John Laberge's Page

Without Our Initiative, Support and Follow-Through

“Everything Will Just Be Dust in the Wind”

The practicality of a simple initiative coming from us to push our leaders to do the right thing is as practical as a Novocain therapy on easing the pain of a Trigeminal Neuralgia. A green initiative such as the Pickens Plan or any imagination from our engineers and green entrepreneurs will give us an initial fix to pacify our anguish with the present economic tic douloureux. One thing we do not have is time. We do not have the time just to sit around and wait for our leaders to do something, wait for our leaders to pick us up. The cost of not doing anything is catastrophic. The initiative should start from us, and not from Washington. Otherwise, without our push and our initiative, the imaginations of our scientists and our entrepreneurial spirit are nothing but dust in the wind. Our anguish will just be a drop of water in an endless sea, our hopes will just crumble to the ground, our cry will just be an old song, and all we are is just dust in the wind. I could almost feel my heart thumping while I use the poetic words of Kerry Livgren of the group Kansas to describe the ramification of not answering the call of urgency. Now is the time for us to take charge of our future, push to our leaders the importance of the “cap and trade”.

Gore vs. Pickens: who got the right stuff? Environmentalism and Green Capitalism could best describe the March 9^th Memnosyne Foundation "Energy Independence: Pickens Plan vs. Gore Challenge" Leadership Dialogue. Conversation Catalysts"-Geoffrey Bailey, former White House intern, Regional Leader - New Energy Army/Pickens Plan and Todd Howard, President of T. Howard & Associates and graduate of Al Gore's "The Climate Project” framed the two plans to kick off the dialogue. The third in a 3-event Environmental Leadership Dialogue Series, facilitated by Orbits of Influence –was truly a powerful and engaging experience, bringing together some of the best minds and strongest advocates to compare and contrast the two prominent U.S. Energy Independence plans (one – the Pickens Plan – based right here in Texas!) and to address how best to ensure sustainable energy and the national security issues for our region and nation, while protecting our natural resources and sparking innovation to leverage new alternative energy sources and the economic boom they represent. Al Gore, former U.S. vice president, a Nobel Prize-winning crusader challenges the U.S. to produce all of its electricity from renewable sources in 10 years to combat climate change. T. Boone Pickens, a Texas Billionaire, answer the challenge for a massive switch to natural gas as a transportation fuel and a dramatic increase in wind power, building the largest wind farm in the world. So who’s right? It is clear that there is much that these two men agree on. Gore and Pickens along with former President Bill Clinton and other prominent leaders on alternative energy emphasizes the importance of the continuance of a new green revolution during the February 23^rd “National Clean Energy Project Summit” in Washington DC. The summit focused on the modernization and expansion of the electrical grid, integrating energy efficiency and increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy-a green approach on reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by examining short and long term solutions to replace foreign oil with domestic resources to fuel vehicles and trucks, including natural gas. The energy system of the future will tie efficiency and renewable energy together. The bundling of efficiency and renewable energy together will not be feasible without the unique alignment of an environmentalist visions like Al Gore’s, the imaginations of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, and the risks of capitalists has to take in the present unstable economic environment. What is the difference between entrepreneurs and capitalists? The entrepreneurs are the athletes and the capitalists are the coaches. The coaches train and motivate their teams and choose which athletes get to play, and help them create the plays and the plans to win. The beginning of the greatest story of this century is now, and the success of our initiative relies to our determination. Our determination will then fuel others to join our fight, and together we will prevail as a nation of leaders, leaders who will make this country great again, leaders who will make this earth of ours, a green planet for the future generation.

On April 1^st to 3^rd, the Pickens Plan will initiate a Virtual March on Washington. The Pickens Plan team will utilize the size and unique capabilities of the New Green Energy Army to have an enormous impact on the White House and Congress. The Army will focus its energy for three days on e-mails, calls and faxes to every Member of Congress. The success of this event will prove that advances in communication technology could bridge our differences, expanding human interconnectedness to virtually test the possibility of ideological re-wiring of America. The Virtual March will strengthen our true power to initiate change, making way to the evolution of our common conviction not as white, black, yellow or brown, Christians or not, straight or gay, but us one nation, one body, one soul to create a better future for the country and the rest of the world. Well, some will say that achieving a unified comprehensive vision for the future of America is impossible because each and every one of us are raised in different ethnic and religious values, if the majority will foster such mentality then all of our efforts to renew America is nothing but dust in the wind. An advice from a friend in Alabama will be something that I will always remember. “Confidence will give my generation and the next generation a special kind of courage to strike out in new directions and still believe that the future will be at least as bright as the past ever was”. Personally, I got my confidence and my inspiration when America embraced the need for change and elected the First Black President of the United States. Without embracing change, in just a blink of our eyes, our hope, our dreams and everything we started will be just dust in the wind. Without our initiative to push any plan like the Pickens Plan to answer the call of the Gore Challenge, without the support of our leaders who are willing to risk their political careers to do what is right for the future, with out the much needed inter-agency cooperation to build a new smart energy grid needed for our sustainability survival-the new genre of job opportunities that depends upon the renewal of our energy infrastructures will be nothing but dust in the wind.