TomPaine: Climate Change Comes To D.C.

[marmar]

Climate Change Comes To D.C.
Jeff Rickert
February 26, 2007



Jeff Rickert is vice president of the Apollo Alliance, a broad coalition of labor unions, major national environmental organizations, businesses and community organizations that is pursuing a crash program for clean energy.

There has been no better moment than the one before us now to achieve energy independence for America. After years of struggle to build a bipartisan consensus on solutions to the nation’s energy crisis, a new, Democratic majority Congress has both a mandate for change and the political foundation to implement a solution that matches the enormity of the problem. What Congress now needs is a blueprint, and some lawmakers will find that blueprint right in their own states.

For years now, states and cities across the country have been innovating on policies that promote clean energy and create good jobs. Their leadership serves as a guide for bold federal action that can transform the nation—making us safer, revitalizing the economy and stemming the effects of global warming.

State and city leaders from across the country began gathering Sunday at the Apollo Summit in Washington, seeking to capitalize on the political opportunity to translate the successes already achieved in states and cities into a national crusade. The summit is meeting at the same time as the National Governors Association and has brought together people from labor, the environmental movement, business and community organizations.

Among the attendees are people already building the economy of the future. Their projects include the Gamesa wind factories in Pennsylvania, the Imperium biodiesel plant in Washington state and downtown redevelopment projects in the New Jersey cities of Newark and Trenton that are built green, built union and creating good jobs for local residents. .....(come)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/26/climate_change_comes_to_dc.php

[phantom power]

1. I hope this becomes a Democratic campaign plank in 2008.

A big, high-profile plank. The synergy between climate change, the need to address it, the economic growth industries that could be stimulated, the benefits of energy independence, the creation of domestic jobs. It's all such a great story.

I wonder if any candidate will point out the enormous number and variety of high-tech jobs that a revived nuclear power industry would create?