Al Gore Was Wrong, It Is Worse Than We Thought

Thomas Friedman, author and New York Times columnist, has written a new book titled Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Promoting his book, he recently came to my neck of the woods to give a speech.

Before the speech, I have to admit, I was not very familiar with him. Turns out he is a flaming liberal. His book is about what he calls energy technology. He referred to it as ET and said we need an ET revolution similar to the IT revolution.

According to Friedman, the government has to put regulation on the consumer to force them to start using cleaner, more reliable sources of energy. By forcing them to do this, companies will be able to reduce the cost of their products, and in turn, provide a cheaper, cleaner, more reliable source of energy.

My question to him is, where the hell does he think all this magical money is going to come from? OK, say the government says you must be using 30% alternative energies by 2018. How do people who are losing their house or businesses struggling to stay open, spring for this increased energy cost?

Perhaps there is a better way to illustrate my point. But certainly you can see the problem with this. You can't just have the government start forcing people to use other sources of energy. When these alternatives become cheaper, then we can start using it. Not vice versa. We don't use the government to bring down the price. The last thing we need is the government doing us any favors.

During the speech he said he was talking with his buddy Al Gore. He told his buddy Al Gore he should write a column titled "I Al Gore, got it wrong. Climate change is worse than I thought." Thats right, worse than even Al Gore thought. Friedman said the polar ice caps will have completely, yes completely melted by 2012. Thats a little more than three years from now. Guess we'll see.

He also said at one point "drill, baby drill" is not the answer. After he soaked up the applause, he said he was not opposed to drilling. When a few in the crowd began to applaud that, he quickly snapped at them and said "this is not crossfire, we are having serious conversation." Well, why didn't he tell the other 2,000 people that were clapping we were having a serious conversation.
photo by: www.morguefile.com

I will say I agree we need to be innovators and leaders in providing alternative energy sources. It is the future and we, as the United States of America, have to be involved in every aspect in order continue to be global leaders. However, having the government force us to use other types of energy is not the answer.