It added funding for fostering energy efficiency to a budget the House had formerly stripped of such measures. Although we are frequently exhorted to plant trees, drive less, and wrap our water heaters as a way to cut our own production of climate-busting fossil fuel pollution, it is clear that a great deal more is needed. Unless people are able to get better products or services designed to cut such pollution, the amount that individuals can do will remain limited, and will not be, according to expert opinion, enough to prevent the worst case scenarios of climate change. We need much stronger ways to encourage industrial redesign of products and services to really do the job. Because this process is expensive and not currently demanded by the market in enough volune, government must do its part in helping to prime the pump for these changes by offering incentives and sponsoring basic research business will not undertake.
Climate change is a genuine and pressing national and global security issue.
It demands a national approach to jumpstarting big changes in our own economy, which will also foster highly competitive future industries, if we act quickly enough. Concerned citizens must let their legislators know that such measures are of vital importance to them. Don't be misled by the idea that government shouldn't get involved in assisting new businesses with solutions to the problem to get going quickly. If the United States, which is the world's biggest energy user, leads the way in taking climate change seriously, it will help foster needed changes in other nations as well. Earth Day 2000 is the principal grass roots coordinator for energy issue education and organizing this year both in the U.S. and internationally.