America’s Coal Habit Won’t Be Easily Kicked! A Report back from YCEF
Yesterday, the League’s Charlotte Chinana and I attended the White House’s Youth Clean Energy Forum. Like many of the 150 youth leaders in attendance, we were there to see what the White House has been doing to build the new green economy. Because you know what, it’s not all that cool that the our broke ass generation is facing a future that involves a whole lot of water and a whole lot of debt.
Of course, there are numerous enviros in the administration who are super invested in making sure that we build a clean economy that kicks the bejesus out of both the recession and climate change. But the pressures of the health care bill have kinda put climate issues on the back burner. Even while the timeline towards environmental and economic disaster is a-tck-tck-tcking away.
Check the report back after the jump.
From the start, you could tell that the administration takes the clean energy youth movement seriously. Not only did they bring in Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Lisa Jackson, but they streamed the conversation live and opened it up to questions from Facebook. If you missed the action you can watch the video here. (It’s funny, the only time that I have been that close and personal with such important people is when I am watching the Daily Show, but I digress.)
Of course, just because the administration is sympathetic with many of the green movement’s causes, doesn’t mean that everybody was on the same page. Especially, as it relates to the controversial topic of clean coal. After all, the Nobel Prize award winning Chu noted that “it is unlikely that America will back a way from coal.” No surprise that many in the room and in the cyberspace weren’t too happy about that statement as it got a lot of attention on Twitter.
Another unpopular statement came from the EPA’s Jackson, who skillfully dodged a question about mountain top removal. And stated that the EPA was “looking” at mountain top removal permits.
Yet for me, it was Jackson’s pivot away from the controversial question that was the most poignant moment of the day. She noted that America is in a “transition period” and that it has only been until recently that these types of issues could even be considered seriously. Especially given the fact that so much of the world’s economy is dependent upon coal.
While it’s hard for me to accept the environmental destruction that is tied to dirty energy like coal, I do understand that we aren’t going to be able to change centuries old bad habits over night. Yes, the environmental movement has the moral authority in this effort, but the truth is that America has an carbon addiction that won’t be easily kicked. I mean, look how hard its been for us to tackle racism or homophobia.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should stop pressing our government to be a leader on the issue. Because we we should definitely continue to stand up for what we believe in.
But that also doesn’t mean that we should be naive enough to rest our futures on only one strategy. We have to figure out other ways to reduce our carbon footprint. After all, a recent EPA report noted that nonfood packaging and product make up to 37% the nation’s green house gas emissions. The battle for our future needs to be fought on many different fronts, and ultimately can only be won by us making huge cultural changes and challenge everything that we consume, not just coal.
