Musings of a Patriot

Ambitious Pronouncement

I’ve already stated that I believe the goal of using only energy from clean, renewable sources is attainable but I think the Green Prophet might be getting ahead of himself.

{Al Gore} said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.

“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative.”

I would love to be proven wrong on this, but I’m skeptical of the 10 year time-frame. The only real question in my mind is, will Barack Obama endorse this idea before I publish this post?

I guess my personal expectations are among those that he predicted would require fundamental changes.

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Comments

6 responses to “Ambitious Pronouncement”

  1. Cameron Avatar
    Cameron

    I think it was a couple of years ago that Al Gore said we only had ten more years until it was too late.

    Reply
  2. David Avatar
    David

    Maybe “10 years” is just a nice round number to use in prophecy.

    Reply
  3. Reach Upward Avatar
    Reach Upward

    More than one observer has noted that prophets of doom tend to work in decades when making catastrophic prognostications.

    Going out 10 or 20 years creates a thesis that can in no way be currently verified. Plus, most of these pronouncements are largely forgotten by the time the stated period has passed, so the doomsayers are never held accountable.

    NASA’s James Hansen is a reliable prophet of doom that for over three decades has routinely prophesied cataclysmic devastation if we did not immediately undertake some massive centralized scheme to severely limit human liberty. A few weeks ago he testified before a congressional committee that we’re almost past the point of no return on fixing global warming. Not one legislator bothered to challenge him on his equally superfluous congressional testimony about the next global ice age back in the 70s.

    Why is it that the people that push global warmism so hard are the same people that favor massive new centralized government programs to fix it?

    Reply
  4. David Avatar
    David

    I figure there are two possible reasons for that connection (pushing global warmism and pushing massive government intervention). One, they view individual liberty as a root cause of the man made global warming they are trying to fix – thus they see collective (government) action as the solution. Two, they are proponents of central planning (massive government) and see the global warming issue as a convenient means of driving their agenda in the public conversation.

    Reply
  5. Carl Avatar
    Carl

    Very good comment Reach. It must be fun for these non-prophet organizations to make far-fetched comments for a minute of publicity knowing that the public will forget what they said. This means that in just a few years, they can turn around and say a completely opposite absurdity for another minute of publicity.

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  6. David Avatar
    David

    Right or wrong, these predictions serve the primary purpose of most prognosticators – which is to be in the public eye with the image of authority on their topic of choice.

    Reply

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