Pickens and Pope Show Environmental Activism Makes Strange Bedfellows
If you had to choose a political color for T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman turned philanthropist turned enviro-capitalist and supporter of both George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani for president, it would undoubtedly be red. So it might come as a surprise to learn how green the man actually is. In July, he unveiled the “Pickens Plan,” which calls for cutting the USA’s demand for foreign oil by over a third in less than 10 years. And, he is currently building the world’s largest windfarm, which he hopes will begin generating electricity by 2011, reported USA Today. His goal is to use wind energy as a substitute for the natural gas that is currently burned to generate electricity, thus freeing up said gas to be used for transportation in place of foreign oil. He expects the project to cost a total of $10 billion–about 15 percent of the amount per year the country spends on foreign oil at present–and he’s got an important, unlikely ally: Sierra Club Executive President Carl Pope. At a panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Pope put it like this: “the fact that I am on stage with T. Boone Pickens just goes to show how absolutely dysfunctional our government has been.” In an interview with The Daily Pickens, the blog of the official Pickens Plan website, Pope comes off as reluctant about the collaboration but admitted, “Boone has reached a lot of people.” No one said bipartisanship would be fun. Here’s Pope talking to Big Think about how to best use natural resources, fast.
