Compromise: With the industries that have many members of congress in their pockets.
Let them build a few experimental plants, nuclear, cellulosic ethanol, "clean" coal CCS, coal to liquid, tree to fuel, all the boondoggle dangerous nonsense that can never work. It is necessary to let them prove they won't work to get them out of the way of real initiatives.
Participation: As in past national emergencies, like world wars and natural disasters, get everyone to join in on clear goals, like reducing oil demand 5% per year.
Tax carbon, so everyone helps pays for fixing our GHG intensive energy economy, offset by equal income tax breaks for working families. So the carbon tax is revenue neutral, not a tax hike.
Sacrifice: Give everyone ways to paricipate in meeting these goals. Ways to conserve oil and energy and ways to invest in generating GHG free energy. Less driving, less energy use, less consumption by investing in systems that actually save money so the sacrifice pays itself off.
Subsidy: Subsidies for farm based solar, wind, and biogas/organic fertilizer systems and grid power backup systems that use biogas.
Subsidies for home solar and wind systems and energy saving systems like ground source heating/cooling. And plugin hybrids charged on home solar panels.
Withdraw subsidies from big oil, coal, nuclear, agribizz fuel farming, and gas guzzler auto manufacturing. They don't need the huge subsidies they are getting, which amount to 10s of billions per year. Divert these billions to direct subsidies to homeowners, small business, and farms.
Order millions of plugin hybrid hypercars, ground source heating/cooling systems, solar systems, and so forth for government use in order to spur mass production efficiency and cost reduction.
I think Obama can organize an effort like that. But he is going to have to get the message. Will industry lobbyists have his ear, or will environmentalists like Lovins and Lester Brown be able to penetrate the wall of noise?
It's going to be tough to get the needed reform with the high profile issues of national healthcare and ending these oil wars competing for his attention.
We need to point out that this renewable energy/conservation re-evolution can eliminate oil war at it's root, namely oil addiction itself, and revive the economy so we can actually afford national healthcare.
Remember what happened to the Clinton effort to get national healthcare in 92-93? It was killed by democrats in congress in the pocket of the healthcare industry. We are in danger of that happening again, across the board, on healthcare, energy, and oil war. Winning this election is just the beginning of the reform battle.
