Re: ~e; Strategic .US Energy Policy

[josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>]

http://www.apolloalliance.org/

--- brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org> wrote:

> 
> The Bill Clinton Foundation hosted an Energy Forum
> Dec. 6th at New York University's Skirball Center:
> 
> “New Thinking on Energy Policy: Meeting the
> Challenges
> of Security, Development and Climate Change”
> 
> There was an editorial in the local paper
> (Startribune)
> which is reproduced in part below, as it is a
> worthwhile
> starting point for a renewed call for a 'public'
> energy
> policy that is democratic, strategic, and
> sustainable:
> 
> --quote--
> 
> Editorial: Renewable Bill/Clinton's new politics of
> energy
> http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5151550.html
> 
> 	'While other speakers assailed President Bush's
> loyalty to the old 
> energy economy, and his indifference to global
> warming, Clinton 
> cautioned against "bellyaching and whining" over
> political realities. 
> "It's time to stop worrying when if ever the current
> administration 
> will change its mind about climate change," he said,
> and to start 
> looking for ways to move the American mind-set
> forward without 
> leadership from the White House.'
> 	....
> 	'As a private citizen, Clinton is pledging to
> devote his considerable 
> skills to leading nongovernment initiatives on
> American energy 
> self-sufficiency, which he quite rightly describes
> as a more critical 
> issue than most of those that got debated in the
> last presidential 
> campaign. This is a good thing, for Bill Clinton's
> greatest political 
> gift has always been his ability to suspend both
> ideology and 
> politics-as-usual in favor of solutions that
> actually work.
> 
> --endquote--
> 
> I have googled for a transcript of the keynote
> speech
> by President Clinton online, yet could not locate
> one.
> Though reading the above story, and the following
> URL,
> it appears that Mr. Clinton is joining in the chorus
> that energy policy is too important to be
> politicized.
> 
> Clinton at N.Y.U. says climate on emissions must be
> changed
> http://thevillager.com/villager_84/clintonatnyu.html
> 
> The interesting part is the do-it-yourself approach
> from within the current vacuum of .US leadership to
> reinvigorate energy policy. As it easily relates to
> foreign policy, security, economics, health, etc...
> and may be the #1 priority for decision-making which
> could radically shift perspectives of current events
> from one of divided worldviews to an integrated view
> of how policies connect, and how to work ideas
> across
> many policies at once, to make the large-scale
> changes
> necessitated by the scale of energy issues of today.
> 
> Apparently the current .US president is taking a
> week-
> long vacation after the holidays to prepare for the
> inauguration speech where an agenda will be
> outlined.
> This is already being sent out piecemeal to the
> press
> to gauge popularity among the populace: missing from
> the policy proposals has been the one that never
> went
> forward in the first Bush term- the old energy
> policy
> that exacerbates much of today's massive failures
> and
> problems in strategy by replicating the industrial
> models and economies of scale, when the situation
> has
> now shifted yet policy approaches have not. The
> first
> Bush policy never got through, after 4 years. And it
> was the #1 priority of the Bush presidency and his
> VP
> Dick Cheney who chaired the special task force (with
> Ken Lay's Enron, and others) to get the job done.
> 
> It is critically important to most every issue in
> the
> daily news cycle in one way or another, energy
> security,
> inflation, manufacturing, trade, pollution, the
> weather,
> education, jobs, business innovation, war in Iraq,
> etc.
> 
> It would be an opportunity for President Bush to go
> forward with a single integrative issue that would
> have the most impact short-, medium-, and long-term
> by focussing not just on taxes or social security or
> other bureaucratic reforms which are mainly facadal
> to the underlying structural issues-- for instance,
> taxes were cut, gas prices went up which in effect
> is a gas tax which does not go to the government at
> all, but to a mangled foreign policy misadventure.
> That is, if it is considered only as a single issue.
> And it is not. It is related to other dynamics such
> as stability in the world, trade between countries
> that import and export goods and resources. Though
> energy policy literally takes most issues whether it
> is a nuclear North Korea, a middle-east peace, the
> potential of nuclear terrorism, Iran's peaceful rise
> in relation to the balance of India and Pakistan, an
> exponential growth of industrial energy consumption
> by China and others, the role of oil in Africa,
> South
> and Central America, Russia, and elsewhere as part
> of
> existing and future dynamics. Missile Defense, the
> networks reliant upon electricity in order to work,
> the basis for work itself (science, technology, and
> culture which needs this infrastructure to exist).
> The advancement of knowledge of this condition at
> the same time as a lead in understanding how it is
> best developed in a changing context-- that it is of
> such importance that being 'reactive' is not a good
> policy when by default it is already shaping views
> and policies which cannot keep up with the problems.
> 
> A single clear energy policy that is publicly based
> and has a local and global component would be one
> way for President Bush to take his political capital
> and make it work for everyone, not just the retired
> class or the rich or Republicans or whatever. It is
> one policy that is capable of bringing Bush's views
> back into the fold with the rest of the world while
> maintaining .US autonomy with minimal hegemony (the
> market/business development in global competitions).
> For instance, by using energy policy to shape tax-
> codes, research and development funds could be put
> into special sectors or programs to help strengthen
> various key areas in education, business,
> investment.
> By addressing climate change through energy policy,
> President Bush could bring the .US closer the .EU's
> goals and common framework while allowing some self-
> definition of the reasoning and context for actions.
> By acknowledging the role of energy in the war in
> Iraq, and changing .US consumer behavior through a
> call to action for changes in energy consumption
> and the production of more efficient and quality-
> products, there is going to be less oil needed all
> around the issues which does equate with blood and
> oil at the level of war.
> 
> Further, working with Russia and Iran, and the .US
> and .IL, the .EU could be a broker for middle-east
> peace through the perspective of energy, weaponry,
> and also energy development needs, nuclear waste
> issues, and a balancing of forces so that nuclear
> terrorism is further isolated from state affairs.
> With Iran's growth in energy (for exporting oil,
> it is assumed) and other countries with massive
> development projects and subsequent issues (if
> pollution, if nuclear waste, resource depletion,
> climate change)-- these are all issues related to
> energy policy-- a 21st century energy policy which
> could form the basis for integrating the various
> issues into one context, one culture, one world.
> 
> It is unlikely Bush would do something as radical
> as break from Cheney's pigeonholing into a realm
> of traditional politics and the political slaughter
> of any opposition-- yet in terms of legacy the one
> issue that will be the largest of these days will
> be the one that is part of most every ongoing issue:
> energy and .IQ, energy and 9/11, energy and
> economics,
> energy and terrorism, energy and climate, war,
> etc...
> 
> Social Security reform just doesn't do it, plus it
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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