Editorials

There goes Al Gore again, challenging the United States to do the impossible.

America has to abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels or it will be in big trouble, the former vice president said. The United States also has to do it within 10 years if it hopes to avert catastrophe.

It's not only the environmentally responsible thing to do, Gore argued, but it's also a matter of national security.

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet," Gore said during a recent speech. "Every bit of that's got to change."

Then he really began talking pie-in-the-sky, arguing that our utilities that now burn enormous amounts of coal and other fossil fuels should start relying on solar, wind and other sources of clean energy.

What a dreamer, right?

Al Gore, who always has his head up in the sky, thinking the impossible.

When you think about it, Gore is kind of like John Kennedy. It was 39 years ago this month that Americans met the challenge JFK put to us at the beginning of the 1960s. By the end of the decade, President Kennedy said, we'll put a man on the moon.

We did. It turns out that dreams can come true — especially in America.

That's because Americans like challenges; they appeal to our can-do nature. Give Americans a problem and they'll fix it. Tell Americans that they can't do something, and they will.

The United States built the Panama Canal, won World War II, and put a man on the moon. America also can do what Gore is urging it to do.

The only thing needed to succeed is for our leaders to lead.