Democratic Virginia Senator Mark Warner spoke last month at the Alliance to Save Energy's annual Great Energy Efficiency Day on Capitol Hill. The speech offered both optimism about the inevitability of America's transition to clean energy and also realism about the time it will take to fully realize the move away from fossil fuels.
Warner is also a pioneering executive in the telecommunications industry so he has seen firsthand the time it takes for a new technology to reach its apex. He stressed the need to let the public know that this transition to clean energy and creation of green jobs is not something that will happen overnight, but, like the Internet, will take years to live up to its promise. Warner reminded the audience that promises Bill Gates made about the Internet in the mid-90s have only started to come to fruition in the past couple of years in terms of data use and social networking. And between that period was the false start of the dot com bust.
Warner stressed the need to look at the clean energy issue as being about national security, job creation and energy efficiency. The focus on these three issues, as opposed to climate change, is especially important in light of the new majority in the House.
"We’re going to get to that tipping point," said Warner. "So if we can keep making incremental policy changes to move to that tipping point, along with the innovation that’s inherent in our society, we will get there and the Alliance is going to be an important part of that."
No comments:
Post a Comment