Two weeks out from Election Day, there is hardly a national issue that is not, to some degree, solved by clean energy. Jobs, the economy, public health, national security and – of course – the environment, all have roads leading back to clean energy.
But since the biggest issues of the day are jobs and the economy, Environmental Defense Fund’s perfectly timed new video on clean energy takes these bread and butter issues head on and, as you’ll see, the stats are overwhelming:
- Jobs – The clean energy sector creates three times as many jobs as the fossil fuel sector.
- Economy – Last year the clean energy sector grew twice as fast as the economy as a whole.
- Resources – There is enough wind and solar energy power in the US to power the economy 100 times. In other words, we can do it!
So try as they might to turn clean energy into a political anathema, pro-fossil fuel politicians trying to cut clean energy off at the knees are fighting a losing battle. That’s not to say they can’t do some damage in the process.
But the strength of the statistics is the reason pro-fossil fuel politicians spend so much time fighting a straw man – asserting that the clean energy industry is a drain on government resources. This is not true. As the video points out, the fossil fuel industry gets 75 times the subsidies afforded to the clean energy industry.
Sadly, many politicians are deeply invested in keeping the status quo; after all it got them where they are today, why change? Businesses, on the other hand, have to grow to stay alive. And now that Google and Wal-Mart are embracing clean energy on a large scale, it’s clear that ship is ready to set sail. Our leaders can either capitalize on the plethora of benefits clean energy has to offer, or stick their heads in the sand and let a few more opportunities float on by.
Learn more about EDF’s Energy Innovation Series.
– Jessica
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Dana K
