Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Stanford's George Shultz on energy: It's personal
-George Shultz leads a group preparing to propose a federal tax on carbon to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption, a seemingly unlikely policy from a Republican Party statesman.
George Shultz was an economist in the Eisenhower administration, as well as secretary of the Treasury and Labor, and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Nixon administration. Under President Ronald Reagan, he was secretary of state for almost seven years. Despite the reluctance of his fellow Republicans to embrace action on global warming, Shultz is confident that when the time is right conservatives will support a carbon tax, for a number of reasons...
...I've been worried about our energy problem for a long time. President Eisenhower said that if we imported more than 20 percent of the oil we use, we were asking for trouble with national security. By 1973, I'm secretary of the Treasury and we have the Arab oil embargo. They seek to deny us oil in order to change our policies. I thought then, you know, President Eisenhower knew something.
...If you speak out about something, you've got to walk the talk, you've got to do it yourself. The biggest consumer of oil is the automobile, so I've been interested in driving a car that is more efficient. My solar panels have long since paid for themselves by the savings in electricity costs. I have my electric car running on electricity from the sun, which costs me nothing and there is plenty of it here. So, I'm driving on sunshine. Take that, Ahmadinejad!
...We have to have a system where all forms of energy bear their full costs. For some, their costs are the costs of producing the energy, but many other forms of energy produce side effects, like pollution, that are a cost of society. The producers don't bear that cost, society does. There has to be a way to level the playing field and cause those forms of energy to bear their true costs. That means putting a price on carbon.
...Historically, Republicans have often protected the environment. President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. We dealt with the ozone layer under President Reagan and with acid rain under the first President Bush, both with bipartisan support. People making careers out of disagreeing with each other is a very recent phenomenon.
There are three major issues raised in the energy area. One is national security. We know that we don't want to be vulnerable to sources of supply that are uncertain or to send billions of dollars to regimes that are not our friends. Then there's the economy. Every spike in the price of oil has put our economy in a recession. We want to have more diverse energy resources so our economy won't be so vulnerable to the oil market.
Then there's the environment, which has many aspects. One of these is the air you breath, which Tom Steyer and I emphasized in the "No on 23" campaign. Another is that the globe is warming, which is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. The arctic is melting. If you could bring together the constituencies concerned with national security, the economy and the environment both local and global that would be a potent coalition...
Much more at the Stanford News site, I encourage everyone, regardless of your political persuasions or ideological preferences to read this man's considerations and opinions: Stanford's George Shultz on energy: It's personal
Maybe he's invested with Al Gore...
.Al Gore could become world's first carbon billionaire
Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world's first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.
Last year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.
The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts
Al Gore could become world's first carbon billionaire - Telegraph
Al Gore has proven himself to be a savvy investor. Many companies are now investing in alternative energies, including the major oil companies. The affects we have seen in major agriculture losses to extreme weather events in the last three years are beginning to wake many people up. So the pressure to switch our energy generation to a non-fossil fuel base will increase over the coming years, and those wisely invested will be rewarded handsomely. That is how capitalism works, you know.