Green Hawk

Thomas Friedman's NY Times column on Wed. regarding those who don't believe in a clean energy future was one of his best I've seen in awhile.  If you want America to be a leader in the 21st century, you need to read it.  That means if you don't read it you are probably a terrorist.  Ok, that's a little harsh.  But seriously, read it.

Put simply:  As populations around the world grow and resources get increasingly strained, the leader in clean energy and green technologies is going to be the leader of the 21st century economy.  The U.S. can either stand by and let other countries be the leader, or we can step up.  Those who oppose this future our hurting the future of America.

From the article:

Now, add one more thing. The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs.

“What happens when developing nations with soaring vehicle populations get tens of millions of petroleum-powered cars at the same time as the global economy recovers and there’s no large global oil supply overhang?” asks Felix Kramer, the electric car expert who advocates electrifying the U.S. auto fleet and increasingly powering it with renewable energy sources. What happens, of course, is that the price of oil goes through the roof — unless we develop alternatives. The petro-dictators in Iran, Venezuela and Russia hope we don’t. They would only get richer.

Friedman closes with:

Green hawks believe otherwise. We believe that in a world getting warmer and more crowded with more “Americans,” the next great global industry is going to be E.T., or energy technology based on clean power and energy efficiency. It has to be. And we believe that the country that invents and deploys the most E.T. will enjoy the most economic security, energy security, national security, innovative companies and global respect. And we believe that country must be America. If not, our children will never enjoy the standard of living we did. And we believe the best way to launch E.T. is to set a fixed, long-term price on carbon — combine it with the Obama team’s impressive stimulus for green-tech — and then let the free market and innovation do the rest.

How can you not be motivated by these words?

And so I thought it was timely that the night I got home after reading the article, I see this article about a Chinese company planning a factory in the U.S. and a wind-farm in west Texas.

So that's great news right?  If the U.S. isn't going to be a leader in energy technology (E.T.) at least we know some other country will be...