We all know what air conditioning and heating bills are going to look like this year. And many of us support environmentally responsible and non-fossil fuel energy alternatives. Whether we’re looking to save a buck, or save the planet, there are a myriad of strategies to reduce our carbon footprint and maintain at least a modicum of the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed. Plus, technology is rapidly changing.

What would happen if the U.S. government actually got serious about the energy crisis, and put some tax incentives and R&D money behind evolving technology such as, for example, solar curtains? It’s not quite here yet, and the economics of scale don’t quite make the technology affordable to the average homeowner, but it’s sure a lot closer to reality than flying cars:

A new kind of solar panel is on the horizon. It is incredibly small and can be woven into textiles like curtains and roofing materials to create a more energy-efficient home. The organic photovoltaic-laced textiles move to follow the sun and can create about 16,000 watt-hours of electricity or about half of what the average U.S. home uses in a day…

In a keynote speech at an energy conference today, former Vice-President President Al Gore offered these ominous words:

[He] said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk…the future of human civilization is at stake…

Truer words were never spoken - and if George W. Bush had invoked the same concepts in the wake of 9/11, rather than Cheney-inspired wars of choice, we’d be there already. Just think for a moment. What would have been a better way to spend more than a trillion dollars, and in the process, thumb our collective national noses at Osama bin-Laden & crew? Tossing the money into black holes of corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan, or taking that same money and developing energy sources to wean the U.S. off of the need for imported oil from our middle eastern “friends”?

It isn’t even close. That wasted trillion dollars? What if it had been used to outfit every single household in America with solar curtains? Boom. Energy crisis solved. America is out of the middle east (well, at least for oil reasons). Everyone’s happy.

Want to contribute your part to Gore’s challenge, and significantly reduce your summer carbon footprint? Check out this short article from OwnerIQ blog (which is fast becoming a favorite consumer site of mine). You might save some bucks (a nice incentive by itself) and perhaps become a small cog in a much bigger machine that finally tackles these issues in my lifetime.