Below is the transcript of my speech. I added some links for more context and opportunity for deeper exploration by curious readers. Enjoy.

Toastmasters Speech #2: One Sweet Ride

“Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point in the universe.” ~ Nikola Tesla, 1892

My wife and I are expecting a baby soon. That’s why a baby-friendly ride has become a necessity. So we’ve finally decided get a new car. Just last week we bought a 2010 3rd Generation Toyota Prius Hybrid. Its biggest selling point: fuel economy. With EPA rating of 51 miles city and 48 miles highway, the 3rd generation Prius is the most fuel-efficient mass-produced car on the market today.

I’ve been driving it for a week now and the mileage is just awesome. It could actually run more than 500 miles on a full tank of gas (11.9 gallons). To give you a better picture, consider this: I can fill it up on a weekend, drive from Kirkland to Vancouver, Canada, and back, twice, and still have enough gas to drive back and forth to work, for the whole week! As you can see, in just one week I’ve become a certified agog Prius geek.

However, as much as I love our new hybrid car, I can’t help but feel disappointed about the state of the automotive industry. Hybrid cars are like fax machines. It’s transitory technology. The future of cars is really electric — zero emission; zero fuel consumption. Why we’re still dependent on fossil fuels to power our cars, I can only guess. But according to the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, the U.S. had its chance to transition to electric cars during the 1990s, but it blew the opportunity.

The implication of the documentary is that politicians, General Motors, and the oil industry all conspired to bury the EV1 — GM’s electric vehicle. It’s a tragic story. Go see it and weep.

But then again there’s no need cry. Fortunately for us, there’s a new breed of hot shot young entrepreneurs who understand that our dependence on fossil fuels is not only unsustainable, but also quite insane. That’s why electric cars are coming back with a vengeance.

Take for example, Tesla Motors. In 2006 Tesla Motors unveiled the Tesla Roadster. It’s a fully electric sports car that could go up to 244 miles in single charge. Base Price: $109,000. Too pricey for me. But just last March (2009) Tesla Motors unveiled Model S, a fully electric sedan that could go up to 300 miles per charge. They plan to mass-produce it in late 2011 with a base price of $57,000. I don’t know about you, but it’s still too pricey for me. But, hey, rich people are falling in line to buy them. So bless them all for keeping the electric dream alive.

Electric cars are good. Electric cars are beautiful. But by itself it’s not enough of a solution. If we want to have an impact on global emissions, electric cars not only have to scale, but the whole transportation infrastructure also has to radically change. Thanks to people like Shai Agassi, CEO of a company called Better Place, for leading the way in turning the transportation infrastructure on its head. His company has radical plans to take entire countries oil-free by 2020. If and when Better Place succeeds, maybe then we could retire our Toyota hybrids.

Call me a dreamer, but with the exponential pace of technology, I believe that someday our children’s children’s grandchildren will finally live in a world that Nikola Tesla had envisioned — a world where machines are powered by energy obtainable at any point in the universe.

But, until then, by driving a hybrid car, I believe that we’re doing our share, no matter how small, or even negligible the impact is. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no hippie. I’m no die-hard environmentalist. I’m just a happy owner of a Toyota Prius. It’s not fully electric, but I still love it. My wife loves it. And I’m sure that our baby boy will soon appreciate its smooth, safe, environmentally-friendly, one hell of a sweet ride.

P.S. Speaking of Shai Agassi, check out this video on FORA.TV – The Electric Horizon.

Over the years I’ve done my share of passionate blogging on the topic of Climate Change (Global Warming) in particular, and the Environment in general. I don’t have anything new to add from what I’ve expressed before. So allow me to re-cycle and just link to some of my selected posts on the issue of Climate Change.

The 5-Point Climate Change Belief Scale

Open-Ended Gut Thinking On Global Warming

The Hot Politics of Global Warming

IQ2 Debate: Global Warming is Not a Crisis

Jared Diamond: Taking the Middle Way of Environmentalism

Energy Technology in a Post-American World

I’ve selected the above posts because they represent my open-ended belief on the issue of Climate Change. Go ahead and read the links within the links. I hope you find them informative and useful. If not, then, it is what is.

A couple days ago I watched Thomas L. Friedman having a passionate conversation with Charlie Rose while promoting his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. It was a very insightful discussion. Forget for a moment that Friedman supported the Iraq war. People change. Friedman’s change is for the better. I think his new direction is spot on. I’m very much in agreement with what he has to say on Energy Technology (ET). See for yourself. Watch the video.

Friedman’s thesis sounds like a fleshed out continuation of the books Hot Topic and The Post-American World. As a technophile, I could relate to Friedman’s enthusiasm for technology. I also groove with his attitude on Climate Change. Here’s what Friedman said on his keynote address at BookExpo 2008:

People say to me: How can we afford to transform our whole economy in order to prevent climate change when climate change could turn out to be a hoax?

To which I say: If climate change is a hoax it is the most wonderful hoax ever perpetrated on the United States of America because transforming our economy to clean power and energy efficiency to mitigate global warming is the equivalent in training for the Olympic triathlon. If you make it to the Olympics you have a much better chance of winning because you have developed every muscle. If you don’t make it to the Olympics you’re still healthy or stronger, fitter and more likely to live longer and win any other race in life. And like the triathlon you don’t just improve one muscle or one skill but many which become mutually reinforcing and improve the health of the whole system.

Exactly. Environmentalists are instrumental for pushing legislation and raising consciousness. But ultimately, it’s the innovators and engineers who will solve our energy problems (with the right balance of government regulation and free market). At least, that’s the ideal scenario.

To appeciate Friedman’s thesis even more, it would be ideal to elevate our perspective to a post-American worldview, as written about by Fareed Zakaria. Serendipitously, Friedman and Zakaria had a dialogue over at Omnivoracious. Here’s a key quote.

Zakaria: I’m struck by the point you make about energy technology. In my book I’m pretty optimistic about the United States. But the one area where I’m worried is actually ET. We do fantastically in biotech, we’re doing fantastically in nanotechnology. But none of these new technologies have the kind of system-wide effect that information technology did. Energy does. If you want to find the next technological revolution you need to find an industry that transforms everything you do. Biotechnology affects one critical aspect of your day-to-day life, health, but not all of it. But energy–the consumption of energy–affects every human activity in the modern world. Now, my fear is that, of all the industries in the future, that’s the one where we’re not ahead of the pack. Are we going to run second in this race?

Friedman: Well, I want to ask you that, Fareed. Why do you think we haven’t led this industry, which itself has huge technological implications? We have all the secret sauce, all the technological prowess, to lead this industry. Why do you think this is the one area–and it’s enormous, it’s actually going to dwarf all the others–where we haven’t been at the real cutting edge?

Zakaria: I think it’s not about our economic system but our political system. The rhetoric we hear is that the market should produce new energy technologies. But the problem is, the use of current forms of energy has an existing infrastructure with very powerful interests that has ensured that the government tilt the playing field in their favor, with subsidies, tax breaks, infrastructure spending, etc. This is one area where the Europeans have actually been very far-sighted and have pushed their economies toward the future.

Exactly. It’s the brain-dead partisan politics that holds America back from being a leader in alternative energy development. One only has to look at the sorry state of the on-going election campaigns.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. Will America eventually perish or continue to flourish? The answer lies in our collective hearts and minds as we go to the polls this November.

via Worldchanging: Seattle

"Seattle’s City Council approved the proposed disposable bag fee
yesterday with a 6-1 vote. Starting in January 2009, shoppers will have
the option of either bringing their own bags to the store, or paying 20
cents per disposable bag to tote their goods. According to an article in the Seattle Times, officials expect that the new fee will cut Seattle’s annual 360-million-bag habit in half." [read more]

I’ve been anticipating this. But I was still a bit surprised that the proposal got an almost unanimous vote. I’ll be needing more reusable bags though. I keep forgetting my reusable bags at home.

Technically I’m not (yet) affected by this since I live outside the city of Seattle. But if and when the "shopping bag fee" prove to be successful (as it was in Ireland), then I expect it to spread like wildfire across different cities here in Washington as well as different states. It’s one of the baby steps toward a more environment-friendly future.

Anyway, one important solution that gets buried in these alternative energy debates is the idea of efficiency.

"Modern society uses natural resources extremely inefficiently. What’s
wrong with that? For one thing, many resources are non-renewable — for
all intents and purposes they aren’t being made anymore — so it makes
sense to use them sparingly so they last as long as possible. And as
for renewable resources, many of them—trees and fish, for example — are
being used faster than they’re being renewed. Depleting resources in
this way is an unsustainable proposition, with potentially grave
consequences for society as well as the environment.

"Furthermore, using more resources than necessary to do a given
job often indirectly causes other problems, which have a way of
snowballing. For example, the more fossil fuels we use, the more we
contribute to climate change (global warming), which most scientists
now agree is a real and worrying phenomenon. But that’s not all. Using
more oil increases the risk of catastrophic oil spills, makes consumers
more vulnerable to embargoes and other disruptions, and requires more
money (and possibly lives) to keep the supply lines open." [read more]

"CNN’s Miles O’Brien profiles Marc Geller, an electric car owner and a passionate supporter of this technology. " [watch video here]

Hydrogen cars, air compressed cars, plug-in hybrids, all good. But electric cars are already in our midst, just waiting for a second coming.

It’s good to know that the Toyota RAV4 EV is still out there, driven by hundreds of owners across the United States.

"The key point of this piece is that “Only one alternative fuel can
significantly lower the annual fuel bill of U.S. consumers while at the
same time significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions —
electricity.”

"Biofuels — whether from crops or cellulosic material — are likely to
be sold at the market price for gasoline. That’s because it is
extremely difficult to see how they could be produced in the kind of
nearly unlimited quality you would need for them to dominate the liquid
transportation fuels market for the foreseeable future. The same is
true for offshore, Alaskan, or unconventional oil.

"The price of electricity, however, is not linked to the price of oil." [read more]

Exactly!

It’s good to know that electric cars are coming, again!

Thomas Friedman in his upcoming book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded take this up a notch and argued that the Green revolution is like training for the Olympics. Makes sense to me.

In the meantime, Freakonomics has an interesting post on Climate Change apocalypse and altruism. When it comes to the potential apocalyptic impacts of Climate Change:

"…the likeliest victims are, once again, the poorest people. Which means
that if the relatively rich people who are currently most vocal about
climate change are also the people who stand in the least danger, there
may come a point where they realize that their concern is not so much
an act of self-preservation as an act of altruism. Considering how impure much of our altruism is, that could be the most dangerous news of all." [read more]

Good point.

"People say to me: How can we afford to transform our whole economy in order to prevent climate change when climate change could turn out to be a hoax?

"To which I say: If climate change is a hoax it is the most wonderful hoax ever perpetrated on the United States of America because transforming our economy to clean power and energy efficiency to mitigate global warming is the equivalent in training for the Olympic triathlon. If you make it to the Olympics you have a much better chance of winning because you have developed every muscle. If you don’t make it to the Olympics you’re still healthy or stronger, fitter and more likely to live longer and win any other race in life. And like the triathlon you don’t just improve one muscle or one skill but many which become mutually reinforcing and improve the health of the whole system." [watch the video of Friedman's keynote]

Exactly. I’m now looking forward to reading Friedman’s book.

And speaking of energy efficiency, here is an excerpt from Friedman’s NYTimes article, The Power Green.

"Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to
mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big
business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us
together and propel us forward. That’s why I say: We don’t just need
the first black president. We need the first green president. We don’t
just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental
president. We don’t just need a president who has been toughened by
years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level
with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and
climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real
plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels." [read more]

Now check out who’s greener, Obama or McCain. Ok, Nader looks green too.