I just read Gill Holland's "Brave New World" article and it reminded me again that he's one smart cookie. Two takeaways that I don't want to forget:
(I paraphrase) If our government and "business friendly" representatives hasn't kowtowed to the car industry, we'd have been making consistent mileage improvement requirements over the last 30 years. Instead, when gas goes through the roof, our car companies nearly implode while Toyota sells the snot out of hybrids and Priuses. American's end up spending billions of taxpayer dollars on programs like “Cash for Clunkers” in an attempt to prop up the failing domestic industry....
..and this gem...
"In terms of getting our metaphorical carbon clock cleaned, Chu reminded us that China is spending $12 million an hour on clean energy and developing a 1 million volt, high-transmission line that transports energy from the West (where China's renewables are plentiful and harvestable) to the population centers of the East. For those of us worried about how to present this to the business community, he also recalled that a similar cap-and-trade, market-based system solved the problem of acid rain. It did not destroy the economy, as some in the business community had feared. By 2007, sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions were reduced by 50 percent from 1980 levels. The Waxman-Markey bill is the same type of carbon emissions/cap-and-trade bill."
As a nation, it seems like we're so obstinate and ignorant (or "independently minded") that we can talk ourselves out of any good idea. We have to stop thinking about the short term, and resisting any change that might cost us an extra dollar today, or we'll be the "biggest loser" in the long term.
chuck