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Al Gore, the 45th Vice President of the United States is now widely known as a champion for environmental issues worldwide. The 2007 Noble Peace Prize winner who served two terms under President Bill Clinton in the 1990's has since leaving political office, taken up the environment as his main political focus. He established authority by writing the bestselling book "An Inconvenient Truth" and moved to bring more awareness to the issue of global warming and the reality of the global threat it poses to inhabitants on Earth. Mr. Gore has five policies that hopes Barack Obama will adopt to encourage energy consumption in the United States and also protect the environment. Here is a list of things Mr. Gore would like the Obama administration to consider: 1. FOCUS ON RENEWABLE ENERGY: Offer incentives for the building of Solar Thermal Plants in the sunny Southwestern United States along with incentives to build wind farms between Texas and the Dakotas (the scientifically approved area of highest wind gust concentration in the U.S.) and finally incentives to construct advanced plants in "hot spots" that could provide geothermal energy.
2. NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY GRID: A unified smart grid should be created to bring renewable energy from the rural areas where they are plentiful in nature to the urban areas where they are needed to produce high amounts of energy. The estimated price tag is $400 Billon dollars that Mr. Gore says will pale in comparison to the $120 Billion America loses annually because of poor energy management. This project is estimated to take 10 years. 3. RENEW NATIONAL AUTOMOBILE FLEET: Mr. Gore proposes assistance to the automobile industry that will allow them to convert the bulk of their fleets to plug-in-hybrids that will reduce carbon emissions while the rest of the policy suggestions are implemented. 4. NATIONAL RETROFITTING CAMPAIGN: Approximately 40% of carbon emissions in the United States come from energy inefficient buildings. By retrofitting these buildings, renovating buildings to become more environmentally friendly by adding energy-efficient building materials, there will be a reduction in pollution and an increase in savings to building and homeowners in energy costs. 5. GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP: Mr. Gore recommends that the new president of the United States restore America's political face in the global environmental arena after the Bush Administration did not act on the Kyoto Protocol recommendations for Carbon Emissions. The first step in doing this would be to right the ship at the 2009 Copenhagen Conference that will take up the issue of global warming and reduction of carbon worldwide again. Mr. Obama is likely to consider these recommendations most likely because Mr. Gore campaigned for Mr. Obama during his historic 2008 Presidential bid.
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