Filed under: Polit-eco, Alternative Energy
On Wednesday, President Obama dedicated a significant section of his
State of the Union address to a pitch for clean energy, encouraging the Senate to pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill.
Today he backed up his words with a pledge
to reduce the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2020. The move will save the country $8 to 11
billion dollars. That's the way to lead by example!
It's a strong political gesture, for two reasons:
1. it's says the U.S. is serious about creating an industry -- both production and market -- for clean energy, and
2. it demonstrates on a large scale what eco-people know from our day to day lives: going green is smart because it saves money!
Everyone is
wondering what other clean energy changes were signaled by Obama's State of the Union speech.
One of the high points (for me) included a jab at climate change deniers (it's petty, but I enjoyed and probably you did, too, if you're reading here!) Obama cleverly acknowledged their doubts, and then shifted the argument into a call for the economy-boosting jobs that clean energy will generate.He even made it a patriotic foot-stamper moment.
On the down side, he did indicate that there will be concessions for more off-shore drilling, and somehow, inexplicably, the myth of clean coal seems to have slipped in there, too.
Note: the is
no such thing as clean coal. It's like Unicorns. Pretty but imaginary.
In general, it looks like Obama is doing a some dancing, taking a big step forward (clean energy pledge), a half-step back (drilling for more polluting oil), and maybe a step to side (that's
the nuclear power part). But hey, it's good to finally be moving again after so many years of making believe we didn't have a problem at all!
Obama Follows up Clean Energy Talk with Action originally appeared on Green Daily on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:04:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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