The President said it out loud - fossil fuel use by America must be reduced.
Many serious and educated people have been saying it, and there is even some awareness in the public about the urgency, but action has been woefully inadequate.
But finally, to the amazement of all, an American President has said it on a live television address to Americans: "we must reduce our use of fossil fuels".
He said that renewable energy and energy efficiency are two of the ways to reduce fossil fuel use.
President Obama also addressed corruption in this speach. He said he is replacing the MMR bosses who were "too cozy with the oil industry". No previous American President has had the courage to do that - I think Obama knows that he may not get any financial support for his re-election in 2012 from the fossil fuels industry because of what he has said today.
President Obama has made an historic and revolutionary speech today. I hope Americans support him - the whole world will be much better off if this speech comes to fruition.
link to text of speech [at some obscure blog] > http://underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com/
It was a good speech...for him to have given three weeks ago. Now it'll be seen as too little, too late.
I watched the speech on CBC - and they had the box in the corner with the video of the oil gushing out of the well as Obama spoke.
There were other Republican conservatives saying the same thing about Dubya and the neocons waging phony war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gingrich and Buchanan said that the Republicans needed a real national energy plan - and one that isn't dependent on foreign oil. I believe they meant Saudi and Middle East oil and not Canada's tar sands environmental disaster.
That's right America, your leaders need to develop a real economic plan with sustainable energy supplies for now and the near future. Because phony wars are only meant to enrich a few corporate friends of the two old line parties in America.
Fidel, the poiint that "progressives" can make without boring the hell out of the reader is that the worker must be helped to make the transition from fossil fuels and still abe able to afford to get to work. It would benefit both employer (competing with pennies-an-hour workers on the other side of the world) and the worker, who would still have employment. It's a matter of immediately requiring the design of cities with employment in mind, as well as neighbourhood aesthetics. And trying to assist with better public transport, etc. in the meantime.
The need to switch is also dictated by Lovelock's predicted scenario - a mass migration from south to north as Earth overheats. THAT would REALLY have you writing about the impact of the U.S. on Canada. :)
bla-bla-bla-and-nothing-changes
He's said some of this before. Hell, Jimmy Carter said it all, and much better... at a time when it might actually have made a difference. Politicians didn't want to make long-range plans (that is, beyond the next election) or take any risks then, and they won't now. Corporate interests gave no quarter then, and won't pay taxes now.
bla-bla-bla-without-teeth-or-backbone
I loved his praying to the Invisible Hand to clean it up. Nice secular state that america. I added Chris Rock's line at the end of the Obama speech since it seems to fit so well.
Tonight we pray for that courage. We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day. Thank you. God Bless You. And may God bless the United States of America. AND NOBODY ELSE
bla-bla-bla-and-nothing-changes
He's said some of this before. Hell, Jimmy Carter said it all, and much better... at a time when it might actually have made a difference. Politicians didn't want to make long-range plans (that is, beyond the next election) or take any risks then, and they won't now. Corporate interests gave no quarter then, and won't pay taxes now.
bla-bla-bla-without-teeth-or-backbone
And you see what it got Jimmy Carter for telling the truth. Tried to get some sense of what they lost from speaking to workers in Georgia, but Jimmy's record was lost on them...as was most else, from the past three decades.
As for taxes, the neo-cons have ridden to power on the lower taxes mantra since Ronnie brought word of the California tax revolt to the nation. Go figure the astute electorate. :)
As for switching from fossil fuels, the June issue of Car&Driver has an article that predicts fossil fuels will always power cars, because alternative energy for vehicles is still highly expensive - a battery alone for a fully-electric car costs $20,000.00 today. Hybrids (gas/electric or some other combination) will continue, but the primary propulsion system will be gas.
Unless you can afford batteries, Boomer? And saying "fossil fuels will always power cars" leaves open the question...how many by 2040, say. Or 60...? And at what environmental price? Could we rent electric verhicles for those really, really important forays into the outback, where public transport is not available? What degree of climate change would it take to force that kind of techno/social revolution? Where the deniers would not have a leg to stand on. Sure not a great political climate to advance those thoughts right now, eh?
As for switching from fossil fuels, the June issue of Car&Driver has an article that predicts fossil fuels will always power cars...
Yeah, and the same guys figured their mastodon wagons would always be reliable transportation.
I agree that the car manufacturers and associated industries (including Car & Driver magazine) should heed the Gulf disaster as a 'wake up' call, and Obama last night tried to sell his vision of a different energy future. But what are the alternatives to fossil fuel and fossil fuel/electric hybrids, given that batteries just for a fully electric car (more expensive for trucks and buses) is $20,000.00?
The quoted price of batteries is a bit of red herring, though. Solar batteries for homes are only a few hundred dollars. Weight is a problem; capacity is a problem - sure. But whereever the will and funding exist, technology makes breakthroughs. Suppose Obama had refused to bail out GM; mandated it to retool for public transit vehicles, or to develop a viable alternative passenger car....? As long as far too many combustion engine cars are manufactured, the companies are motivated to sell them, to beat out or prevent competition: the entire industry and its supply industries, distributors, etc. have a vested interest in the status quo. Change doesn't happen when entrenched vested interests are in control.
ab, if you are saying solar is to be the saviour for dirivers, you've gotta be as optimistic on improvements in weather forecasting.
There have been companies working on batteries for an all electric car since at least the 1970s - and their main use so far as I know is in all-electric forklift trucks used in heavy industry. It's an interesting topic though - I remember seeing the film "Who Killed The Electric Car?" (2006) - GM had in fact built a potentially viable electric car (the EV1) in the 1990s but killed it off in 1999.
A Belgian built an electric racing car exactly 100 years before that.
As long as cars are the focus, we're as sorely fucked as the Gulf now represented by that gusher that some are saying can never be plugged. Oil will always, always, always power cars. How does one extract the minerals that go into cars? How does one process those minerals? By what means are the refined minerals turned into parts? What materials other than plastic will make cars lighter? Cellulose? Corn? Fields of food to fields of car parts? Cars is the cancer that is costing us all our planet.
A Belgian built an electric racing car exactly 100 years before that.
Yes, and it's a disgrace that battery technology isn't the main focus of automakers the world over.
ab, if you are saying solar is to be the saviour for dirivers, you've gotta be as optimistic on improvements in weather forecasting.
Not saying i count on it, but sure would like to own a solar-powered car. I know there are difficult engineering problems. But engineers have already done some pretty amazing things and i fully expect them to do more amazing things. It doesn't have to be a car as we know cars now: it can be a prairie schooner made of recycled paper, or a golf-cart driven by a rubber band, or a pod on suspension cables... I don't know what-all's possible. None of us know what transportation can be until we let creative people apply their imaginations to it.
Solar powered cars are racing all over the planet. I saw a CBC segment featuring a solar car driving in the far north on an ice highway. It had several problems, but did manage to finish its planned route. The main problems are that because solar powered vehicles don't have a huge amount of propulsion, they have to be incredibly lightweight and extremely aerodynamic.
Rachel Maddow gave a rather better speech This is certainly more like what should have been said.
Obama will say whatever he needs to get votes, and then he will do whatever he needs to do to get campaign money from lobbyists. If he was really interested in telling oil and defense industrialists that their time has passed, he would do things like get the troops out of Iraq.
I don't see that happening soon.
Well I thought his speech sucked but I will give him credit for getting BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund for the disaster and an unemployment fund for laid off rig workers. The first really positive move in an oil spill in a long time.
from an article by Csaba Csere - Car & Driver June 2010
The fact is that electric vehicles are prohibitively expensive today - the battery alone in an electric car can cost $20,000 - and will remain so for some time. Moreover, electric vehicles are unproven in the real world. If carmakers are going to bet their futures on this technology, they will do so very gradually. Even under Ghosn's optimistic view, internal combustion(IC) engines will power 90 percent of 2020 vehicles. Koei Saga, Toyota's boss of advanced technology (including electric cars) goes further: "In my personal view, I think we will never abandon the internal-combustion engine".
But they won't be the same IC engines that power vehicles today. With federal fuel-economy standards getting tougher by 35 percent over the next fve years, IC efficiency must improve dramatically - if not, we'll all be forced to drive econoboxes.
After speaking with key powertrain engineers and some independent inventors, we've examined some of the technologies that can achieve this improved efficiency.
(articles goes on to discuss Direct Fuel Injection, Direct Injection Turbo, Variable Displacement, Variable Valve Timing and Lift, Homogenous Charge-Compressed Ignition, Revised Stop-Start Systems, Di Turbo with Ethanol, Ecomotors OPOC Two-Stroke, and Lotus Omnivore Two-Stroke)
As long as cars are the focus, we're as sorely fucked as the Gulf now represented by that gusher that some are saying can never be plugged. Oil will always, always, always power cars. How does one extract the minerals that go into cars? How does one process those minerals? By what means are the refined minerals turned into parts? What materials other than plastic will make cars lighter? Cellulose? Corn? Fields of food to fields of car parts? Cars is the cancer that is costing us all our planet.
When we have to move into the city to raise our chickens, they will really have come home to roost, FM.... :)
Obama didn't mention electric cars in his speech, and that was too bad. There will be lots of fossil fuels used, nobody is saying "none", but to reduce it would be a major big step, historical in itself.
Obama is getting stuff done that Carter could not because Carter was tripped up by tricky Republicans... remember the hostage affair where Reagan got the spooks to mess up Carter's plan so he would lose the election and so the hostages could be freed when Reagon won the Presidency? Oh ya, that happened after Carter's first term... but that is what he was up against, and I just wonder what kind of shit Obama is managing to keep afloat in.
I think the batteries pay for themselves in fuel savings, by the way...
He also didn't mention nuclear, not even once, as far as I can tell. And thats a good thing. I could rant on about how bad it is economically and environmentally, but I will just say that they take 15 years to build and we could put up a lot of wind and solar power in that time.
They say America has enough potential wind energy or solar energy sites to meet their energy needs, if even just the more practical land and offshore areas were utilised responsibly.
Maybe not at their current prices, plus the cost in electricity usage of recharging them every night. Perhaps when battery prices decrease by something like 75% of their current cost, and provided they do not have to be replaced.
We're all barking up the wrong forest!
It doesn't really matter about fossil fuel or neuclear energy: both are screwed. If we look at the future in that whole framework, we're screwed. (Well, i believe we are already, but for the sake of argument....)
Everything needs to change. Cities, transportation, industry, commerce - everything! He didn't say that, and he can't say it, because he isn't going to be part of the new world order, supposing there is one. The question is: when/if the really serious shit hits the really large fan, will there be an alternative leadership prepared to step into the ... oh dear, my metaphors have tripped over themselves! vacuum? breach? maelstrom?
I doubt I'll be around for this New World Order business.
Changing the consumerism mentality to a sustainable economy is a major part of the answer. Absentia is right to say that Obama isn't going to go that far, he is too much of an establishment guy, but he may be a stepping stone - he has certainly been a game changer so far. Maybe he is just testing the waters, seeing how far he can go without losing support or being assassinated.
A visit to the USA - any part of it - would likely convince you that consumerism is here to stay. Big box stores, fast food outlets, gun nuts, Tea Parties, the whole automotive culture (fed by enthusiast clubs, car races, etc) and rightwingnut politics down there makes me despair of substantial change ever happening. But, maybe Obama can initiate changes, although I see him as just more of the status quo - a pawn of the Military-Industrial Complex.
Boom Boom - I was thinking that same thing yesterday when I heard some motorhead say he would be driving his muscle car until the end of the world - "they will have to kill me to take it away".
Maybe a drive in a Tesla Roadster would change his mind {0 to 60 in 4 seconds}!!
But no, they are going to be stubborn about change, that is for sure. The one thing that might work is to price fossil fuels according to the ACTUAL costs of using them, such as environmental damage, global warming, and negative health effects on people. I don't know how such a thing would or should be done, but clearly the price of a gallon of gas in the USA is far too low.
Or maybe these motorheads and fossil FOOLS will just die young from eating McD.
Everytime I fly out to Sept-Iles for a hospital visit (I'm there now) I pick up the latest Car And Driver, Road and Track, and Popular Science magazines. PS has amazing green coverage this month - fantastic ideas for a greener planet. The two car magazines - while very well written - nevertheless embrace the "more power" mindset, although they do occasionally feature road tests on the latest hybrids and related vehicles.
The most amazing article in PS this month features roads and highways made of solar power panels! Imagine the possibilities.
ETA: Solar Panels Built Into Roads Could Be the Future of Energy
See also image 8 of 9: Gallery: Nine of the World's Most Promising Carbon-Neutral Communities
excerpt:
Dockside Green, B.C., Canada
Size: 15 acres Population: 2,500 Annual carbon emissions per person: 21 tons Annual amount to be offset: 52,500 tons Equivalent to: 9,100 cars removed Estimated cost: $600 million Carbon-neutral by: 2011
All of the buildings populating this small development on Vancouver Island are certified green by the internationally recognized U.S. Green Building Council. Eco-features include a "bio boiler" that runs on gas generated from wood refuse, efficient lighting and electrical appliances, and a graywater recycling system that uses treated sewage water to flush toilets.