Why U.S. Energy Policy Is Never Smart Policy

From "Proliferation, Oil, and Climate: Solving for Pattern," by Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute:

"One false assumption about energy can distort and even defeat policies vital to paramount national interests. The December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference proved again how pricing carbon and winning international collaboration are hard if policymakers, pundits, and most citizens assume climate protection will be costly. That assumption focuses debate on cost, burden, and sacrifice: what will climate protection cost, is it worth it, and who will pay? Yet the assumption is backwards: business experience shows that climate protection is not costly but profitable, because saving fuel costs less than buying fuel. Changing the conversation to profits, jobs, and competitive advantage sweetens the politics so much that any remaining resistance will melt faster than the glaciers. Moreover, whether you care most about security, prosperity, or environment, and whatever you think about climate science, you should do exactly the same things about energy, so focusing on outcomes, not motives, can forge a broad consensus. The climate discussion is stranded far from this clarity, simplicity, and accuracy—because of that one wrong assumption."

Read the whole article, it's an eye opener if you think saving the climate, creating jobs, and quitting coal need to cost money rather than yield broad economic prosperity.