GEN-WE Blog

The debate over healthcare reform is threatening to delay any progress on climate change legislation. While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has said climate change will be considered by the Senate before the end of the year, if the healthcare debate continues, consideration of climate change legislation will likely be further delayed by the 2010 Congressional mid-term elections.

It is becoming abundantly clear that the impact of climate change is affecting our national security. The Washington Post and theWashington Independent covered the Truman Project’s involvement in raising public awareness on the issue, while Jon Powers examined the military’s concerns with climate change in theHuffington Post.  Craig Martin detailed the ways that climate change will create conflict and instability in The Baltimore Sun, and  Charles London focused on the humanitarian cost of climate change in The Register Citizen.

These are only a few examples of young Americans who served their country and now fight a legislative battle to free us from our dependence on foreign oil.

Imagine where the world would be if microprocessor technology had remained unchanged for more than a hundred years. That is precisely what has happened with oil, gas, and coal. We cannot afford to let these special interests control our energy policies any longer.

The potential benefits are so great they are almost incalculable. Having one or more new, clean energy sources to power growth in our nation and the world over the next century will:

> Produce millions of new jobs—some directly, in the new energy industry itself; others indirectly, in the new businesses made possible by the availability of an abundant, reliable source of clean new energy.

> Dramatically reduce the environmental damage caused by carbon emissions and make it possible for us to slow or even reverse the danger of global warming.

>Free the United States from its current dependence for energy on unreliable, often hostile foreign regimes.

> Stimulate history’s greatest-ever economic boom, fueling innovation, entrepreneurship, and business expansion.

> Produce a “positive domino effect” by unleashing the power of cheap energy to solve many other problems—for example, by making the current costly technology of desalination affordable and thereby making safe water available to all. This is perhaps the most outstanding humanitarian achievement of the project. It can effectively end starvation, turn deserts into oases, and make large-scale sustainable agriculture a global reality.

> Dramatically reduce the likelihood of wars over resources, defusing the economic tensions that profoundly complicate the already challenging task of forging peace in regions of the world such as the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and Chechnya. People will be so busy industrializing, making money, and rebuilding infrastructure, they will have no desire to fight over resources.

The climate change legislation maybe delayed in the Senate, but Millennials are fired up and ready to fight!

Check out this You Tube video of Operation Free in Washington DC.