Democracy and Tyranny of the masses.
As a child I had thought that democracy was one of those wonderful things that really made our country a wonderful place to be. Reality has made me think a little differently. While i n the United States it took a little time to realize that those with the best funded lobby groups got what they wanted. Elected officials somehow pay attention to lobby groups. It took some time to also realize that politicians have to promise good times for all and those that are the most charismatic and have the best public presence win the political offices. Now what does this have to do with energy? Well put it this way , if our local representative of any part of government told you that in order to reduce greenhouse gases we need to cut down our energy consumption by 75% you probably would not vote for them. But you would vote for the guy who promises lots of electricity at reduced cost with some new, yet to be developed non radioactive Nuclear plant or a new coal fired plant that has zero emissions. Think about it, we the public do not want to face the reality that we need to have negative greenhouse emissions not a reduction of 20% by the year 2020! The best absolutely proven technology is reduce our usage but no we the public do not want to hear about it, it might disturb our lifestyle. As humans most of us wait until there is no alternative then try to get into action. Those who think ahead in the longterm will always be controversial but if I where you I'd be listening.