IKE Goes From CAT 1 to CAT 4 in 6 Hours - Dallas goes green

I'm watching events from the road, now near Dallas.

Suddenly the Atlantic Ocean is spitting out hurricanes like a Gatling gun. Now Hurricane IKE has made a record jump from a CAT 1 to a CAT 4 in SIX HOURS. What immense power. It is poised to hit somewhere in the U.S. possibly as a CAT 5 – a top end killer no matter where it lands.

Another study has come out which has satellite data indicating that the hurricanes are getting stronger with climate change. Ocean temperatures have increased –adding more fuel for these whirling dervishes. The rapid jump in IKE’s strength supports this.

It ties in to my argument that we need to become both more energy independent, energy efficient and address climate change at the same time -- unless you really don’t care about your kids and grandkids, who are inheriting a sure-failure “oil only” un-Strategy that will result in a bad ending for our heirs and future generations of Americans.

Go ahead, and “pooh pooh” the climate change thing all you want, but doing so is not smart if you care about your kids and grandkids and their future. We are dumping tons of CO2 and chemicals into the air every day, worldwide -- including smoke so thick in Beijing they should have had an Olympic competition for smog belching, and you don’t think this messes with Mother Nature? Add another 2 billion Indians and Chinese people buying cars to drive for the first time, and add those pollutants on top of the brew. Which planet were you planning to move to when this one gives out?

The commentator on yesterday’s entry says it best – we’ll see. From what I hear, the Fed government has NOT been leading the New Orleans rebuild. It has been volunteer based. People have moved back to areas that could still flood from a levee breach. For some reason the electric company keeps putting lines above ground for the next storm to blow down. Now they think it could be a MONTH to get power restored.
Why not bury those lines and avoid this downtime in the future?

Like I said, our building codes and ways of doing things needed to be upgraded.
I just found that that Dallas is going to make buildings 50% more energy efficient. Is Houston next? San Antonio is on a green binge and upgrading its codes. Yet the Dallas folks tell me that owners resist doing it, although cutting their energy use should also cut their expenses (and improve their bottom line) over the life of the building.

People resist the new. It reminds me of when cars began replacing horses and how the horse owners hated those new things that ended up making transportation easier, faster, better.

Now again, we must embrace the new by cutting our energy waste and improve our efficiency – it will create new jobs; make our air cleaner and cut energy costs, which can only be a win-win.

Change is good and Change is necessary to keep us competitive and productive in a global economy. It is sheer madness not to be building renewable sources of energy while cutting our waste and becoming more efficient to become more self-sufficient and have less negative impact on our climate. This should be done on a “Moon Shot” scale as proposed by Sen. Obama. I hope Sen. McCain will call for the same thing.
Energy independence should be a goal because the efforts we take towards it will improve our country immensely, no matter how far the shot gets.