Dear Professor,
I recently had the opportunity of hearing one your commentaries on a local public radio station. I hope that the transcript, podcast, mp3 or whatever is available soon so I can better determine what you actually said as I drove to my next service call. 
While I dropped out of formal education sometime after a bachelor's degree, I do pride myself on being somewhat aware of my surroundings and have managed to survive until the ripe age of forty. While that may not qualify me to take umbrage over issues of the world with someone like yourself, I do question your recent commentary about Al Gore's energy call in the next ten to twenty years.
You see, it's not that I don't believe the world is warming based on carbon emissions, it may in fact be doing so. It's the idea that we somehow have to act collectively to solve this problem. I'm somewhat partial to the school of Austrian Economics, the basis of which were many writings by Ludwig Von Mises. The basic idea is that centralized planning doesn't work and never will. They never taught me that back in seminary and I often resent it.
From previous commentaries that I've heard from you on that same station, I understand that you consider global warming skeptics as mindless minions of Rush Limbaugh, drinking the stale kool-aid of market capitalism whose evil is so paramount and obvious that hardly any thinking person could deny it. That's fine. I understand that most Americans take on a bi-polar dysfunction when it comes to ideas of liberal and conservative. I've come to expect it it in all aspects of life and social strata. But you see, I'm a libertarian.
I know, you probably consider us folk who think that no government is justified, as silly and dreadfully naive. I feel the same way about statist apologists, nothing personal, really. I realize that idolizing Al Gore is probably what happens on the University cocktail circuit and I've never felt comfortable or at home at those stuffy occasions. You see I'm a country boy at heart.
I've fixed and changed internal combustion engines. I've had transmission fluid pour out onto to my head changing one. Life for me is often gritty economic survival that has nothing to do with policy or green energy. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for economically feasible clean energy and choice. I'm thinking of going nuclear at home, but the cold international reception to the Iranians plans to do the same, has me wondering whether my local Sheriff might get fussy about it.
Therein lies the problem. You're piece reflects a notion that we should all see this obvious light and follow it. You point to the need to upgrade the infrastructure without reflecting why in fact it has deteriorated. Your centralized planning or collective instinct is not sound to me. Even if the world burns to pieces, I'd rather not have the guns of regulation and compliance pointed at my head.
I trust freedom and true markets. Not the government planned or subsidized institutions and corporations. Just honest uninhibited choice that hurts no one because it is voluntarily engaged.
And therein lies the rub. I'm sure your Leviathan instinct kicks in when you consider the problem of energy, the potential pollution and the harm to the world. If left to their own devices people and corporations will ravage the world and be bad stewards. Tragedy of the Commoners I guess. In a way you're probably correct, history shows little evidence otherwise. But rather than let people or markets sort out the problem, your perch in life demands that compliance to the thinking de jure of the enlightened elite must take precedence over the individual. If that form is compliance to standards which have environmental appeal and credence all the better, hey ? You see, my way can't win. It never will. Alas, force and regulation is the only way to tame the evil in the world.
While you may see the obviousness of your claims and ideas, there are some of us who do see the role of the 'state' differently. It is that it is simply the most willfully destructive mechanism that man has ever conspired for. More than melting ice caps, rising temperatures or clean habitats, the threat of it is for more than the average individual who may have to adapt their needs according to market mechanisms or a higher environmental attitude.
I would submit that an enlightened approach to waste, energy and life will emerge from the human spirit and countenance. Markets will satisfy these wants and desires. But if we seek to impose these strengths of thought and environment, aren't we will simply just slightly above the primal ooze that has been the human experience thus far ?
So good luck with your advocacy, you certainly have a bigger audience than little 'ol me. I'm just a simple guy with simple needs and thoughts. I hardly matter in the whole scheme of things and I'm sure that will be reflected in policy and action of my fellow humans that can't contain their collective inner thug. Say 'Hi' to your relative 'Stevie' for me.
Sincerely,
Joe Dirt
This is the commentary:
The thing that what struck me most about Nobel Lauriat's
Al Gore's big energy speech of last week
Is a sort of depression that we have reached a point in our increasingly dysfunctional society
when ideas that are absolutely self evident sound so obviously original
I mean what exactly did the always thoughtful Mr. Gore exactly tell us last week
When he proposed a ten year national goal of converting our entire electrical energy grid into one sourced by renewable energy
That the key to moving past our present economic slowdown
the loss of jobs and the mounting financial dislocation
the burden of sudden and unsustainable energy costs
the climatic threat of loosing large chunks of our coastline
to the threat of rising waters
to the crisis of increasingly drought parched sections of America
largely due to humanities forcing of the global climate into a new equilibrium
not forgetting, of course
the constant blood tax we pay to insure that our oil life line to the Middle East remains intact
is to recognize that the key to an enormous percentage of the basket of challenges that currently face us
is to take on a massive ten year effort to make sure that all the electricity in this country
is generated from green energy
a commitment that will most certainly push down the price of oil
especially as electric cars become more common
a massive effort that will ensure millions of new jobs,
jobs that can not be outsourced to China or India
to convert our electricity infrastructure
An effort that will push our currently ailing stock market up quite nicely
As money is spent, and it will be a lot, to invest in the future
Because solar, wind, geo-thermal and hydro-electric energy may be free and renewable
But putting the infrastructure in place to capture their full potential is going to cost big bucks
Big bucks that will eventually create more stockholder wealth
And good jobs right here in America as we rebuild or energy infrastructure
No Al Gore's simple yet wondrous solution could not be more obvious, important and timely
as is his more immediate effort to build up the national grassroots movement to make sure it happens
because, there are as always plenty who have invested their personal futures
into today's unsustainable fossil fuel electrical grid
and their needs will have to be taken care of
West Virginia coal communities helped out as part of the transition
But entrenched interests will also have to be confronted
by a committed citizenry ready to push toward this vital goal
because it won't happen unless we, in our collective millions
will it so which is why Mr. Gore is asking people
To sign up simply by going to his
wecansolveit.org website
to learn how to take part in this ever so obvious solution to the basket of
challenges that face us
frankly I just don't understand why this so obvious path toward solving our current challenges
was not, long ago, taken up by those who run this country
After all, even if we did not face our current basket of challenges From climate change to rising fuel prices
Our national energy grid is already deeply outdated and fragile
as all those regular black outs remind us so often
and needs updating anyway
Which is why, signing on to this effort
going to the wecansolve.org website makes so much sense
for ourselves and our children
The Pickens Plan is out there too;
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/
Are they similar ? Does one have different policy implications over another ? So little time, so many symbolic analysts to assist such inquiries . . .