I just read Gore's recent Op-Ed about moving the United States' power production to carbon-free sources within ten years. Diaried here, this plan nearly got my jumping out of my seat.
As a college student, majoring in engineering and computers, such a plan could not pave a brighter path our futures. I find this article not only extremely exciting because of its ramifications worldwide if Obama follows through but also because it has always been my dream to be one of the people responsible for the green change. I want to be there, building these panels, turbines, whatever it takes to make sure that we never have to burn fossil fuels again.
There are tens of thousands of us out there. We are the day's college students, ready to enter the workforce just after the Obama presidency and the 111th Congress begin. For me it will be just a short year and a half after. We are a new generation, about to make our place in the world within a few short years - and we're damned glad to do so.
I can see no nobler effort in this world. It would be base to assert that climate change is not the most important issue of our day. With clean technology, not only will we have access to ample and cheap power, the earth will finally have a chance to recover. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, carbon-based fuels will no longer be burned en masse. And likely for the first time in the past century, the plants all around the world will be able to convert more carbon than we put out. We're about to begin a worldwide "cleaning".
I've been in Austria for nearly 3 months and will be for a month more. I was here and out on the streets of Vienna during the election. Almost everyone I met here was optimistic and enthusiastic about what the next 4 years will bring. While renewable energy production here in Europe is getting better, and there are great plans in the works to make a number of countries here carbon-neutral, only America has the land and the clout to start a worldwide revolution.
Only we can make this happen, and when it does, the world as it was will cease to exist. A new, cleaner one will take its place.
I'm ready to start today. If I could, I would be back in America tomorrow, starting what has to be done.
As Gore put it in his Op-Ed in the NY Times today:
In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.
This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama’s campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.
We're ready. Obama: Put us to work.