NATIONAL CLEAN ENERGY SUMMIT: Gore argues for alternative power, conservationClimate change, dwindling petroleum reserves among reasons cited for going green(By Jennifer Robinson via Las Vegas Review-Journal)An all-day Monday powwow featuring some of the country's best-known policymakers yielded an array of suggestions for boosting the nation's green-energy economy.The suggestions from more than 25 panelists and speakers at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 could substantially help shape proposed federal legislation in the next year. If Monday's discussions offer any indication, Americans can expect a coming congressional emphasis on home and office weatherization, a focus on finding dollars for alternative-energy power plants, carbon cap-and-trade regulations and creation of a national renewable energy portfolio mandate for electric utilities.But first, former Vice President Al Gore, a longtime advocate of green economic measures, made the case for advancing alternative energy and conservation.It sounds "shrill" to say global warming threatens human civilization, but the alarmist nature of the message is no reason to discount it, Gore told a sold-out crowd of 900 inside Cox Pavilion at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.A week-old study on the world's oil supply found the planet's petroleum reserves dwindling faster than previously thought, Gore said. That means more roller-coaster rides in oil prices, and future energy shocks for consumers.Humans also dump 70 million tons of planet-warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours, Gore said."This is madness," Gore said. "We owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. Who are we to make the decision to keep on being so wasteful and destructive in the teeth of warnings from every single prestigious science organization on this planet? Our kids will ask, 'Didn't you know? Didn't you care? Didn't you notice the thousand-year-droughts and the 500-year floods? What were you all doing, watching 'American Idol'?'"UNLV professor Keith Schwer also addressed the crowd, noting that Clark County's unemployment rate is 12.3 percent, and the region could use the economic boost that would come with a greener economy.Schwer said Las Vegas and Nevada ranked as the country's fastest-growing state in the last several years of the 20th century because of its entrepreneurial spirit and its citizens' ability to find advantages other states didn't have.Southern Nevada should now turn that entrepreneurial spirit toward green energy, Schwer said. Focusing on renewables such as solar power and wind energy would make the Silver State an exporter of energy, similar to Texas and Oklahoma.There will be job upheaval for older sectors of the economy, Schwer said, but that was the case for makers of buggy whips when the automobile emerged as an economic and industrial force."We shouldn't be afraid of that," Schwer said. "We should continue to make transformations to drive the economy and make sure we have economic prosperity for our grandchildren."John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and current chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, emphasized the boost weatherization efforts would provide the nation's economy. Retrofitting 50 million homes and small commercial buildings would create 625,000 jobs in construction and manufacturing, and would save consumers up to $64 billion a year.Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the event's host, noted that Monday was the anniversary of the day in 1776 that word of the American colonies' Declaration of Independence reached London."We're firing the first shots of a new revolution to regain prosperity and restore American leadership," Reid said. "It's a clean-energy revolution to create millions of jobs nationwide and thousands of jobs in Nevada -- good, new jobs in construction, manufacturing and engineering."Plus, those jobs couldn't be outsourced.Reid al |