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Clean energy creates US jobs
By Kathleen Rogers |
November 2, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AS America approaches its election day on November 2, a puzzling phenomenon has developed.
Dozens of Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates from a grassroots political movement are making political hay out of denying climate change. What's more, they're getting followers.
Never mind that they deny the responsibility of humans to protect the earth against global warming - most of these candidates have pledged never to vote for legislation to curb CO2 emissions - many of the Tea Party candidates deny the very science about CO2 emissions and earth temperatures. They don't seem to wonder about the spate of devastating floods, fires, droughts and heat waves that have happened all over the world in recent years. Or, if they do, they certainly don't believe human activity is the root cause.
That pledge, by the "Americans for Prosperity," a Tea Party institution, to commit not to sign any climate-change legislation that involves fees or a net increase in government revenue, has signatories from 10 gubernatorial candidates and 25 US Senate candidates, including nine incumbents.
What's happening in America that causes a significant number of political leaders to blindly and blithely ignore what the world scientific community and the majority of nations recognize as fact and, moreover, the crisis of our time?
China, Spain, Germany and indeed the whole European Union are taking bold steps to spur renewable energy and curtail greenhouse gases.
In the United States, a populist mood of fear about the economy has made citizens and their legislative leaders chicken-hearted.
President Obama and his cabinet are trying to maintain some forward momentum on climate change mitigation from the executive branch, with the Environmental Protection Agency taking initiatives to regulate emissions in the absence of Congressional action. But politics across the land are not helping.
In addition to the Tea Party's influence on the US Senate and House, its activists in various states are trying to halt or reverse state initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in California and New Jersey.
Recession is causing both their myopia and amnesia, experts say. Unemployment in the United States remains stubbornly high at 9.6 percent, with an under-employed rate - people working part time or in jobs that are not their usual careers - persisting at about 17 percent of the labor force.
The Tea Party-backed groups fighting climate initiatives and pro-environmental protection candidates claim they are doing so for jobs and the economy. In a spectacular irony, the US industrial sector producing the most significant job growth as well as a record high growth in venture capital investment is clean energy.
(The author is president of the Earth Day Network. Copyright: American Forum. Shanghai Daily condensed her article.)
Dozens of Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates from a grassroots political movement are making political hay out of denying climate change. What's more, they're getting followers.
Never mind that they deny the responsibility of humans to protect the earth against global warming - most of these candidates have pledged never to vote for legislation to curb CO2 emissions - many of the Tea Party candidates deny the very science about CO2 emissions and earth temperatures. They don't seem to wonder about the spate of devastating floods, fires, droughts and heat waves that have happened all over the world in recent years. Or, if they do, they certainly don't believe human activity is the root cause.
That pledge, by the "Americans for Prosperity," a Tea Party institution, to commit not to sign any climate-change legislation that involves fees or a net increase in government revenue, has signatories from 10 gubernatorial candidates and 25 US Senate candidates, including nine incumbents.
What's happening in America that causes a significant number of political leaders to blindly and blithely ignore what the world scientific community and the majority of nations recognize as fact and, moreover, the crisis of our time?
China, Spain, Germany and indeed the whole European Union are taking bold steps to spur renewable energy and curtail greenhouse gases.
In the United States, a populist mood of fear about the economy has made citizens and their legislative leaders chicken-hearted.
President Obama and his cabinet are trying to maintain some forward momentum on climate change mitigation from the executive branch, with the Environmental Protection Agency taking initiatives to regulate emissions in the absence of Congressional action. But politics across the land are not helping.
In addition to the Tea Party's influence on the US Senate and House, its activists in various states are trying to halt or reverse state initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in California and New Jersey.
Recession is causing both their myopia and amnesia, experts say. Unemployment in the United States remains stubbornly high at 9.6 percent, with an under-employed rate - people working part time or in jobs that are not their usual careers - persisting at about 17 percent of the labor force.
The Tea Party-backed groups fighting climate initiatives and pro-environmental protection candidates claim they are doing so for jobs and the economy. In a spectacular irony, the US industrial sector producing the most significant job growth as well as a record high growth in venture capital investment is clean energy.
(The author is president of the Earth Day Network. Copyright: American Forum. Shanghai Daily condensed her article.)
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