22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 The Need to Get Off Foreign Oil

New technologies are advancing to the marketplace. but consumers can be wary of change. If they unequivocally demand alternatives to gasoline, for example, the marketplace will be activated, but ±ere is plenty of resistance to overcome. Recently, the president of Shell Oil, John Hoffmeister, expressed his views on world demand for energy and business opportunities ahead. Shell Oil's position, as Hoffmeister explained it, is ±at America will always need foreign oil even as it aggressively de...
  1  notes

Gingrich argues that we cannot have an intelligent conversation on alternative energies and oil production unless we agree on this principle.

22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 The Political Environmental Conundrum

Action regarding the environment requires objectivity, precision, accuracy, validity, replication, constructive criticism, and consensus. Scientists, engineers, and economists have to stay focused on putting accurate data into the hands of decision makers, while they explain their findings to the public, which, in the end, wields decisive power in a free society. Mechanisms must be developed to transform highly technical findings into governmental and economic policies. If we can reach a po...
Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
  1  notes

Gingrich succinctly explains the political, scientific, and media schisms that promote inaction concerning environmental issues.

22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 International Environmental Year Project

We don't have a perfect understanding of Earth's systems and processes; it may be unachievable in the face of such complexity. However, we continue to develop imperfect but useful mathematical models, and we have beer able to isolate physical variables in the laboratory. We should celebrate our capacity to learn quickly about such things; and we need to continue funding the search for this vital information. We may need to commit to an International Environmental Year project similar to the I...
  1  notes

Gingrich calls for something similar to the International Geophysical Year of the 1950s, which enlightened humanity to many facts about the workings of the Earth.