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The audio of Tamminen's speech from last year's Alt Car Expo was quite popular with our readers, and I expect his words from this year's Santa Monica Alt Car Expo will have the same impact. Why? Because Tamminen is a good public speaker with a solid message. Sure, sometimes he repeats his jokes, but what do you expect from a guy who has an audience in front of him so often?

Tamminen, the author of Lives Per Gallon, is gifted with a skill to make his point in clever phrases (e.g., "There is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot"), and this talk, on "Driving the Future," is peppered with them. Look out, too, for a Shakespeare quote.

Tamminen started his talk by describing the likely upcoming economic and social consequences of global warming (short version: it ain't pretty). The even worse news: even the strictest anti-global warming legislation that is in effect in the world today might not be enough to fend off the coming trouble.

Still, Tamminen isn't all pessimistic. He talks about the various states in the U.S. that are working on "world class" legislation on the climate change issue, and he expects about half of the states will be under these types of laws by the time a new president comes into the Oval Office in 2009. And, because these climate change laws are finally getting serious, the "cars of the future" that get paraded out at all the fun car shows will, sooner rather than later, become the cars of today.

Give it a listen.

Oh, and guess which car Tamminen drove to the expo? You know it. And he let slip that the next person who will spend time with the BMW Hydrogen 7 is Angelina Jolie.