Europe Shouldn't Submit to Vladimir Putin's Energy Blackmail

This column by Thomas Friedman — Go Ahead, Vladimir, Make My Day — may sound too optimistic or oversimplified, but I agree with him completely.  If Putin pulls the plug on Ukraine and the European Union, these countries will be in roughly the same position as the U.S. during the first Arab oil embargo in 1973.  Thomas Friedman says:

“That 1973 embargo led to the first auto mileage standards in America and propelled the solar, wind and energy efficiency industries. A Putin embargo today would be even more valuable because it would happen at a time when the solar, wind, natural gas and energy efficiency industries are all poised to take off and scale.”

Hal Harvey, C.E.O. of Energy Innovation, says:

“Clean energy is at an inflection point.  The price reductions in the last five years have been nothing less than spectacular: Solar cells, for example, have dropped in cost by more than 80 percent in the last five years. This trend is underway, if a bit less dramatically, for wind, batteries, solid state lighting, new window technologies, vehicle drive trains, grid management, and more. What this means is that clean energy is moving from boutique to mainstream, and that opens up a wealth of opportunities.”

And that's not all.  Opower is the name of a company that works with utility customers all over the country to help them reduce their electricity consumption.  Opower accomplishes this by helping people pinpoint exactly when their energy usage is the highest, and comparing people's energy usage with that of their neighbors.  This “behavioral economics” — as Opower's co-founder calls it — enables people to vastly reduce their energy usage without a lot of sacrifice.  Since 2007, Opower has enabled its customers to reduce their energy usage by four terawatt hours, which is the amount of energy produced by the Hoover Dam in one year.  Opower expects to soon be saving its customers that same amount of energy every year.

It's a start.  It's time for everybody to suck it up, bite the bullet and start our fossil fuels cold turkey NOW.

Another article — How solar energy could be the key to reducing economic inequality — reiterates the same points, that solar energy's availability is expanding exponentially:

“Solar panels — the cost of which continues to massively decrease as the technology improves, and which are already as cheap as fossil fuels in some parts of the world — have the potential to create massive economic growth over the next two decades and beyond. The total solar energy hitting Earth each year is equivalent to...over 20,000 times more than the total energy that all of humanity consumes each year...Once solar is cheaper per watt than coal, oil, and natural gas, falling energy costs will provide massive relief to people squeezed in recent years by the rising cost of fossil fuel extraction...All else being equal, falling energy prices mean more disposable income to save and invest, or to spend. And because of the decentralized nature of solar energy, the benefits of cheap, plentiful energy can be realized by anyone with a solar panel, instead of being accrued by the capitalist who owns the coal mine, the power plant, or the oil well.”

OK, what are we waiting for??? 

Natural Resources vs. Resourceful People

It’s official:  There really IS an inverse ratio between a country’s abundance of natural resources (more specifically, that country’s dependence on drilling/mining every last drop of those resources) and the inventiveness, resourcefulness of the people in that country.

At one end of the spectrum you have Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Finland, South Korea, Israel and Hong Kong.  Each one of these countries has few (in some cases, zero) natural resources, a highly educated population and a booming economy.

Qatar and Kazakhstan are at the opposite end of the spectrum:  tons of oil and pisspoor test scores.

As Thomas Friedman says about Taiwan:

“Rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has completed a study of sixty-five countries.  They’ve found a solid correlation between each country’s  15-year-old students’ test scores in math, science and reading comprehension — and the percentage of that country’s G.D.P. that comes from natural resource extraction.

According to Andreas Schleicher, who oversaw the study, the results indicate:

“…a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from natural resources and the knowledge and skills of their high school population…Today’s learning outcomes at school are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run.”

And:

“In countries with little in the way of natural resources — Finland, Singapore or Japan — education has strong outcomes and a high status, at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. ... Every parent and child in these countries knows that skills will decide the life chances of the child and nothing else is going to rescue them, so they build a whole culture and education system around it.”

Well, let’s be grateful that at least some of the world is on the right track.

Meanwhile, here we are, closing libraries and cutting education funding down to the marrow.

Ready now:  one, two, three…Dril Heer Dril Now.

Americans Elect

This might be just another third-party gimmick, or it might actually be a way out of the stranglehold of the ruling Corporate Party (disguised as “Democrats” and “Republicans”).

Americans Elect is trying to encourage voters — via the Internet — to nominate presidential candidates AND to choose the issues. Thomas Friedman describes the group in more detail.

There has to be a way out of this mess. Most Americans (myself included) are scared shitless to “throw away their votes” by voting for a third party candidate and thereby handing over the election to that dreaded Other Party that’s even worse than the Lesser-Of-Two-Evils Party.

Thomas Friedman describes Americans Elect as “a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention...” and “...an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents.”

So far, Americans Elect has gathered 1.6 million signatures. They’re hoping to get their presidential candidate on the ballot in all fifty states. Whoever their candidate turns out to be, he/she will have been nominated without the influence of powerbrokers, kingmakers or quatrobazillions of dollars in “campaign contributions” (which used to be called bribery).

The CEO of Americans Elect says:

“Our goal is to open up what has been an anticompetitive process to people in the middle who are unsatisfied with the choices of the two parties.”

The group’s website says:

“Americans Elect is the first-ever open nominating process. We’re using the Internet to give every single voter — Democrat, Republican or independent — the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012. The people will choose the issues. The people will choose the candidates. And in a secure, online convention next June, the people will make history by putting their choice on the ballot in every state.”

Their Chief Operating Officer says:

“The questions, the priorities, the nominations and the rules will all come from the community, not from two entrenched parties.”

And:

“Each presidential candidate has to pick a running mate outside of their party and reaching across the divide of politics.”

Thomas Friedman ends his column with:

“What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life — remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in. Watch out.”

What say you? Does this sound hopeful?

Thomas Friedman is Right

Yes, it feels good to lash back at those knuckledragging Rightwingers who keep sabotaging and derailing everything Obama tries to do. How can you feel anything except hatred and contempt for America’s oligarchs, and the millions of inbred retards who keep enabling them?

But Thomas Friedman makes an excellent point — answering hatred with counter-hatred is not the answer. It doesn’t work.

Remember, America’s two most successful politicians of the late 20th century — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — were always positive and upbeat. They talked about what they wanted, not what they didn’t want. And as far as I can remember, neither of them ever indulged in personal attacks or name-calling.

And speaking of personal attacks — sorry, brief diversion here — it turns out George W. Bush got a bad rap during his presidency. Liberals kept accusing him of being a tyrant, a dictator, and “shredding” the Constitution. And now we find out — funny story — Boy George simply imbibed a little too much Jim Beam one night, lost his balance, and fell on the Constitution.

Anyway — Thomas Friedman tells Obama: “If you think that the right response is to unleash a populist backlash against bankers, you’re wrong…Americans don’t rally to angry politicians…We rally to inspirational, hopeful ones.”

He also advised Obama not to try fighting the dumbfuck teabirther scumbags by stooping to their level. Actually, his exact wording was:

“We need to make 2010 what Obama should have made 2009: the year of innovation, the year of making our pie bigger, the year of ‘Start-Up America’…Obama should make the centerpiece of his presidency mobilizing a million new start-up companies that won’t just give us temporary highway jobs, but lasting good jobs that keep America on the cutting edge. The best way to counter the Tea Party movement, which is all about stopping things, is with an Innovation Movement, which is all about starting things.”

And:

“Obama should bring together the country’s leading innovators and ask them: ‘What legislation, what tax incentives, do we need right now to replicate you all a million times over’ — and make that his No. 1 priority.”

I think this is an excellent approach. And if nothing else, it’ll be fun to watch the Republicans try to paint this with their usual “Socialism!” “Government Takeover!” drivel.