Energy and the Environment

Steve Harrison wants our country to approach our energy problems with the same vigor and national resolve as we did putting a man on the moon. In a decade we should be free from foreign and domestic fossil fuel dependence.

Wind farms are among the alternative energy sources Steve Harrison supports. Steve says, "Windmills are pollution free, once erected, and what little visual disturbance they cause is infinitely preferable to the catastrophic potential of burning fossil fuels or atomic fission."

Republican solutions such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are inadequate and even dangerous. ANWR drilling would not have an immediate impact on our current supply and would satisfy only a minor portion of our future needs, while endangering wildlife and encouraging further oil reliance.

"Virtually all major problems today, Iraq, global warming, melting of the polar ice caps and many others can be traced to one thing - oil," explains Steve. "As the world's ability to produce oil slips below ever increasing demand, particularly with the industrialization of China and India, within the foreseeable future, the price of oil will skyrocket well beyond the ability of America's working families to pay."

Consider the following consequences of oil dependence:

  • Iraq

    Iraq is the first of the great oil wars. If we do nothing to create sustainable alternative energy sources, it will not be the last. In this sense, energy independence is a crucial component of national security.

    Harrison warns, "In the absence of reliable, renewable alternative sources of energy -- biofuels, wind, solar, geothermal etc. our choices as a nation will be stark -- watch our children freeze in the winter or invade other countries simply to take their oil. America must be better than that."

  • Global Warming

    Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, released from fossil fuel burning, primarily cause global warming. Ignoring scientific evidence supporting global warming, the current administration has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. We would be required to reduce greenhouse emissions by 7 percent (each country has an individualized standard it has to meet under Kyoto) if the US accepted the terms of the agreement.

    Steve Harrison supports American ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. He says, "Pollution knows no borders. Neither do environmental solutions."

    Global warming is not science fiction, nor is it a problem that we can leave for our grandchildren to solve. Many experts believe it is already manifesting itself in the form of more severe weather, like Katrina. Risings sea levels are also the result of global warming and are not limited to New Orleans.

    In fact, rising sea levels are negatively impacting New York's 13th District. The bike path in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, bordering New York Harbor recently collapsed into the sea, among other reasons, because of gradual water level increases, with the harbor overflowing the sea wall and swamping the bike path.

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