Michael Sandel, the author, brings up crucial points how our economic views of our society have distorted most aspects of our lives:

"..Without quite realizing it - without ever deciding to do so - we drifted from having a market economy to being a market economy.

The difference is this: a market economy is a tool - a valuable and effective tool - for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor."

Over the last few years a number of articles by respectable academics, scientists, and other reputable people told us  again and again how much Climate Change, Global Warming, will cost us over time, in the future. It was a monetary assessment of future worth vs. current expenditures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When people see the potential massive global damage to our Earth in mainly FUTURE economic terms, they dismiss its significance. So it will cost a little more, our growing, massive, economy can handle that. It would not be really so bad, just like inflation...

Some articles said that with the continuous rise in the global economy, the damage to our way of life would be well within a small percentage of our income, so why worry unduly now.

Add to it that most people are not aware of their deep ignorance of the complexity and interconnection of the global climatic balance. And that they truly believe they understand the forces of nature, know enough about the changing weather, and are familiar with the forces impacting cloud formation and even the vastly complex ocean systems. It is, therefore, nearly impossible to penetrate the personal firewall they have erected around themselves so that they would not have to think about the disastrous climatic change we have already entered into.

Matania

3/12

"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I was drafting a constitution in the year 2012."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice.

I fully agree with the Justice because the framers of our Constitution, as wise and outstanding people as they were, were just human, which means: limited. They were unable to foresee the kind of self serving, ineffective, corrupt, money controlled our Congress would be, not to mention the Supreme Court blindness, ruling that Corporations have the same rights as individuals. And the childish game of the Electoral Vote? How can we accept for so long this archaic game that says you can not trust the people?

Congress has now the lowest public support in a long time. And rightly so, it is frozen in partisan politics and its votes are bought by wealth. However, we continue to admire the Constitution that created the failed Congress. Time to look with critical eyes at the Constitution because it has failed us miserably on a number of serious instances. How long did it take us to consider that women are equal citizens that can vote; and the extremely long subjugation of the African - American community?

I will focus here on the most critical issue we have ever faced: severe, rapid, global climate deterioration. Remember, all our lives depend critically on a reasonably stable, foreseeable, moderate climate.

Our Constitution was developed in the horse and buggy days, when it took days to travel between Boston and Philadelphia. It probably was the best achievable at that time. The rapid danger to human survival by global warming could not have been foreseen by any human, and even now it is beyond the grasp of our President, and the majority of Congress. President Obama ran on fighting global warming aggressively. He has done nothing of substance. When the outstanding, dedicated, hard working Congressman Waxman pushed through anti global warming (GW) legislation, nearly every member of the House that signed it forced special legislation into the bill that would benefit them resulting in an ineffective, confusing 1500 page law. And the President did not help at all.

Here is another serious example: A single House member, John Dingell, representing the Detroit auto industry stopped all attempts to increase car gas mileage [Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)] for several decades. He did what every member of Congress tries to do, protect the interests of his district. The fault lies in the House of Representative that allows House Rules to extinguish a very critical national need- to lower our massive consumption of oil and the concurrent flow of immense US wealth to other countries.

"Oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy dearly-about $1.9 trillion from 2004 to 2008-and each major shock was followed by a recession." US Dept. of Energy.

When the highly dedicated Senator Boxer tried to develop anti GW legislation, she could not achieve it even with a Democratic majority since most senators looked for their own benefits, not the dire need of our country.

The Senate represents the least Democratic, the most distorted institution of our government. The Founders probably had to include a strong protection of state rights then, but the fact is that the 2 senators of Wyoming, for example, with about half a million people have the same power than the two senators of California representing close to 40 million people. Each citizen of Wyoming has the voice of 80 citizens of California! And this is distorted further by money influence. Because of the smaller population it is considerably easier to "buy" and manipulate senators of small states than of large ones.

And we accept this distorted power distribution as holy, "after all it is part of the Constitution". This is ludicrous. Simply, and utterly wrong and un Democratic. Where is the basic principle of one person one vote? We would scream unfair if a newly liberated country would allow this distorted distribution of power.

Even slow moving England was able to downgrade the power of the House of Lord so drastically that it is mostly a figure head now. "The powers of the modern House of Lords are extremely limited-necessarily so, since the permanent and substantial majority enjoyed there by the Conservative Party would otherwise be incompatible with the principles of representative government" Encyclopedia Britannica. However, we, the modern, liberated, Democratic US are frozen by a few hundred years old Constitution that has passed its time and is seriously damaging our ability to survive.

Our frozen Congress is unwilling and unable to act to slow down GW. Without powerful national laws we can do very little to reduce the catastrophic impacts that GW is bringing us, and all humanity, in an accelerated fashion in the coming years. Without US participation, the rest of the world will not move effectively against GW since we are in the best position to fight GW because of our national wealth.

Even most environmentalists are unable to grasp the gravity we are already in. They want incremental changes that will take decades to make significant impacts. We do not have this time. It is now or never. The greenhouse gases (GHG) already in the atmosphere last for hundreds of years and have already melted much of our summer sea-ice in the North Pole region and most glaciers on earth. This by itself will advance climate deterioration (by positive feedback), and every year we increase the amount of greenhouse gases that destabilize our climate by now some 35 billion tons per year!

We did not wait during WWII for Hitler and Yamamoto to destroy us. Thanks to the leadership of FDR, we jumped into a massive national effort, before and after Pearl Harbor, to help our allies defeat the enemy. Global Warming is a much more powerful enemy of civilization than Germany and Japan were, but we are taking decades just to discuss what should we do. All the effort to date to reduce GHG have been insignificant, too little and too late. Twenty years ago we might have had time to talk, not any longer.

We Americans believe that we are superior beings and most natural laws do not apply to us. We are the winners who conquered the wild American lands and created the most advanced civilization to date. We think individual rights are above community and national needs. We live on flood plans, modify river flow, and build inadequate levees ignoring the force of nature and create vast amount of human suffering. And we believe that with just a little time and technology we will continue to be the richest, most powerful nation on earth. What arrogance, what level of blindness, what level of distortion!

We do not accept reality we do not like what will constrain our personal freedoms. That is why we can not grasp fully how dangerous global warming is to human civilization, to human ability to live with some level of comfort and security.

How can we face reality? How can we overcome rapidly these restraining aspects of the Constitution?

China now emits about 8 billion tons of CO2 annually, a quarter of the global emission. With China's GDP growth of nearly 10% it almost does not matter what other nations will be doing to reduce their GHG. If current trend continues, China's own emissions would be some 50% of (current) global level in less than a decade. China per capita GHG emission is now higher than the global average of some 5 metric ton. But it is still a fact that the US contributed most to the accumulated global GHG, and that is what the Chinese are pointing to as their moral right to continue mass GHG emission. The trouble is that we are all in the same boat and we will be suffering together, immaterial who started it and who is adding the fastest to it.

China unbound drive to increase its economic output for both external and local markets drive its enormous need for energy. Its dependence on coal power plants (now 80%) is accelerating despite the rapid increase in green energy generation. Green energy from nuclear, solar and wind is so small compare to coal, it is essentially insignificant. And will remain so small since centralized, large scale coal plants are dependent technology with 24/7 availability, easier and faster to put on line, and their energy monetary cost will continue to be lower than the alternatives, since we are universally ignoring serious environmental costs.

China leadership does not grasp fully the urgency of global warming and how it will soon seriously deteriorate their own environment and thus negating some of their own economic accomplishments. They focus on the urgency of fast economic growth for 800 million of their people eager to emerge from their near absolute poverty, many with income of just a few dollars a day.

Just one example of environmental neglect: most of China modern residential high rise have either no, or minimal insulation. With 25 million unoccupied new apartments, their housing bubble may be around the corner, and when occupied eventually, their demand for electricity/gas would be immense.

I assume that China leadership believes that the impact of GW will come later than the current need for rapid economic growth, and they will have time to deal with GW then. I do not believe they are as wise as some think. Despite China outstanding long-term effort to reduce its population growth, they are constrained by similar limitations of the West: short term thinking and inability to grasp undesirable facts, (however, not to the extent that the US suffers from these and its political disintegration.) China centralized political control, nonetheless, gives them the ability to move on a dime compare to the Democratic West.

Most global leaders, especially in the US, are unable to fully grasp the accelerating negative impacts of GW on agriculture, food supply, ocean productivity, rise in ocean levels, increase in regional aridity, shortage of fresh water, unstable weather patterns, and likelihood of catastrophic events (tipping points). They think we would be able to deal with them in the future. They may even think that some magical technological fix would get us out of the worst aspects of GW. No sensible person should accept that approach.

China, like the rest of humanity, is on a collision course between desire for economic growth and survival.

China is not going to do anything meaningful to reduce its immense Greenhouse Gases. They talk about it, but when you study both their words, and especially their actions you can see clearly how misleading their promises are. The central government can issue impressive guidelines, but provincial and local leadership determine the facts. Economic control and drive is more locally based and influenced by personal relationships and not by the rule of law, as in most Western countries.

Study carefully the double talk about energy in the article below from Chinadaily. They aim to cut energy intensity per GDP by 16% by 2015, letting them continue almost unabated with their rapid GHG increase. But even that is just words.

Listen to this nonsense:

"As a top priority, China will actively nurture new consumption frontiers and optimize the consumption environment to boost its consumption capability and demand."

Matania

CHINADAILY.COM.CN

China to unveil new energy consumption strategy

Updated: 2011-12-17 10:27

By Lan Lan (China Daily)

Final part from:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-12/17/content_14281155.htm

......."It will be an unavoidable dilemma that China will have to deal with in the coming years - continuing the processes of industrialization and urbanization while coming under pressure to act more in cutting emissions," said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University.

China has set a target of cutting energy intensity - which is calculated as units of energy for each unit of GDP - by 16 percent by 2015 from the 2010 level.

"The controls on total energy consumption will be tougher indicators than the energy-intensity targets, because there are loopholes through which local governments can achieve their energy-intensity targets by expanding the GDP base accordingly," said Lin.

The controls will be allocated to provincial governments. The plan will not only have an impact on GDP growth but will also influence the energy structure and price. "Setting limits on energy use means putting limits on GDP," Lin said.

Li Junfeng, deputy director of the Energy Research Institute affiliated with the NDRC, said China must switch to "healthy and qualified GDP", otherwise, it will take years to digest the "junk GDP" at a high environmental cost.

Earlier this month, China laid out detailed plans to control greenhouse gas emissions in the coming five years, with the national target allocated to provincial governments.

In addition, China will adopt more measures to save energy and reduce emissions by increasing the fines imposed for discharging pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, Zhang added.

Stabilizing prices

"Maintaining price stability remains the prime aim of the government's macroeconomic controls next year," said Zhang.

With relatively rapid economic growth and a lower rate of inflation, China's economy has been heading in the right direction this year, the beginning of the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan, he said.

He stressed the need to maintain stable growth next year, an issue that was highlighted at the annual Central Economic Work Conference earlier this week.

As a top priority, China will actively nurture new consumption frontiers and optimize the consumption environment to boost its consumption capability and demand.

Another example:

China rebuffs scheme to cut steel emissions. An ambitious industry-led project to cut carbon dioxide emissions from steel plants is in danger of foundering on account of the refusal by any of China’s producers, which between them account for more than 40 per cent of world production of the metal, to join the initiative. London Financial Times

Here is one of his key observations:

… Our key goal was to limit the average global temperature to 2 degrees C. This is unlikely with the little progress to date and inability to speed up drastically CO2 reductions. Some suggest that we need to look at the possibility of 4 degrees.

“ There is a widespread view that a 4 degree C future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of the eco-systems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4 degree C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level)

Consequently…

4 DEGREE C SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ‘ALL’ COSTS

Climate Change, Going Beyond the Dangerous:

This is just a brief exposure of some key differences between the US and China.

China with its rapidly growing GDP of $6 Trillion is often more influential internationally than the US with its 15 Trillion GDP, a quarter of global GDP. We have by far the strongest military power in the world, but economic power is as important, or often more important, than military power. Exerting military power is not a good option in most cases.

The key reasons that China is so powerful are that it has:
1. A strong central authoritarian government that can make decisions relatively quickly
2. A government which actually care to improve the lot of its population,
3. The ability for planning and executing long term national goals
4. Immense foreign exchange reserves of over $3 Trillion; all of which allow China to achieve its goals rapidly.

The Chinese government and their private economic enterprises operate with less moral and ethical constraints than any other influential nation. This allows China to acquire vast long-term - international energy and mineral resources and exerts its economic influence with little regard to its impact on the local population or international concerns think Iran and Sudan. China's economic power is growing rapidly at 10% per year with less moral concerns or self imposed or external limits. China GDP was one trillion dollar in 2000; it is now 6 times larger! These numbers do not show the total story, since its labor costs are so much lower, China can build twice as much infrastructure and housing per dollar as the US.

Although some assessments predict that China's GDP will surpass the US in just five years, it does not seem realistic- there are always unforeseen difficulties. Serious bumps are around the corner, such as a potential housing bubble, (25 million, often expensive, housing units are unoccupied now). Also there are increasing wage demands, and their artificially low currency exchange rate which would not be tolerated for long. China is already planning to change the rate slowly.

There are a lot of negative elements in China: lack of individual freedom, severe corruption, weak rule of law, building empty cities to sustain employment, lack of environmental control, expanding arid areas due to global warming, diminishing water supplies to vast population centers, no social safety net, suppression of native minorities and more. This is all part of the picture of this vast land. However, it is important to note that most Chinese are happy to have these vast economic opportunities, fast rise in their standard of living at the cost of their political freedom.

The US has serious economic problems most of them politically generated:

1. Representative government, in which local interest prevails over national needs.
2. We have huge and growing national and private debts, totaling $50 trillion, 3 and a half times GDP.
3. We do not have a national vision nor national long term or even short term plan.
4. We let short term self-serving financial forces dictate our direction.
5. Both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congress concentrate on benefiting the financial elite, the wealthy upper few percent of the population to the detriment of the lower income half of the population.

The US richest 10 percent control some 2/3 (73%) of our net worth. The lower 90% has only 27%; this is a ratio of 24 to one on a per capita basis. Think about it, for every thousand dollar a person in the lower 90% can spend monthly, a person in the upper 10% can spend twenty four thousand dollars!

Our US government is divisive, polarized, non transparent, and unable to work for the benefit of the country. And because we generally believe that every one should be free to pursue his/her goals, essentially free from central supervision, our widely spread greed burdens the nation by economic collapse, huge national debt ($14 billions, almost equal to GDP) and immense private debts, some $35 trillions. Recently some 20% of our GDP has been generated by the non-productive financial sector, which mostly shuffled immense amount of fabricated capital from hand to hand with no productive benefit for the country but their own short-term financial wealth.

In summary, China concentrates on achieving its long term rapid national growth at the cost of individual freedom and lack of the rule of law. We concentrate on protecting the wealthy, retaining individual freedom, sustaining the rule of law at a sacrifice of our other important national needs.

The impact on morality of overpopulation:

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
Isaac Asimov

China is not constrained, nor guided by morality or ethics due largely to its vast population. The more people we have, the less we value each individual. And this is evident especially in China and India. Their population is about 1350 and 1210 millions, respectively; together over a third of the global population.

It is not surprising, therefore, that most Chinese focus on their own economic progress and ignores the suffering of others. It has been so for a long time. The current news from China is that 18 people saw and ignored the suffering of a 2 years old, severely injured girl in a car incident. They looked, did not lift a finger to help, and if you heard the driver explanation why he did not stop you would be revolted of his inhuman attitude. I am glad that a considerable debate started in China about this sad experience.

I am bringing the MORALITY ISSUE up to illustrate the great significance of China to the struggle to reduce economic suffering and global Warming. China is the key to cutting global Greenhouse gases. No effort by any other country, or a combination of countries, will make much impact compare to the impact that China has now and will increasingly have (plus the negative impacts expected from India economic and population growth.)

China is driven; it can not stand still economically. To retain political stability the central and regional governments must supply jobs and housing to the current 600 million urban population and the 200 million more poor rural people that will be moving to urban areas over the next decade.
China is obviously focusing on its own survival and growth and naturally ignores the needs of other nations. China "conforms" to Western moral standards only when it suits it or required to propagate China's own aims. China is especially reluctant to support UN effort that reduce the ability of dictatorial powers such as Syria and Iran to subdue their population by force since they have been doing it in some cases and will do it again. They are extremely concerned about the desire of some of their minorities for self determination. Up to now local rebelions are unrelated and focus on correcting local wrongs. But China leadership fears a possible coordination of these local upsets and widespread instability if they are not stopped early. This is why they clamp down on small events that to us seem so minor nad unjustified. Even if we do not like it, We must look at it from their point of view in order to coordinate better the global fight against GW. Yes, this ultimate danger to humanity is more important than achieving soon our dream of full human rights.

China's Communist leadership is working hard to improve the lives of the majority of their population, concentrating on its Han majority of 91.5%. China controls the major banks and holds the majority of foreign capital and gives just a minimal political freedom to prevent upsetting the apple cart. I admire what China leadership did after the death of Mao and his immediate successors. It understood realistically the needs of the country; the first one was reducing its rapid population growth. Under Mao China's population grew from 530 millions in 1948 to 800 millions in 1970 at a rate of 2.2%.

China long term goal has been to first achieve a zero population growth and eventually to reduce their population over the next century to some 750 millions. Wise and courageous aims. The one child policy came from that and succeeded very well to limit the growth rate to just 0.5% and cut the expected population by some 400 millions people. But despite this marvelous effort it could not cut the actual population growth - the current population is nearly three times the population of 1948!

In addition, the ability of the central government to influence local affairs, which is the key to actual developments and the rule of some level of law, is limited. Regional leaders are very powerful and influence local development by often making their own rules and even breaking national guidelines.

China not only has cheap labor in combination with low cost capital, it also does not insist on profit. Full employment is the key goal. Therefore, their competitive position borders on illegal product dumping.

In contrast, we must follow long established safety laws, environmental protection laws, pay social security taxes, income tax, sales tax, and many other requirements (which I agree with) undercutting most western industries ability to compete with an industry that ignores almost anything but current minimal salaries to a vast labor pool. Most of their product undercut substantially similar US products.

But much of China low cost products also come with big negatives: internally high pollution, and low quality and even dangerous products. It is not only that the color of a toy will fade faster but that dangerous lead paint will be used in children toys. Or dangerous chemicals will be used to modify milk products killing hundreds. Or the death of hundreds (thousands?) of children when their schools buildings collapsed on them in an earthquake because the concrete was well below specified strength- to increase builder's profits.

I will discuss this important aspect of Chinese products at another time.

DO NOT EXPECT CHINA TO BEHAVE ACCORDING TO OUR WESTERN MORALITY AND OUR THEORETICAL LEVEL OF INTEGRITY. We do not do that fully ourselves.

Matania

I am focusing on the US because we are the key: we generated the most cumulative greenhouse gases to date, some 35 to 40%, and we are in the best economic position to reduce GHG here and globally. But we want our comfortable lives, use all the energy we want, and hope that minor measures will make serious impacts.

Nonsense. It can not be done. GW has immense disruptive impact on the global climate and immense, painful measures are necessary to reduce meaningfully future impacts of GW.

The main problem is not that US Republican leaders are stone walling any effort: it is that the liberals, people who already say GW is here and serious, are not actually believing it.

If they believed the seriousness that they state, why are they are not acting on it in the depth and scale required?

Almost no one with scientific knowledge, of public stature, from scientists, to politicians, to religious and environmental leaders, is willing to risk their comfortable positions and raise such a public outcry that it will finally reach the American people and global leaders too.

Almost every article on GW is sugar coated, if we just do this or that all will be well. Look how meekly they present the danger of GW:

1. "Climate change is occurring, is very likely (my emphasis) caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risk."

-The national Research Council Committee on America's climatic Choices, in its fifth and FINAL report to the United States Congress on Climate Change."

This statement is so weak that most Congress members on the sideline will not be motivated to act. That committee could not even eliminate: "very likely". Do these committee members still have doubts about GW? Just eliminate very likely and see how different the impact is.

2. National Geographic had a major article about the damage to the oceans recently (The Acid Sea, April 2011). I read it with hope. In the past National Geographic warned us clearly and openly about the danger of GW. This article was so weak; you could not sense real urgency in it. The words were too mild to capture our attention. NG leadership is reducing their courage and thinks now more about public acceptance and readership than the future of humankind.

I know it is hard to grasp deeply, personally, the profound danger of GW. It has taken me several painful years of personal struggle to overcome my resistance. We must overcome our fears of personal discomfort. I have talked to GW scientists, environmental leaders, key heads of governmental environmental departments, key staff members in Congress, but none were willing to take any risk to fight more effectively against GW.

We do not have real leaders to fight GW. The inability of liberal leaders from scientists, religious and political leaders, business persons, to environmentalists to overcome their own personal fear for their professional status, loss of face or livelihood, hinders our ability to fight GW effectively.

Matania

WARMING TO THE TASK

E D I T O R I A L

By DAVID GERGEN • EDITOR AT LARGE

TO BE RESPONSIBLE STEWARDS, WE MUST REDUCE THE FUMES AND GASES OVERHEATING OUR PLANET.

Do you remember all those years when scientists argued that smoking would kill us but the doubters insisted that we didn't know for sure? That the evidence was inconclusive, the science uncertain? That the antismoking lobby was out to destroy our way of life and the government should stay out of the way? Lots of Americans bought that malarkey, and over three decades, some 10 million smokers went to early graves.

There are eerie parallels today, as scientists in one wave after another try to awaken us to the growing threat of global warming. The latest was a panel from the National Academy of Sciences, enlisted by the Bush administration, to tell us that the Earth's atmosphere is definitely warming and that the problem is largely man‑made. The clear message is that we should get moving to protect ourselves. The president of the National Academy, Bruce Alberts, added this key point in a preamble to the panel's report: "Science never has all the answers. But science does provide us with the best available guide to the future, and it is critical that our nation and the world base important policies on the best judgments that science can provide concerning the future consequences of present actions."

Paralysis by analysis. Just as on smoking, voices now come from many quarters insisting that the science about global warming is incomplete, that it's OK to keep pouring fumes into the air until we know for sure. This is a dangerous game: By the time 100 percent of the evidence is in, it maybe too late. With the risks obvious and growing, a prudent people would take out an insurance policy now.

Fortunately, the Bush administration is starting to pay attention. But it's obvious that a majority of the president's advisers still don't take global warming seriously. Instead of a plan of action, they continue to press for more research‑a classic case of "paralysis by analysis." The president does have good arguments on his side. He explained to European leaders last week that the Kyoto protocol they favor cannot serve as the international framework for environmental action. Its goals and timetables for reducing U.S. greenhouse emissions? percent below 1990 levels by 2012 are indeed "unrealistic"; the U.S. emissions are currently running some 12 percent above those 1990 levels. To ratchet down so far and so quickly would dampen an economy already too weak.

But we should listen closely to the Europeans and their environmental allies. They correctly say that by trying to blow up the Kyoto protocol and start all over again the United States will encourage lengthy, unacceptable delays in anyone's doing anything. To paraphrase from another context, we should amend Kyoto, not end it.

Other nations are also right to look to the United States for leadership. It cannot be said too often that WE ARE THE WORLD'S WORST POLLUTER. We have less than 5 percent of the world's population and produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide. EMISSIONS FROM OUR POWER PLANTS ALONE EXCEED THE TOTAL EMISSIONS OF 146 OTHER NATIONS COMBINED, WHICH REPRESENT 75 PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION. It is said in defense that our proportion of emissions is roughly equal to our proportion of the world's economy. True, but nations like Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom produce fewer emissions than their economic share. We just aren't as energy‑efficient as we should be.

To serve as responsible stewards of the planet, we must press forward on deeper atmospheric and oceanic research. But research alone is inadequate. If the administration won't take the legislative initiative, Congress should step into the breach to begin fashioning conservation measures. A bill by Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, which would offer financial incentives for private industry, is a promising start. Many see that the country is getting ready to build lots of new power plants to meet our energy needs. If we are ever going to protect the atmosphere, it is crucial that those new plants be environmentally sound.

Meanwhile, the administration must aggressively put ideas on the table that bring Europeans, Japanese, and others into negotiations for a follow‑on treaty to Kyoto. The world urgently needs a commitment from all governments to reduce emissions. Relying upon voluntary restraints in a free market is not an answer; it is an excuse.

We must be serious about these fumes pouring into the air.

Anyone who has watched a parent die from smoking will understand.

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, JUNE 25, 2001

A century ago Justice Louis Brandeis warned us about the negative impact of concentration of great wealth. The facts below tell us that we are in a deep national and international trouble since the people with that wealth and power are few and concerned mostly about their own well being. With the immense troubles the world is now facing: economic collapse, global warming, rapid and unsustainable population growth, and wide-spread deep poverty, unless something drastic change, humanity is facing troubles we never faced before, and especially because the problems are spread globally, and global solutions are mandatory.

Matania

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Louis D. Brandeis (Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court)

"Between 2003 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the US went to the richest 1 percent of the population. That lopsided distribution means that today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth- significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent.

That is a huge shift from the post-war decades, whose golden glow may have arisen largely from the era's relative income equality. During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent took home just a third of the national income. The last time the gap between the people on top and everyone else was as large as it is today was during the Roaring '20s.

..The rise of today's super-rich is a global phenomenon. ..."

"These global super-rich work and play together...."

..."These meritocrats are the winners in a winner-take-all world. Among the big political questions of our age are weather they will notice that everyone else is falling behind, and whether they will decide it is in their interest to do something about that".

Chrystia Freeland, Editor, Thompson Reuters Digital, The Atlantic, July/August 2011

Listen to Bill Gates!

I have been an environmental scientist for several decades and made significant contributions to the commercialization of wind energy when I was the manager of the solar office and the wind energy program for the California Energy Commission. I tried to look at reality and not mislead myself by wishful thinking. Bill Gates is a wise man and we must listen to him; he has a lot of logical things to say we do not wish to listen to because they are against our dreams. But facts are facts, even if we ignore them.

Many of the points Bill Gates discussed are valid:
First, he did not say efficiency is useless, but that it is limited. I have been advocating energy efficiency and conservation strongly for half a century. Almost no progress was achieved to date. It is not sexy like PV and people do not want to use conservation. Only strict national mandatory laws stronger than California may make a difference. It is not that the efficiency and conservation are not important, they are critically desirable and important, it is the difficulty in spreading them fast and widely to make a difference.
Read: Conservation can cut 30 times more CO2 per dollar, on my blog.

Bill Gates is correct on PV. First he is correct that unless the technology can be widely used in China and India it is essentially useless. PV is too expensive by a significant factor to be use on a large scale in these critical countries. No matter how much we cut GHG these two countries will continue to pass us with GHG by increasing amounts. They are the key to cutting GHG!

The PV global industry is in the order of $20 billion a year! This is a huge industry, not in infancy with starting pain. Why does it need more government support? Only to maintain and increase the profit of the PV industry. The cost of the panels went down a little, but it is not passing on to the consumer. The system price has to drop by ten to one according to Dr. Steven Chu to be significant. Not this expensive PV technology! Panels are less than 35% of system cost!
Without government support PV would have died a long time ago, as it should since it has made less than negligible contribution to reducing GHG. Also, too many supporters are dreaming about a world covered with PV panels and do not do other, more important things such as conservation and efficiency. Current PV technology inherently can't do it. Environmentalists often give Germany as a champion on PV we should emulate. Wrong! Germany spent over $70 B on PV by last year and got less than one half a percent of its electricity from that huge investment. At the same time wind produce 7% of their electricity, but worst of all, Germany has been increasing their dependence on coal power by considerably larger percentage that all the green technologies combined. Let's look at facts as they are, rather as we wish them to be.
Using this money for conservation and efficiency would have reduced GHG by 20 times or more.

The basis fact is that flat panel silicon technology demands very highly refined silicon which demands a lot of electricity to refined which is produced by coal power plants in Germany and China. We have also the several years of energy payback to consider.
It will take too long to demonstrate all the sensible points Bill Gates made. Let's listen to him and review carefully what we are proposing.

BTW, yes, nuclear power is more promising BECAUSE little innovations and improvement were made to date. There are so many new improvements that could be introduced. Without nuclear our green technologies are too erratic and even the promising wind energy may be degraded since future weather patterns would be changing and be less predictable with increasing GW.

Read www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org to understand why PV is not any part of the answer with current technology. R&D is critical to find new more practical solar technologies of converting sun energy to electricity.

Matania