Centerblue.org

Conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard has suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of his left-leaning Labor opponent Kevin Rudd, ending over a decade of conservative rule. His party also scored a clear majority in the lower house of Parliament.

Like Bush, Howard had refused to join the Kyoto Protocol and had maintained troops in Iraq. Both factors led to his historic ouster. Rudd intends to join Kyoto immediately and also plans to withdraw Australia’s troops from Iraq.

In so doing he leaves the US as the sole remaining industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol–and with even Britain withdrawing its troops one has to wonder who remains of Bush’s “coalition of the coerced” in Iraq. More and more, Bush stands completely alone in the world as he deserves for having governed this nation as a rogue state for seven years.

US Republicans must also have a sense of foreboding about next year as a result of this election. The same issues that sent Howard to his political grave are looming front and center for the 2008 contest–and those issues are turning out to be poison pills for anyone associated with conservatism, Republicans, and Bush’s failed policies.

Deep in an Australian desert, an entrepreneurial renewable-energy company called EnviroMission is building a 1600 foot high solar tower that when activated will produce enough electricity to power 100,000 homes, the equivalent of a small city.

The concept is simple and based on the fact that hot air rises. The tower is surrounded by a two mile wide transparent canopy sloping up towards the tower that will superheat the nearby air. The tower itself will act like a vacuum, sucking the air up to the top at high velocity. The tower’s interior will be lined with wind turbines, which will generate the electricity.

Brilliant, but simple. An even taller half mile high tower is being planned for China, and EnviroMission is scouting the American Southwest for another location.

It’s innovations like this that will cut our oil dependence and global warming emissions, one step at a time.