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Wesley Clark Seeks Renewable Energy Standard
By
Edward X. Young, Staff Writer, SolarAccess.com
January 8, 2004 | 4 Comments At the Town Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire (the home base of SolarAccess.com) Democratic Presidential Candidate General Wesley Clark discussed issues concerning renewable energy as a means of protecting the environment, fighting global warming, and achieving energy independence.
"We need to move towards energy independence with natural renewable fuel sources like wind and solar power."
- U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidate, Retired General Wesley Clark 
Peterborough, New Hampshire - January, 8, 2004 [SolarAccess.com]
Rather than separate himself from his audience by speaking from an elevated stage, Clark had the seating at the Town Hall rearranged into a circle, so that he could stand among the people during his extemporaneous presentation. Accompanied by former New Hampshire Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Fernald, Clark, casually dressed in a sweater and sports slacks, strode to the center of the hall. Fernald introduced Clark to a cheering crowd of over 900, who braved frigid temperatures of 15 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill factor of 2 degrees to come to Peterborough (a town with a population of less than 6,000) to hear the candidate speak from 12 noon until 1:30 p.m. yesterday. Clark criticized President George W. Bush for having the audacity to claim that his current administration stands for family values while the President largely ignores viable renewable energy technology in favor of continuing to support polluting energy industries that are harming the air and water. "You can't talk about family values if you're going to wreck our environment," said Clark. The candidate cited scientific studies that support theoretical estimations that the Bush Administration's policies that disregard environmental concerns, if left unchecked, would eventually kill over 100,000 American citizens from pollution-related illnesses. Clark said that renewable energy objectives are among his top specific goals to establish a "higher standard of leadership" that will bring the Nation together. "We need to move towards energy independence with natural renewable fuel sources like wind and solar power," said Clark. "We've got the technology. We've got the know-how. We just don't have the political will. But when I am elected President, we will have the political will." Clark told this SolarAccess.com reporter that he would fully support a national Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) to provide 10 percent of our country's electricity needs from renewable energy by 2013 -- and growing to 20 percent by 2020. "I want the RPS and much more," said Clark. "I explain it all on my website." On his website, Clark calls President Bush's environmental record a disgrace. Clark accuses the President of betraying the public trust and mortgaging our children's future. "We can do better than George W. Bush," said Clark. "And we must!"
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<br>I feel Dean,Clark and a myriad of other Democratic candidates are relying on anti-Bush emotion to achieve their political goals but not societies energy goals. We all know incredible technologies exist that can far out-perform our existing mainstream energy infrastructure, however, they will never materialize in our reality unless someone starts thinking about the practical, human side of the issue.
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<br>We want these great new ideas to materialize in the form of factories, jobs, schools, parks, lives and hapiness for the people ultimately involved in working them. This implies a tremendous logistical and human effort in transitioning the existing workforce and many new young workers into these industries. The scope of the issue, then, reveals itself to be much greater than simply admitting better ideas exist.
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<br>Perhaps we should model the situation by developing a prototype family complete with it's human problems, frailties, hopes and dreams and imagining it transitioning from working for a polluting oil refinery
<br>to, for example, a state of the art hydrogen cell manufacturing plant. We can then map out the entire process and make it as painless as possible. So many people are afraid of change. For so many people even a slight separation from familiarity can be dangerous if not deadly.
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<br>Every candidate the inspires hate for Bush and his policies has to provide us with a love for a practical, humanitarian plan to achieve the future they envision for us.
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<br>Let us remember, in the spirit of the greatest amnesty, that by the time our energy policy making predecessors really understood how dangerous our existing energy policy can be we were already looked in economically and emotionally to that policy. We can not assume they acted vicously towards nature and society when they implemented the current infrastructure on such a large scale that it would take a super human effort to save ourselves from the disaster it could be.
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<br>Hatred will not solve this. Insults will not educate us. Friendship and forgiveness will save us.