Global Warming, Energy Policy, Green Issues & Technology
This is my area of chief concern. I’m a conservationist first & foremost. Whatever we do with our economy, with our natural resource base, has to be done with an eye toward sustainability–which means, not toward collapse & disintegration.
As to global warming:
There are still some who say they’re not sure it’s happening, or they’re not sure man is causing it, or they’re not sure it can be stopped. Fine. You’re not sure. I’m not sure either. we’re not the government scientists being paid to collect all the data & make the best possible judgement. We have those, however, & those scientists are sure–sure of all these things. So the best thing you can do, the best thing any of us can do, is listen, & follow their recommendations. The price we pay if we follow their recommendations & they prove wrong is as nothing to the price our civilization will pay, our planet itself will pay, if we do nothing & they prove right. And they are those who are paid to be right, so we should listen to them. We have to.
This may mean cuts in our energy usage, & new fuel standards. It will almost certainly mean an international effort toward reforestation & studies of oceanic algae, because it is only through photosynthesis that we can put a downward pressure on CO2 levels.
As to energy policy.
We use more energy per capita than any other nation on earth. Obviously, that’s not necessary. I will do my best to get the USA into an international treaty to govern energy usage, so long as that treaty is reasonably constructive & workable. Kyoto was a good start. We can improve on it from there.
Domestically, I will push for greater use of wind & solar energy, as well as alternative energy sources for steel & aluminum production, which are enormous energy hogs. Iceland is setting up aluminum production using geothermal energy. I hope to form a partnership with them & see how much of that we can do in this country.
As for conservation & environmental issues:
While Al Gore has been raising the alarm on global warming, our world has been lurching toward ruin on other fronts. We have–simply to name the most urgent–a planetwide collapse of global fish stocks; a water usage crisis in this country; & massive deforestation in the tropics, the “lungs of the planet.”
All of these problems are driven by economic problems. Environmental reform is not separable from economic reform. The New England fisherman who overfishes to the point of risking the extinction of his livelhood is driven by economic concerns. The Great Plains town which suddenly finds its nourishing aquifer being depleted after the factory farm came in does so due to a lack of strong governance which could have stopped that agribusiness expansion.
And so I come back to this: We need a strong government that practices sound & uncompromising economic management because we need social & environmental sustainability. If your business is simply going to destroy its natural resource base, desertify the land it sits on, & leave your employees to starve in 50 years, you need to change your business or it will be taken from you. Those who move into an area & pillage its future shall forfeit their investment.
Stronger words than we’re used to hearing on environmental policy. But the time when conservation could ever take a back seat to the selfish & private concerns of the market is over & done.
We need environmental laws with teeth. No more shall a company’s self-reporting be sufficient for the EPA to judge them in compliance. We must have regulatory & policing powers for our regulatory & policing bodies. And we need to consider the crimes committed against our children’s future, against our nation’s future, to be real crimes. For the polluters who have ruined your water supply, a fine is not enough. They must face the forfeiture of their very companies, that they not be able to do it again.
