what we need is the political will to do what we already know how to do. We know how to make electricity from the wind. We've been doing that since the 1920s. We know how to make electricity from the sun. We know how to move large numbers of people and large quantities of goods with electric trains.

And sure, better batteries would help. More efficient PV panels would help. But it's not excuse for not doing what we need to do NOW. What we KNOW how to do now.

Most of our buildings are so inefficient it's a crime. Energy conservation programs dollar for dollar have more immediate benefits than anything else, as far as cutting greenhouse gases. Our industrial processes are also criminally inefficient. Cogeneration is an almost totally untapped resource. 30% of the average household energy use goes to HEATING WATER! We know how to do that with the sun too, and it is totally low-tech. People with GED's can be taught to put together those systems.

We need to declare war on greenhouse gases. Totally mobiliZe our economy and our society to deal with what is objectively the most serious threat to our national security that faces us. Do what we know how to do NOW focus on that, and implement the new research when it comes on line. But reaserch CANNOT be the front line. The fact that we will be implementing tech that was developed 35 years ago shouldn't slow us down. Sometimes old is good enough.

If we do this the economic development effect of this program would be immense. Green jobs here, which could not be outsourced because they would be about building things and doing things HERE>

i think Mr. Leonard has it wrong with the cut in silver flows to China causing inflation during the 17th century. When gold and silver were money, massive imports of metals caused inflation. It was just like printing more money in this age of fiat money. Inflation happened when all the Inca gold hit Europe at about the time in question. So when European collapse cut the silver payments, that should have DECREASED inflationary pressures.

If Mr. Obama won't defend his pastor, a man he has said was like a member of his own familiy, what reason do I have to think that he will fight for me if he gets elected? I am no Clinton fan. I remeber whose signature was on the banking deregulation bill that laid the foundation for our present mess. I remember who gave up the fight for single payer healthcare so he could spend his political capital on ramming NAFTA thru Congress. Ms. Clinton claims her White House experience as something that suits her for the office. So her husband's actions are an issue.

I don't support her. But I think there is an open question, despite all the grand talk, of whether or not Obama will support me and people like me if he's elected.

We have to remain organized and mobilized after the election to see to it that he does. Election day is only the beginning.

I don't know of any activist who says "no coal no way" or whose crystal ball is accurate enough to say that carbon sequestration and all the other things necessary for clean coal is IMPOSSIBLE. What I DO hear= from the likes of Dr. James Hansen, chief of NASA's Goddard Space Center and one of the world's chief climate change scientists-- is that such things are incredibly difficult, expensive and as yet unproven, and that building coal burning power plants now, on the hope that those technologies can be made to work in the future, is a chancy proposition with tremendous opportunity costs. Every dollar we spend on coal burners now is one dollar we can't spend on conservation, or on remewable energy systems. And Leonard doesn't mention the incredible costs of getting the stuff out of the ground, an energy intensive and highly destructive operation.

We don't say no coal no way, but that we should wait until "clean coal" technologies prove themselves before we invest huge sums of money on new coal burners. We should get serious about energy conservation and demand reduction before we build new plants. That isn't anti-coal absolutism. That's eminently reasonable.

Waiting until the tech is proven would give us a sound basis for doing cost comparisons between coal and renewable sources. The way it is now, power companies want to committ the ratepayers to coal without knowing how much it will ultimately cost to run the plants cleanly. In doing so, they are trying to stack the deck in favor of the status quo

"Yes! No Friday morning in which the stock market is cratering (the Dow was down almost three hundred points a couple of hours before the close of trading) is complete without a little dose of class warfare."

Why is pointing out the true and the obvious class warfare? Why is any mention of the existence of class and different class interests in America called class warfare? These rich and comfortable butt munches would run screaming if they ever had to face REAL class warfare, like in the 1920s and '30s, when the national guard was called out and ordered to fire on unarmed picketers..... That's why they try SOOOOOOOOOO hard to shut down any disccusion of class at all. Because they don't have the numbers or the stomach for a real fight.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy