Defining 'Change': Ralph Nader about his Presidential platform on Energy and the Environment

An interview with Ralph Nader about his Presidential platform on Energy and the Environment
By Amanda Griscom Little, Grist Feature 19 Mar 2008:

"Going forward, what sets your environmental platform apart from the other candidates'?


I'm basically promoting a massive conversion from a hydrocarbon-based economy to a carbohydrate-based economy. I'm not talking about corn ethanol, which has a very poor net energy- and water-usage characteristic. I'm talking about industrial hemp. I'm talking about plant life that can be efficiently converted to fuel -- like sugar cane, agricultural waste, cellulosic grasses, and certain kinds of biomass that can be grown with a spectacular ratio of energy inputs to outputs. I'm talking about a very fundamental remodeling of our economy -- a conversion from industrial-age, 19th-century technologies like the internal combustion engine to renewable, sustainable technologies of efficiency and production. We should have vehicles that get well over 100 miles per gallon. As Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken have shown, we can create far greater efficiencies in the use of our natural resources, whether it's copper, iron, oil, gas, timber, you name it."


These are the kind of bold words that define the kind of change we as a nation are looking for. We've all known for a long time now that someone is going to need step up and admit out loud and accept responsibility for initiating what must be done. It is a daunting task, but one that will reap the best benefits for our country's overall health, sustainability and national morale.
The major corporations that could have been, over the past 10 years or so, preparing for this day by developing many already proven technologies have instead spent their time purposefully not doing this sometimes going so far as to purchase patents just to set them on shelves. There is still time for these companies to jump on board, if not make way for the new companies willing to fill the need. The money will shift, there will be new 'major corporations', the jobs will remain and life in the US will move along without them, a victim of the very consumer driven economy they helped to create.

Please click on the title to read the complete interview with Mr. Nader

03/20/08 EDIT
A couple of links that will not only support Ralph's plan, but offer interactive models and scenarios that you can check out yourself :

http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

http://www.climate.yale.edu/seeforyourself/