Wind generators, solar and the politics

When It Comes to Renewable Energy Sources, the United States is Lagging

If you reside in the US, you may have a distorted view of what is going on in other places in this world, especially on environmental issues. The continued consumption of fossil fuels is a complicated issue, but the world is rising to meet the challenge through the use of alternative energy that is renewable. It takes a great, nearly unexplainable amount of energy to power the world, more so each day.

Some of our political leaders don't understand green issues, or pretend not to, and never discuss them. Several years ago, however, who would have ever predicted that California's governor would be driving a hybrid? Schwarzenegger, while he was the California governor, drove a hybrid hummer, and was perhaps the greenest politician, as he instituted a solar energy plan that cost 3 billion dollars. The federal government, nonetheless, has been falling back far behind, particularly the Bush administration, what with their involvement with the giant oil companies. The green movement was ignored in favor of helping the oil companies increase their already sizable earnings.

This perhaps gives people the appearance that nothing is being done around the world, but that is absolutely not true, America is merely refusing to participate. In Victoria, Australia, they have made a commitment to make use of renewable sources for 60 percent of all of its energy by the year 2016. Thing of what a big difference that would make in the United States. Consider Germany; they lead countries in solar technology, and wind as well. It is Germany's plan that by 2020 at least twenty percent of their energy will be derived from renewable energy. Norway has no fossil oil powered sources of energy, and uses 99% renewable energy. It has no oil imports, and exports nearly all of its resources in oil, making it the world's third biggest exporter.

Brazil has become South America's clean energy leader, in spite of their, shall we say, intriguing political situation. Ethanol is used for almost all of the transportation requirements in Brazil, with their aim being to before long run everything a hundred percent ethanol. Since ethanol can be made using sugar cane, it costs more or less half as much as regular petrol. If we were to do the same thing here in America, we'd right away save over two trillion dollars each year. Those are just some examples of the strides being made in the rest of the world to clean up the earth.

In the US we lead other nations in the production of greenhouse gases, being the world's largest consumer of oil. The world can continue to do their part, but without the people in America doing their part, the process won't be complete. Until the United States opens its eyes, and minds, to the problem, there is no hope of converting our beautiful planet back  to  the  natural green  state in which we  are meant  to live.