T. Boone Pickens has done the impossible. The billionaire Texas oil man changed my father, a man who listens to entirely too much talk radio, from saying that oil alternatives are so much flooey and we should get real and drill in Alaska, to saying we must look beyond oil for our energy future. This commercial did it.

Pickens is one of many people who believe in the concept of “peak oil.” They state that at some very recent point, like 2005, we reached the top of the bell curve of potential oil reserves on the planet, and it’s downhill from here. They believe we have already used, therefore, more than half of the earth’s oil, and the finite resource will grow only rarer in the years ahead. I — like you probably — think they’re right. And even if we haven’t peaked yet, it’s only a question of when.

T. Boone’s “Pickens Plan” proposes using wind energy to power homes and businesses, and calls the Great Plains, “the Saudi Arabia of wind power.”

A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured.

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.

That’s a lot of money, but it’s a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it’s a bargain.

True that. He also calls for cleaner burning and more efficient natural gas to fuel our cars. Bush’s beloved corn-based ethanol? Puh-lease!

The funny thing is that Pickens isn’t even trying to get through to George W. Bush. He knows a lost cause when he sees it.

…it will take leadership.

On January 20th, 2009, a new President will take office.

We’re organizing behind the Pickens Plan now to ensure our voices will be heard by the next administration.

Together we can raise a call for change and set a new course for America’s energy future in the first hundred days of the new presidency — breaking the hammerlock of foreign oil and building a new domestic energy future for America with a focus on sustainability.

Al Franken was right when he said the Bush Administration is to global warming what Herbert Hoover was to the Great Depression. Hoover led the country into bankruptcy, denying the problem and remaining oblivious until it was too late to avert tragedy. We are fortunate that George Bush and Dick Cheney will soon be gone, and with any luck, in time to turn things around.

I’m glad there some smart people out there who are less entrenched in outdated ideas and more willing to put their resources into trying new solutions. We need more of them, like Al Franken, in Washington. That’s why even though I don’t live in Minnesota, I gave to his campaign. Watch this video and see if you can cough up some bucks too.