Al Gore: More Energy Efficiency, Smart Grids and Green Power

No one can miss the massive tidal wave of media articles by and about experts urging the incoming Obama administration to allocate big dollars towards clean energy and a “New Green Deal” for the American economy.

Here’s the Green Journey contribution to your collection –> Al Gore’s op-ed in today’s New York Times, laying out his recommendations on the exact sectors/areas of greatest opportunity for the new administration.

And the buzzwords for sustainable real estate developers, investors and community officials?

While we’re all pretty used to the big picture on climate change from Gore, here he’s making specific, bold suggestions that — if adopted — would accelerate green real estate and green communities beyond anything that we could have imagined:

• energy efficiency: he calls for direct government support of retrofitting existing buildings. See our other posts on what green real estate leaders are saying about the business case for energy efficiency retrofits.

• smart grids: $400 billion cost to build over 10 years vs. $120 billion per year losses to American businesses. A big price tag — that’s overshadowed by the cost of doing nothing.

• greatly increased solar and wind investment. He calls the current clean coal ideas “too imaginary to make a difference” and “lacking investment” to get off the ground.

Al Gore: Big Vision or Unrealistic?

Photo credit: World Resources Institute, on Flickr

Re: Al Gore’s 17 July speech:

1) Lead Article title by Environmental Leader, emailed around earlier today:

“Gore Calls For 100% Clean Energy by 2018, Keeps Straight Face”

2) Quote from Time Magazine article on the same speech, published today:

“Night terrors aside, the 10-year target is a mistake for strategic
reasons. It feeds into the perception still held by a large number of
Americans that Gore is an alarmist, and alarmists can be ignored. Such
a wildly ambitious goal sets us up for failure, and obscures the fact
that the battle against climate change won’t be won in a decade, or
even two — it will last for the foreseeable future and beyond. (And if
you think Gore has thoughts about returning to the political arena,
forget it. His speech couldn’t have come at a worse time for Democrats,
who are already fighting off accusations that they’re insensitive to
rising gas prices.”

3) Here’s Al’s YouTube explanation to the AP yesterday of why he made such a far-reaching proposal.

One coincidental, parallel happening: today (18 July) was also Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday. I happened to catch a radio show that played back segments of his four hour speech to the court, just before he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

At the time, his ideas were deemed to be too radical for lots of people. Today, some years later, it all sounds completely different.

Clearly Gore is not facing the same personal circumstances as Mandela in 1964. But he’s making bold claims about a very sensitive topic for the entire country. His proposals call for us to literally change our view of ourselves, how we live and do business - very radical  and very difficult to accept for lots of people, I’m sure.

And look at the immediate reaction he’s getting. Even from the environmental media.
So who’s unrealistic? Al Gore, the media, or perhaps the rest of us?