[Ludi]

I guess I'm not sure that even Al Gore has done that much as a "leader." I think those who look to leaders actually expect the leaders to do all the work and the followers not need to do much at all. Are people changing a great deal because of Al Gore's message? I'm not sure even Al Gore is changing much because of his own message....So, I doubt the efficacy of "leaders." It has to be more than a message, it has to be an example of change. We can't just tell people they need to change, we need to change and model that change for our friends and neighbors. Think how much Al Gore's message has been weakened by Al Gore's personal behavior. He can preach all he wants, but if he doesn't behave differently, in a way other people can emulate, his message is not that effective, in my opinion.

We need to model the changes we expect in others.

[timbo]

For DaveP http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/video/video.htm note current proposals are only half-size, anyway another interesting possibility.

Ludi I agree on the Al gore thing. Having raised public awareness his usefulness may well be over but to give him his due he did manage to at least raise the level of awareness.

I'd love to establish a Solar Foundation, the idea came from Alaska's public bonuses of some of its oil revenue. It would be a non-profit publicly owned organisation and need about $50-100 million in seed money. The idea being that on request they would put a $15-20k solar/wind power kit on the roof of your house, you then pay it back by paying for the electricity at say 90% of current rate, until paid off at 0% interest and once paid off the rate drops to 50% i.e. you have an incentive to do it. Money collected is the fed back into the organisation and new kits. Haven't even done the basic calculations so I don't know what the repayment period vs operational life is but I kind of hope it comes out positive. Is it scaleable? Maybe. Need a Bill Gates or Richard Branson or a big lottery win to kick it off. Maybe at a smaller level we run monthly neighbourhood lotteries and the winner gets the kit.

For people who talk about the embedded energy in solar cells a lot of that is the heat need to make them and there are such things as solar furnaces. Does this scale? Again maybe.

[timbo]

BTW I am not a techno-cornucopian and we definitely can't keep going the way we are but I'd also rather not give up on some of the beneficial aspects of technology entirely so in my world view the struggle to retain electricity is worthwhile.

[timbo]

The reason for non-profit is it should be about sustainability not continual growth. Each kit owner would be a shareholder/voter i.e. distributed ownership. Consitution would have stuff like +75% to change basic consititution +95% to change ownership and profit distribution rules including constitution on those rules.

I just feel some things should be public assets and energy infrastructure is one of them, along with water and communications. I'm not a communist nor even a socialist its just some things when privately owned tend to become monopolies and that can drive all kinds of bad decisions, like how do we maintain our monopoly for starters

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') guess I'm not sure that even Al Gore has done that much as a "leader." I think those who look to leaders actually expect the leaders to do all the work and the followers not need to do much at all. Are people changing a great deal because of Al Gore's message?