The science and the politics

Last week's Newsweek cover article featured Al Gore (I said I had gotten behind) and his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. The former Veep had 3 years of extensive discussions with the people who know about solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, nuclear, carbon sequestration (in trees and soil), energy efficiency, and the regulatory tangle around the whole thing. It's important at least because Gore knows how to get laws changed and explains how that should happen. He also explains how many changes are actually profitable and many more are inexpensive.

Some of the points made in the article:

* Too many corporate CEOs won't embrace changes that will save them considerable money in the long run because the next quarter's bottom line will take too big of a hit.

* I hadn't heard about sequestering carbon dioxide in soil. This is a technique that could make a big difference. However, if we stress sequestration people will say so we don't need to reduce emissions. Getting CO2 into the soil would mean paying farmers for their efforts towards that goal and not price support for crops.

* CO2 is the biggest culprit in global warming but focusing on that means easy methods to control other polluters will be ignored. We need to look at all culprits.

* The beliefs that the world is warming and that such warming is caused by human activity have declined in the last year.