All-Electric Cars: Making a Comeback

Electric vehicles, including some pretty stylish models, were introduced in California way back in the 90's, and were getting quite popular. If not for a change in the law that had forced the car companies to come up with these new models, we would probably have far more of them on the road now, and be that much farther along in the battle to beat global warming. But, no... The oil and car companies fought the zero-emissions law and won, and thousands of all-electric cars -- which had been leased, not sold -- were recalled and destroyed.

After that, due to environmental concern and consumer demand, hybrids were brought on the scene, which of course, still used gasoline. Finally, it appears the all-electric vehicles are poised to make a comeback, and I say, it's about time!

Check out this recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Michael Taylor:

All-Electric Cars About to Be Resurrected
"The all-electric car, which had a brief heyday less than a decade ago and then went the way of the dodo, killed off by the car companies, is about to make a comeback. These silent electric autos will be plugged into home outlets at night and during the day will be able to travel 100 miles or more without stopping for a charge. Nissan said recently it has developed a mass-market electric car, due out by the end of next year, that will seat five and can have its battery charged to 80 percent of capacity in 26 minutes."

Earth Day - a good time to view this video

If you missed this episode of NOW on PBS, I urge you to check it out... this article has a link to viewing it online. An excellent, beautiful and disturbing documentary. With all the problems, economic, energy, environmental, etc, that we're dealing with, it's easy to get numb to the global warming threat. But it's real and progressing.

NOW | On Thin Ice
http://www.truthout.org/042009U
Seventy-five percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glaciers, but scientists predict climate change will cause some of the world's largest glaciers to completely melt by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives, especially our water and food supply? With global warming falling low on a national list of American concerns, it's time to take a deeper look at what could be a global calamity in the making.

Earth: The Sequel – inspiring, well done

On Wednesday night, The Discovery Channel aired its one-hour documentary based on Fred Krupp's best-selling book Earth: The Sequel.

If you didn't catch it, they're repeating it again this Sunday. It goes through many of the latest innovations for producing alternative energy, and is quite inspiring. It really gives us -- excuse the overused term (in these days of Obama) -- "hope."

If these already proven technologies could be launched on a massive scale right away, we would not only stand a chance at avoiding the worst of global climate change (and yes, it is still real, despite right-wing nut jobs insisting it's already "over"), AND we could put people to work in good-paying, meaningful, long-lasting jobs and careers.

In fact, I think the entire stimulus should have gone to this effort. Screw the banks, let 'em fail. (Alright, some help should go directly to homeowners facing foreclosure and the unemployed to help them survive through the worst of this.) Let the failed, corrupt financial institutions go bankrupt, let the government restructure them, bring in new people, and start over. That way, CEOs will know there are consequences in the future, and will act accordingly.

Meanwhile, if Obama had launched what Al Gore suggested months ago, we could be on the way to a complete environmental and economic transformation.

It is continually being suggested that we'll need another stimulus package. This should be it.

You asked for it, Sarah Palin, you got it

"Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change," Palin told ABC News in an interview broadcast Thursday and Friday. "I have not said that."

Show you? Since you can't remember anything you've said, and are always contradicting yourself (like on the 'bridge to nowhere' thing), I'm here to help:

"When a species' habitat (in this case, sea ice) is declining due to climate change, but there are no discrete human activities that can be regulated or modified to effect change, what do you do?" -- you wrote this (my emphasis) in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in December 2006 about listing the polar bear as a threatened species.

"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location... I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made." -- Yup, that's you, Guv, on the Internet news site Newsmax just last month!

"I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity." -- Yep, you again, Ms. Palin, in an interview with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner this year.

There are many more lies you have already been caught on in the short time the press has begun to check you out, and I'm sure there will be many more. But since this was the only one you asked about, I'll stop there for now, out of deference. After all, you're an expert on the Russians, since your state is so close to a remote region of their country, so I'm sure you must be an expert on all foreign policy, and everything else!