Together we can create sustainable energy, more jobs, better economy
I’m support President-elect Barack Obama’s position on creating a massive program of green jobs as the best solution to the multiple severe problems we face—unemployment and home foreclosures, global warming, and ruinous wars for oil. I hope he includes Van Jones and Harvey Wasserman in his corps advisors; their ideas about transforming our nation into part of the answer instead of part of the problem are practical and do-able.
Virtually all the threats to our survival are connected to global warming. Extracting, transporting and burning of fossil fuels, uranium mining and processing, and the unsolvable problem of radioactive nuclear waste can only be eliminated by replacing King CONG (coal, oil, nuclear, gas) with energy efficiency and genuinely clean, renewable energy generation. The latter will create “green jobs” that can’t be outsourced and that could be required to pay a living wage. Of course, our infrastructure is desperately in need of repair also, which also means good jobs in all states.
Giving taxpayers’ (borrowed) billions to banks has failed; they have used it to further enrich themselves, not to increase cash flow for productive businesses or provide fair mortgages for homeowners in trouble. These giveaways must be recouped by restoring progressive taxation, as Mr. Obama promised, and by nationalizing failed banks and/or strongly regulating them.
He can finance the green jobs program by taxing every stock transaction. This will produce billions of dollars while discouraging non-productive speculating and encouraging long-term investment.
I know he is under great pressure from the corporate interests that funded his campaign. But we, the people, are the ones who voted for him and gave him a mandate to serve the common good. We are now offering him our support in rebuilding America with a strong middle class that offers upward mobility to the poor. Mr. Obama is right; it is not about him; it is about what we can accomplish together.
Claire Garden
Columbia, MO.
Claire Garden:
“Virtually all the threats to our survival are connected to global warming. Extracting, transporting and burning of fossil fuels, uranium mining and processing, and the unsolvable problem of radioactive nuclear waste can only be eliminated by replacing King CONG (coal, oil, nuclear, gas) with energy efficiency and genuinely clean, renewable energy generation.”
The earth has been cooling since 1998, should we begin encouraging the burning of fossil fuels and bovine methane gas production to delay if not prevent an Ice Age?
Why do I feel that the future is gloomy if the huge whipping blades of clean wind turbines are prohibited within 50 miles of where limousine liberals live (like Hyannis port?) or they frighten caribou and church mice into irregular breeding habits and migratory patterns?
Are we back to this global warming farce again? Oh please, give me a break. How many SUV’s did they have a few hundred years ago when it was much hotter? Don’t you people think on your own? I got some swamp land I want to sell you so where in the heck do you live because I am dam sure you are a buyer.
Why is it that citizens give these politicians so much credit and keep forking over more and more of their rights? Is there that many stupid helpless people living here now? I’m beginning to think that maybe the real resurrection is here now. At least that’s the feeling I get from you Obama flock.
If you really want to see the United States take off then get the government out of our lives. I feel like we have become one giant assisted care country. We can’t do anything without some politician making a decision that is going to affect your life. This is maddening! Sage, we have our work cut our for us!
Hello Claire, I am a global-warming-denier; I assure you, of the most extreme kind. I don’t really see that “we” ought to have much to say in the matter, beyond what company we choose to purchase energies from (or not). We’re sitting on ample supplies of coal, oil and uranium; but very limited supplies of freedom and brains.
An experiment: load your car with your family and groceries. Get out and push it up a hill, if you want to get an idea of what a single gallon of gasoline does for your very life.
Hey, Yappers! You lost! Get out of your mothers’ basements and get a job!
Another uninformed rehash of ideas from an anti-technology, anti-nuclear person. There are three ways to provide large-scale electricity—the kind that reliably meets the demands of our civilization around the clock. In the United States:
75% of that baseload electricity comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels, mainly coal, and emit carbon dioxide. Toxic waste from coal-fired plants kills 24,000 Americans annually.
5% comes from hydroelectric plants.
Less than 1% comes from wind and solar power.
20% comes from nuclear plants that use low-enriched uranium as fuel, burn nothing, and emit virtually no CO2. In 50 years of operation, they have caused no deaths to the public.
While no industrial power source is trouble-free, it’s clear that carbon-free nuclear power is vastly preferable to burning coal, and far more reliable than wind and solar. One major use of nuclear power: use it as a major source of electricity to charge batteries for electric vehicles. France found that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for re-use cuts down the need for uranium by maybe 90%, and the amount of waste for disposal by about 90%.
Yup Claire-Another tax on the rich. Great idea-Will really boost the chances for jobs. Oh, and by the way, how about funding that FDR like infrastructure project with the taxes already confiscated by the Govt. on each gallon of gas? They make far more per gallon than the oil company does, and produce not one drop of fuel.
Another kum-by-yah out of the woodwork since the corination of the Messiah.
fnbrowning:
“There are three ways to provide large-scale electricity—the kind that reliably meets the demands of our civilization around the clock. In the United States:
75% of that baseload electricity comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels, mainly coal, and emit carbon dioxide. Toxic waste from coal-fired plants kills 24,000 Americans annually.
5% comes from hydroelectric plants.
Less than 1% comes from wind and solar power.
20% comes from nuclear plants that use low-enriched uranium as fuel, burn nothing, and emit virtually no CO2. In 50 years of operation, they have caused no deaths to the public.”
Great response fn but reason is treated like a red-headed step-child on the letters blog. Only about 40 percent of the power consumed is from coal, hydroelectric and nuclear plants and bringing up the rear are wind and solar. Enviro-nuts are going to go full blast to develop wind and solar for aircraft and rail transportation although on a cloudy, still day, both methods of transportation could stall over and around Salt Lake City.
http://www.psichurch.com/churches/183stdavid/183.pdf