Gore, in AIA Keynote, Urges Pollution Penalty

[RestoreGore]

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070509Gore.asp

Gore, in AIA Keynote, Urges Pollution Penalty
May 9, 2007
Compiled by James Murdock from RECORD staff reports

People are treating the atmosphere like “an open sewer,” former vice president Al Gore contends, and the best way to stop them is with a pollution tax. Gore laid out just such a penalty system, as well as financial incentives for not polluting, during his keynote address at the AIA’s 2007 National Convention and Design Exposition in San Antonio on Saturday. It was a speech tailored to his audience, using little of the same content from “An Inconvenient Truth”—his Academy Award-winning documentary—and with good reason.

“Architects have by far the greatest opportunity to affect how our society deals with the climate crisis,” Gore said. “Don’t get tired. You are needed now more than ever. This is your time.”

In addition to taxing carbon emissions, which he suggested could be offset by reductions in payroll taxes, Gore also advocated the creation of a quasi public/private agency—dubbed the Carbon Neutral Mortgage Association—to give property owners mortgage credits that would offset the capital costs of installing sustainable technologies. He also proposed the creation of an “Electronet”: a nationwide net-metering system that would reduce the need for constructing new energy plants by removing current restrictions on how power is distributed, as well as the limits on how much power that the operators of wind turbines and photovoltaic arrays may sell back to the grid.

But it was Gore’s message for architects that resonated most with audience members, who gave him several standing ovations. Warning of “climate refugees,” displaced from their homes by rising seawaters and drought, he said that people will turn to the profession for help. “Be ready for that. You have the opportunity to redesign our civilization.”

Oddly, given that Gore’s first career was in journalism, at his request the press was barred from attending the speech. RECORD and other news organizations including the San Antonio Express-News disregarded this and successfully placed reporters within the hall.
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Good for Mr. Gore. Proposing initiatives that will definitely raise the hackles of the status quo. Innovative, bold, visionary, and Democratic... not at all in line with the current toxic political system in this country that he is so far beyond. He deserves every standing ovation he gets, not because people think he may be a candidate for office in a system that would turn his ideas off before he even got a chance to explain them, but because he is a man putting this above all else and walking into that fire and calling us to go with him.

[RestoreGore]

1. AL Gore: My Turn:The Energy Electranet

My Turn: The Energy Electranet: By Al Gore

My Turn: The Energy Electranet

The climate crisis will force a historic shift to a new global power network of small alternative sources. This network will then feed a smart electric grid. Welcome to the future.

By Al Gore

Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - Over the past 200 years, the industrial revolution has created vast wealth and huge improvements in the human condition—in a few dozen highly industrialized countries. The engine of that revolution was fueled by coal and then supercharged with oil—multiplying the productivity of human labor many, many times over. Although we have reaped many benefits from this intensive use of energy, we are now faced with an urgent crisis—a crisis that is altering the very nature of the Earth's climate.

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister, once said, "The Stone Age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the Oil Age will end, but not for lack of oil." It is the climate crisis that is the forcing mechanism for a change away from the fuels of the Industrial Revolution to a new age. As many know, the Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters side by side: the first is the symbol for "danger," the second the symbol for "opportunity."

And what will the technological opportunities look like? Taking a page from the early development of ARPANET (the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)—which ultimately became the Internet—we will rely on new kinds of distribution networks for electricity and liquid fuels. We will be less dependent on large, centralized coal-generating plants and massive oil refineries. Societies of the future will rely on small, diversified and renewable sources of energy, ranging from windmills and solar photovoltaics to second-generation ethanol-and biodiesel-production facilities. Widely dispersed throughout the countryside, these streamlined facilities will make the industrialized world more secure and less dependent on unstable and threatening oil-producing nations. Off-grid applications of renewable power sources can provide energy for the 3 billion people now stuck in poverty.

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Home Wind Turbines Turn Fashionable In Britain

My comments:

What Mr. Gore speaks about as the future is already here in Britain as the link above mentions. Seems Europe always beats this country to the punch regarding matters of substance. Reading this article it seems so logical that this should be the way to do business in the future, climate crisis or not. It is simply easier, more economical, and better for our planet. Shouldn't we want all of that regardless?

People will actually not only be preserving their planet for the future with this innovation, but actually saving money while growing a sounder economy. The phrase, "you can't have your cake and eat it too" takes on a whole new meaning in the world of microgeneration, because you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your planet and a sound economy. You can have electricity without the worry of what you are doing to the environment.

However, as Mr. Gore also points out in his article in Newsweek those living in poverty will have a tougher time of it as I have looked into in regards to certain forms of energy if they do not own their homes. I have already checked into this in my own state regarding solar power because that is the kind of alternate energy I would want for my home. However, if you rent in my state you can't have solar power as your source unless your landlord puts the units up and agrees to pay for it. I would think that would also be the case if say, you wanted a wind power source attached to your unit where you live because it would also be on their property. How would that be worked out in legal terms?

I think there should be an easier way for those who do not own homes to be part of this solution, and it is actually good to finally see Mr. Gore addressing poverty and other barriers in regards to these coming changes. I hope he keeps it up. That is also something I am looking to address to my state legislature in regards to those who wish to be a part of this solution who are at the mercy of their landlords regarding the source of their electricity. We need options as well that won't have us having to negate any savings on electricity with higher rents or other fees for using such energy on our landlord's property.

Also, as Mr. Gore mentions urbanization is on the rise and more people are in urban areas than ever before and will be in the coming decades. That will put a strain on resources, so this "electranet" will most definitely have to include various alternate choices available for a wide array of financial and usage circumstances from poor to rich. It will also give people a better chance to become more aware of what they use, how they use it, and to see the positive effect from that usage. That does inspire investment, growth, and moral responsibility, and also in the meantime hopefully slows the pace of the melting Arctic which scientists have recently reported will be ice free by 2040... ICE FREE by 2040... the repercussions of not having that mirror at the top of the world are something unfathomable and my child will still be alive then, and God willing, so will I.

Therefore, this discussion must be started and solutions put into place yesterday and we must look to the future and begin NOW to put in place the mechanisms that will bring us forward to a more sustainable world which is not only hopeful but actually exciting even in the face of this great challenge. As Mr. Gore also eluded to in the beginning of his article, the Industrial Revolution brought about much prosperity for certain people and countries... but I ask, at what price? It certainly isn't worth the price of losing our planet.