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On July 17, 2008 former vice-president Al Gore challenged this
country to produce 100% of our electricity from renewable energy
within 10 years.  I strongly support Mr. Gore in this effort and
request that CARB (California Air Resources Board) also adopt this
goal.  

The text of his speech can be found at the webpage below.  I have
also pasted it below for your convenience.  Thank you for all your
efforts to limit global warming and air pollution.



http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_to_repower_america/



Mr. Gore's Speech:

"Ladies and gentlemen: 
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of
life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the
challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon
to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside
old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big
changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part
must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step
aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of
America as we know it is at risk. And even more - if more should be
required - the future of human civilization is at stake. 

I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed
to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible
shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing
dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being
outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile
companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing
pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us
that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make
some major changes quickly. 

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse - much
more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from
Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have
warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years
the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer
months. This will further increase the melting pressure on
Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of
Greenland's largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before,
losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount
of water used every year by the residents of New York City. 

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned
our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of
the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of
millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the
world. 

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military
leaders warned of the national security threat from an "energy
tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our access to
foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war
in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse. 

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn't it?
There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer
droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires
are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West.
Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling
for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada,
Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa.
Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science
at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase
in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent.
And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible
for igniting the conflagration in California today. 

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are
bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed
for them, and that's been worrying me. 

I'm convinced that one reason we've seemed paralyzed in the face
of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each
crisis separately - without taking the others into account. And
these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective - they
almost always make the other crises even worse. 

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable
challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running
through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous
over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of
these challenges - the economic, environmental and national
security crises. 

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf
to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's
got to change. 

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of
these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we're
holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels. 

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate
crisis, I have held a series of "solutions summits" with
engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing
has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns
out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very
same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of
ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same
solutions we need to guarantee our national security without
having to go to war in the Persian Gulf. 

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause
pollution and are abundantly available right here at home? 

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar
energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet
100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year.
Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide
all of the electricity America uses. 

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day
to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal
energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of
electricity for America. 

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this
renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we
can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal
power to make electricity for our homes and businesses. 

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our
nation's problems, we need a new start. 

That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to
free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain
control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do.
But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy
needed to re-power America. 

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of
our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free
sources within 10 years. 

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It
represents a challenge to all Americans - in every walk of life:
to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers,
and to every citizen. 

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a
challenge. But here's what's changed: the sharp cost reductions
now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power -
coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal -
have radically changed the economics of energy. 

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts
testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable
sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price
of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of
dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of
concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal
plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our
efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy. 

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will
continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price
of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as
high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as
low as $50 a kilogram. 

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips - also made
out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down
by 50 percent every 18 months - year after year, and that's what's
happened for 40 years in a row. 

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to
accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come
with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution.
I've seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet
this challenge. 

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to
consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop
increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources
to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand
for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for
solar cells increases, the price often comes down. 

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent
of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we
lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and
windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at
home. 

Of course there are those who will tell us this can't be done.
Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo -
the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current
system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to
pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to
recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister
observed, "The Stone Age didn't end because of a shortage of
stones." 

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask
them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about
the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years. The leading experts
predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in
our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever
recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and
coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and
geothermal increases, pollution comes down. 

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I
suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the
status quo. Then bear witness to the people's appetite for change.


I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years
of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas
price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job
losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10
more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign
countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take
another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions
that just happen to have large oil supplies.  
What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do
during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as
a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell
well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security,
the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do
something 40 years from now is universally ignored because
everyone knows that it's meaningless. Ten years is about the
maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our
target. 

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man
on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people
doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months
later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the
moon. 
To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly
clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many
obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified
national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas
where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East
and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid
is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of
our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today,
our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading
failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost
US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be
upgraded anyway. 

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified
National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the
manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet
would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution,
and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid. 

At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our
commitment to efficiency and conservation. That's the best
investment we can make. 

America's transition to renewable energy sources must also include
adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly
face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have
toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy
supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and
sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal
industry. Every single one of them. 

Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by
insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs
of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a
sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in
CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is
the single most important policy change we can make. 

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential
that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts
to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next
year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership
that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme
poverty and disease as part of the world's agenda for solving the
climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100
percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep
dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it
exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward
incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid
offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby
steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic
at a time when these crises require boldness. 

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the
perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices
is drilling for more oil ten years from now. 

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so
often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to
do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly
complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more
money to the oil companies and pretend that they're going to bring
gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone
knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have
never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the
highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil
company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get
the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be
poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are
being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how
to make the system work for them instead of the American people. 

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is:
the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is
overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil
prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter
what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring
gasoline prices down in the short term. 

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring
the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The
way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and
use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1
per gallon gasoline. 

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we've simply
lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim
to know how our system works these days have told us we might as
well forget about our political system doing anything bold,
especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests.
And I've got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have
been going. But I've begun to hear different voices in this
country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and
special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and
bold approach. 

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst
of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its
work before the end of the first year of the new president's term.
It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for
others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first,
because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because
moving first is in our own national interest. 


So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every
level, to accept this challenge - for America to be running on 100
percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It's time for us to
move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now. 

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own
path and our collective fate. I'm asking you - each of you - to
join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at
wecansolveit.org.We need you. And we need you now. We're committed
to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only
change with leadership. 

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready
to meet President Kennedy's challenge of landing Americans on the
moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles
from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to
lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who
had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the
United States Army three weeks later. 

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power
and the vibration of the giant rocket's engines shook my entire
body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with
great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to
follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air.
And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of
millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one
small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of
the human race. 

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change
history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a
new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on
our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to
complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to
take a giant leap for humankind."