Renewable energy, green technology

Should be a defining issue for Obama

Lifting the U.S. out of the Great Depression was a mighty task and the shift to renewables is to be a similar struggle. The tremendous costs and efforts required to build the infrastructures needed should be compared to the Works Projects that, among other things, built many dams that provided hydro-electric power plants while providing employment to willing workers in need of income. Rather than spending the country's wealth on the destruction of warfare in order to control as much as is possible of the dwindling and increasingly expensive oil the world is competing for, investment in the technologies now available and those in development should be seen to be as important for the country as was the building of the railroads and the highway systems - renewable energy IS the road to the future and the U.S. can be a world-leader in it's development. THAT is a winning proposition all around. As CwV notes, there are and will be those who stand to lose - the oil and coal industry and the military-industrial complex and their cronies - who must be contended with. Were it possible that a thoughtful President could nationalize those industries as Roosevelt did during WWII and mandate their conversion it would be a certainty that history would mark the move as the beginning of a new epoch - out with the coal and oil age and in with the era of renewable energy - it's a do-or-die situation that's time must come, better sooner than later or too late.

-- Nomen on BuzzFlash