Another article: McKinsey Global Institute: "The carbon productivity challenge: Curbing climate change and sustaining economic growth"

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/Carbon_Productivity/index.asp

"The carbon productivity challenge: Curbing climate change and sustaining economic growth"

I love this article because it touches on such a key point. Lowering carbon emissions is good for the environment and resisting global warming, but how does it affect the economy? Well Mckinsey Global Institute says: " To meet commonly discussed abatement paths, carbon productivity must increase from approximately $740 GDP per ton of CO2e today to $7,300 GDP per ton of CO2e by 2050—a tenfold increase".

Wow, those are startling numbers. We must be able to meet these goals by 2050 - only 41 years from now. In a growing economy, where carbon emissions are increasing exponentially from oil, coal plants, power plants, manufacturing, plastics, deforestation - we need to be cognisant of the role carbon emissions are playing in parallel to our "growth". We have to remember that our population is growing, and we must protect the next generation from dealing with problems just because the majority of the US is presently consuming energy with arrogant entitlement.
And I dont know about you, but when I'm older and ready to retire, I don't want to worry about basic necessities.

NPR Article: "Obama Faces Tight Deadline On Climate Change" by Richard Harris

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97436389&sc=nl&cc=nh-20081128

Obama will gather with other nations to talk about drafting a new climate agreement to battle global warming and carbon emissions. The plan is to pass a new agreement by December 2009 which will replace the Koyoto Protocol (the treaty that the US so kindly declined to make mandatory).

If you open the link, you can click on the live radio broadcast.

Another article on electric cars...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-kloosterman/san-francisco-partners-wi_b_146844.html

Impressive. Now that the auto industry needs some help, why not have the government make these electric cars mandatory by a certain date? These auto companies will have a ton of demand for the new electric cars, thus employing all if not more workers in the auto industry.

Now the question remains - what to do with all the millions of inefficient cars? How toxic will it be on our environment to "rid" ourselves of these older automobiles?

Interesting article ...."Run Cars on Green Electricity, Not Natural Gas"

Interesting article posted by the Earth Institute
"Run Cars on Green Electricity, Not Natural Gas"
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update79.htm
Jonathan G. Dorn

After reading the article "Run Cars on Green Electricity, Not Natural Gas", I agree with the author Mr. Dorn that we cannot rely on natural gas fired cars as a viable option for the future. We need to move away from dependence on foreign oil, and a switch to natural gas will not end this dependence. It's like switching from one addictive substance to another. If we don't remedy the problem, we will not be able to move towards energy independence.

I think plug-in hybrid electric vehicles is a great start, but we need to think about this in greater detail. As the author states, electricity comes from a number of different sources - coal, nuclear, geothermal, biomass, natural gas to name a few, and oil is typically the last source added to the grid.

However, the plug -in hybrid vehicle would not necessarily create a demand in green energy if these cars only need electricity to run, since electricity could come from a number of different sources. We need our government to implement a mandatory requirement that provides an incentive to purchase green energy - green electricity that is. And the only thing that we can do to encourage production of renewable energy is to work with the government on subsidizing green energy companies, and provide tax benefits to consumers of this renewable source of energy.

These cars may end our dependence on oil, but will not necessarily end our dependence on brown energy. We need to change the source of the problem.