Clinton Unconvincing on Sex Appeal of Energy Efficiency.

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By Will - August 13th, 2009

When it comes to energy efficiency, for some unknown reason, current and former U.S. Presidents seem to have their minds in the gutter.

Back in June we issued a powerful rebuttal to an offhanded remark made by President Obama suggesting that energy efficiency might not be "sexy." This week we're forced to do the same in response to Bill Clinton's speech at Monday's National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas: "The least sexy topic is where the jobs are," he said in the midst of a call for more funding for energy efficiency retrofits.

There can be no doubt that Clinton has lately made valuable contributions to the cause. He is a strong proponent of fixing buildings as a means to fight climate change ("The solution to the climate crisis isn't far off in the future - it's in the buildings we inhabit, our civic infrastructure and the way we organize our lives" reads the headline on the Clinton Climate Initiative website), and has taken concrete steps, like replacing L.A.'s streetlamps with LEDs, to implement energy efficient technology on a large scale. And President Obama, along with his Secretary of Energy Efficiency Steven Chu, is as strong a proponent of energy efficiency as we could hope for in the White house.

But really, we're just turned off by all this underhanded humiliation of energy efficiency's manhood... or womanhood. And after all, is it so bad? To borrow the words of George W. Bush, who once responded to a question simply, "What about Poland?," we say to all world leaders who maintain that energy efficiency is just "not sexy" -- What about the Lutron Diva? What about curvy and dimmable CFLs? What about LEDs? What about the guys in this video? What about Lisa with her caulking gun? Huh?

Then again, maybe we shouldn't be turning to Presidents current or past to act as arbiters of what is sexy. For reasons best left unsaid.