I'd be curious about much of this, too, though only parts of it are exactly relavent to my response.

I am advocating active efforts to IMPROVE the situation, not completely replace all in one shot. You are asking me to outline the ideal situation, which of course I hope will happen! But my advocacy is for us to stop sitting on our asses waiting for tropical diseases to continue their creep into temperate latitudes, more storm surges, more floods, more storms, chunks of our agriculture to move to Candada, our ski industry to become largely extinct, etc. I am advocating starting to shift to policies that stop "waiting and seeing" and start acting. We don't have to replace everything at once, we just have to start improving where we can. In the process we can create new technology (that's been something America sure USED to be good at), perhaps revive manufacturing by becoming a world producer of green energy technology, increase efficiency of consumer items (plenty of existing technology underused here), exploit geothermal where available, wind where available, biomass where appropriate...even, with some improvements, solar in some areas.

I have heard the "we don't have the technology" arguement for 25 yearas now. Too bad we didn't put more effort into DEVELOPING the technology back then...perhaps a fraction of the effort we put into new weapons technology. But even without sane effort back then, back in 1995 I was reading an article in Scientific American describing how wind energy projects using existing technology at that time could turn the Great Plains states into major energy exporters. Well, shit THAT would be a nice step. Even if it could, for whatever practical reasons, not be 100% put into effect, it would be PROGRESS...AND create jobs locally. I hear from Iowa farmers directly the progress being made in generating wind energy on farms, creating revenue for struggling farmers as well as energy for the grid. I mentioned Nevada which is being asked to build a polluting coal plant that requires transport of coal from West Virginia to Nevada rather than building an euqivalent (so the claims go!) amount of geothermal and wind generation. And that energy isn't destined for Nevada but for Southern California. Instead of makind progress, we continue to make the same old mistakes. Hell I am even open to some of the solutions most environmentalists won't even consider: garbage to energy plants if it can be done reasonably. Put Freshkills to work!

You outline in considerable detail the exact kinds of things that need to be worked out. But you are not outlining what I advocate...or more precisely you are outlining the IDEAL of what I advocate. I do hope we can do that. But a concerted effort to simply move in the right direction is what I advocate. The pay off is environmental AND economic, provides more local solutions in most cases, and hopefully would create a more flexible infrastructure for new technology to fit into.

I started looking up the megawattage of the geothermal company I invest in, the wind generating projects I have discussed in the past, the proposed green alternative in Nevada, the estimates of what better use of efficient lighting and recycling would save, etc. And I would continue to do so if I had more time because it is a good exercise. But it wasn't really my point. My point is that we have to stop saying we are helpless and start doing something. America has done it before and we can do it now if we stop convincing ourselves we are too weak and helpless to make changes. I agree the changes can't be draconian or too much of a burden. But things like shifting subsidies from oil to wind power, making compact fluorescents tax free to lower the price, etc. SHOULD BE DONE. But we haven't done them. I advocate starting to do them.