Mr. Gore goes to DC

You can watch Al Gore now on CSPAN.
.
"Former Vice Pres. Al Gore testifies during a Senate Environment and Public Works Cmte. hearing on climate change. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chairs the hearing. "An Inconvenient Truth," Mr. Gore's film on global warming, won this year's Academy Award for Best Documentary. "

Here are his points.

We need an immediate freeze on carbon emissions and we need to reduce emissions by 90% by 2050.

We need to use the tax code to reduce tax on employment and make up the difference with pollution taxes. (climate stability premium) This should be a revenue neutral tax shift.

We need to dedicate a portion of the revenues to low income groups.

We need to be part of strong Global Treaty for climate change and we should move the date for a new global treaty, as called for in the Kyoto Treaty up 2 years to 2010.

We need a moratorium on any new coal plants that are not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.

We need to develop an "electronet", a smart electric grid.

At this point, the rerun of the morning testimony was interrupted by, you guessed it, Tony Snow and his capital stenography pool.

Holy freeking Jeezus.

Here we have the most important issue of our time, interrupted by arguably the most incompetent US government of all time. CSPAN somehow joined right in.

It was more than a foreshadowing, it was a portent.

I'll pick up the rest of his points when the transcript is available. And here is the House Video

However, there will be more testimony this afternoon, and CSPAN will cover it once Snow and the pool are finished with their little dip in their own pool of primordial ooze.

My sense was this,

Al hit it out of the park.


Oz note:
Here are Al's other points,

We should raise c.a.f.e. standards on cars.

We should ban incandescent light bulbs.

We should create a carbon neutral mortgage association, so that efficiency improvements can be mortgaged just like the house itself.

We should require the Securities Exchange Commission to require the disclosure of their carbon emissions in their annual report.

You can send a note to Congress here


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