I have enjoyed the exchanges between Isaac Smith of Free State Politics and Mark Newgent of, inter alia, Red Maryland regarding global warming and the ecological and economic effects of possible policy responses to them.

I do not claim to have the knowledge of either of these gentlemen on the topic, but I will throw out a few thoughts.

1. Liberals and conservatives should be able to agree that the monopoly that BGE has over power production for hire is unjust. While it's perhaps reasonable for BGE to get compensated for others' use of its infrastructure, if someone produces an independent local power network it should be able to compete with BGE without hesitation and without apology. Right now, neighborhood-level wind power and solar power generation cannot get off the ground because it's illegal to compete with BGE. While it might not be possible for such power production to join the grid, the "grid as Borg" concept is overrated. It should be possible, for example, for Dundalk to set up a network of solar and wind power generators, back-yard based, maybe not even 120 Volt AC current, but be able to run many (not all) appliances, water heaters, etc. from them. BGE is protected so we are stuck with the tyranny of the Big - by law.

2. The implication of the tyranny of the Big is that much of the market response to increased power costs - producing power at home or in the neighborhood without the sunk costs of all that cable maintenance from here to Calvert Cliffs - is impossible. A lot of the power that is easiest to produce informally is, in fact, eco-friendly. Ambient power from wind and solar may not replace BGE for massive, Sparrows Point-sized industrial enterprises, but the power is just wasting now in your backyard. Right now.

3. As noted previously in this blog, solar panels are now approaching the per-watt cost of coal and in some cases are actually less expensive. These panels are waiting, just waiting, to be installed up on my roof. In a less pampered, entertained time, we had an army of amateur DIY engineers in this country who had the skills to install something like local power generation. We have forgotten those skills and I suspect that it's that lack of knowledge, that lack of comfort, that makes a lot of us unwilling even to consider (and after consideration possibly reject) such DIY power. How do you get power from wind? Well, you can get a decent amount of it from attaching an alternator and a windmill wheel. Not reliable for running your computer but pretty reliable for heating (or supplementing grid power to) a water heater, hot water for dishwashers, showers and washing machines being a major power drain in North American households.

4. I endorse Isaac's call for massive rail construction. We have an air traffic control system exceeding efficient capacity and the beginnings of a rail system but hardly a decent national one. Australia's rail system - Australia, a country with one-twentieth of the population density of the U.S. - has a far better system per capita. Our car culture has not done us a lot of favors; while it's made for nice Beach Boys songs and make a lot of people like Mitt Romney's dad rich men, it has made us dependent on Islamic civilization for the basic running of our economy. Most of the oil we use, we produce domestically or import from Canada but a large enough portion comes from the Persian Gulf. Enabling people to ditch their cars does a great deal for the average standard of living and leaves an increasingly strained road network and oil supply more available for those who cannot easily access them. Whether regional rail to go from Reisterstown to Alexandria, VA (was very possible 50 years ago and the rights of way, wyes and infrastructure are still there) or to go from Baltimore to Cleveland on high-speed rail, we haven't built these items because other priorities, like bullshit wars against military non-opponents and the costs of occupying their country for 100 years (per McCain) replete with Halliburton and Blackwater mercs contractors, seem to come first. The interest on the debt to finance these wars could subsidize a lot of high-speed rail out of Chicago, relieving a lot of traffic out of O'Hare and Midway.

5. One of the great things about the market (and there are not so great things as well) is its communication of price information. There's a reason that gasoline is so expensive; it's because its marginal value has shot up and therefore so will the value of its possible substitutes. While I hate paying $3.20 a gallon, no doubt, if it brings eco-friendly business to Maryland or to anywhere (i.e. into existence, period), great. Whether it's energy consultants on saving energy, capital investment not into the next iPod but rather the next generation of solar technology or windpower or just energy efficient appliances, great. There's a reason why the Saudis exerted effort to keep oil and therefore gasoline cheap; they wanted to keep alternative energy in the minds of us geeks only, not on the showroom floors and Amazon.com catalogs and Wal-Mart shelves.

6. Alternative energy is patriotic. Conservatives should be the first to support it. Liberals should be complaining about how alternative energy wingnuts are slurring our Muslim friends out of xenophobia, how it's got the same demographic and psychographic marketing as Hank Williams Jr (or Sr.!)'s music, NASCAR and RC Cola. It should be considered "declasse" among liberals to support alternative energy, the cultural equivalent of a moonshine house in the Kentucky backwoods. Yet liberals like me (yeah, Brian, URBAN LIBERALS!) love it and Red Maryland scoffs at it. Alternative energy will take off once it is sold as "Pork Chops and Pabst", not "An Enlightened Choice for Enlightened People." The F***YouOsama 7200 version of the wind generator or roof-top solar panel battery will be the winner that cracks the market, I would think.