Al Gore in the house at the wireless show, talking about how our increasingly connected world can take on global climate change €”and win.

Our former Veep issued an inspirational call to action in which broadband will play a critical role. Gore noted that times have changed, recalling that there were only 50 websites on the World Wide Web when he and President Clinton took office.

Today, Gore said, information is the dominant strategic resource of our economy. And, too often, the infrastructure that makes it all possible is taken for granted “like a fish that doesn’t know it’s in the water.”

Gore called for “a generational one-off investment to transform our energy infrastructure” and harness fuels that are free forever €”like solar and wind energy.

Another big theme: Green really IS green since most things we can do to cut pollution actually wind up saving consumers and businesses money.

Some of the many benefits broadband can bring to the climate change effort:

• With broadband and wireless, no longer do masses of people have to go to central locations (i.e. offices) to access information.
• We are now able to monitor energy use and energy waste to make our buildings, our transportation systems and our households more efficient.
• We can watch the environmental life signs of the planet and get the information we need to make real-time adjustments.

As the government seeks to stimulate the nation’s economy through infrastructure projects, Gore emphasized the need for green infrastructure €”complete with a shout-out for smart-grid technologies that use broadband to run utilities in a much more efficient way.

“We have everything we need to solve this crisis with the possible exception of political will. But fortunately in the United States of America,” Gore said, “political will is a renewable resource.”

Many companies flying the green flag on the exhibit floor, too. Among the wares: Motorola’s carbon-neutral phone (made from recycled water bottles) and LG’s solar-powered handset.

 €¦Maybe Kermit the Frog had it wrong after all. Thanks to broadband, more and more today it IS easy being green.

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