Former Vice President Al Gore talked about how the fight against global warming could help create millions of new green jobs as he addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland last week.
“…we hear the reports that leaders once resistant to fiscal stimulus are now calling for massive new initiatives to create jobs in ways that also reduce CO2 and the Secretary general of the United Nations who has provided such tremendous leadership for the world in this process has himself called for what he terms a green new deal in the world,” Gore told international leaders gathered for the Conference in Poznan.
The former V.P. also made reference to green jobs when discussing to his recent meeting with U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama.
“Just prior to coming here to Poznan, I went to Chicago for a meeting with president-elect Barack Obama and he emphasized that the climate crisis will be a top priority of his administration,” he said. “We discussed how to create millions of new jobs in a new clean energy economy, and he emphasized that once he is president, the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations and help lead toward a successful conclusion.”
Gore met with Obama and Vice President-Elect Joe Biden last week to discuss the climate crisis, as well as approaches to solving the nation’s dual economic and energy crises.
After the meeting Obama had this to say:
"This is a matter of urgency and national security...[but] it is not only a problem, it is also an opportunity," President-elect Obama said. "We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country in all 50 states to repower America, to redesign how we use energy and think about how we are increasing efficiency to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us competitive for decades to come -- even as we save the planet."
Al Gore has been a leading political force in the movement to stop global warming for many years now. The arrival of the Obama administration in the White House will offer Gore and other environmentalists a real opportunity to make progress in their fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create new green jobs, and stimulate economic growth.
David Anderson is a News & Politics Correspondent for Gather.com. Keep up with all of David's writing by joining the group Green America, or by visiting his blog The Green Jobs Report.
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Comments: 13
I'll take it further though, Gore is a attention hound that would sell his mother for a spot in the news. He has no real poyalty, and fools keep supporting this fraud.
It is time. In fact, it is past time. We just wasted 8 years through a goofy effort to talk and study global warming to death in the Bush era. Global warming does not care what we say, it only cares about what we do.
We have a choice. We can suck it up and support Obama on this one, or we can whine that gasoline is cheap, and pretend that it always will be. Which will it be?
While I don't doubt some warming is part of the natural cycle, the fact that humans have systematically destroyed so much of the natural world cannot be ignored. The reality is our current fossil fuel economy makes us enslaved to terrorists. The fossil fuels we need are buried under the lands of people who hate us and could care less if we stand or fall. And even if we opened up every single potential acre on U.S. soil to drilling tommarrow, we couldn't feed our oil addiction. In fact, knowing how most people think, we'd just end up using MORE oil.
We need to look at renewable energy, if for no other reason than it will allow us to leave a stable planet behind for generations to come.
1. We can create jobs and stimulate economic growth
2. We can reduce carbon emissions and fight global warming
3. We can reduce air pollution, improve public health, and spend less on health care
4. We can reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels
Sounds good to me!
Actually, the "natural cycle" aspect of climate would have us in a cooling phase - not a warming one.
I would add that investing in clean energy and energy efficiency is the best way to "fight the global war on terrorism."