Like millions of my fellow Democrats across this great nation of ours, I have always regarded George W. Bush as a complete imbecile. I felt he was the spoiled-rotten black sheep of an elitist, possibly neo-facist family, that used his daddy's money, and his name to over-achieve, and get in over his head. I never thought there would even be a prayer of him being elected in 2000, and again in 2004 because I felt his luck would eventually run out.

Last week Dr. Benjamin Brewer, who writes "The Doctor's Office" column for the Wall Street Journal, put a face on a disturbing trend in U.S. health care. A lack of insurance and high health care costs are forcing many Americans to miss out on preventive care: people are skipping check-ups, discontinuing medication, even refusing annual screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies.

For example, a patient of Dr. Brewer's had quit smoking in order to afford gas for his 40-mile commute to work. Unfortunately, he still developed pneumonia. The patient refused to let an ER doctor admit him, in fear of the costs, and he decided not to fill an antibiotic prescription, because his insurance had a $50 drug co-pay, which he said he simply couldn't afford.

You probably know what happened next.

A couple weeks ago, over at the Progressive Future headquarters, a couple of us started wondering out loud how much of of our taxes went to fund the Iraq War. My colleague did a little research and found a formula for how to figure this out. After discovering that in 2007, I paid for $204 of war, my first thought was, “Dang. That money could have gone to pay a month of my health care premium.”

So then, as a fun little game (yes, we over at Progressive Future have an interesting take on what's fun), we decided to make an internet tool that would not only calculate someone's contribution to the war from their 2007 income, but would also tell that person how many days that money could have covered their health care, education, powered their home with renewable energy, or paid for a veteran to receive higher education.

Turns out, any of those last four options would be the more lucrative investment.

 

It doesn't get much more visionary and ambitious than Al Gore's recent speech on energy and climate change, and this sentence in particular:

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

If you missed it, you can find the full text here or read a helpfully annotated version here.

My only quibble with this fantastic speech was that Gore said little about the transportation sector, which is the second largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Changing our transportation policies and funding priorities could greatly help us address the climate change emergency. More on that after the jump.  

In parts 1-3 of this 'blogumentary' we covered the amount of renewable energy just waiting for us to tap, how local governments and people are getting involved, and how we need the federal government to change the laws to support renewable energy. (and a good bit of information from Dcoronata on Geothermal energy.
Now for the bread and butter issue: jobs. With the economic forecast showing a continued housing slump and general signs of a recession, a decade long approach of offshoring jobs,  bad unemployment numbers, and no real growth in any job sector except service jobs, there seems to be a lot wrong with our country's economic health. Fortunately, there is a solution for these problems, the emergence of green collar jobs.

Welcome to Part 2: Local Energy Initiatives: This will cover some of the ways citizens have gotten involved in passing laws to change their options for energy use, effectively giving a level playing field fo renewable energy. Now, although this post seems to be Colorado focused, the fact is, in part due to the location of the National Renewable Energy lab in Golden,Colorado combined with an active progressive community, Colorado has been leading the nation in embracing renewable energy. Here to tell us more about this and the Clean Energy Progress Fund - an initiative to be voted on this fall in Colorado, is Professor Thomas McKinnon, a Chemical Engineer,who has worked both with the NREL and with the School of Mines and now heads up the drive to support the Clean Energy Progress Fund.

Yesterday, I told you about the little work of fantasy and fiction that Exxon Ed Whitfield calls a website. We looked at how Exxon Eddie threw away $106 billion dollars in corporate welfare, while casting the deciding vote in denying crucial funding for the programs our veterans were promised, and depended upon.

Missourians and national groups alike have been calling for mandatory Renewable Electricity Standards (RES). No other policy is as effective at spurring the development of renewable energy.

Unfortunately, Missouri is missing this opportunity, as our elected leaders have not yet passed this critical law. Two-thirds of Missourians support an RES, so it's up to us to bring this issue to Missouri voters.  

Help get the Clean Energy Initiative on Missouri's November 2008 ballot!