This week President Obama addressed the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event was to promote a new series of loan guarantees to provide municipalities with the resources to invest in renewable energy. These commitments are just one part of a broader effort of the Administration’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to facilitate cities in their move away from fossil fuels.
The shift towards renewables is a win-win for cities. While only making up 13% of the nation’s power supply, jobs in wind and solar already outnumber those in coal—and as more investments are made, more will become available. But jobs aren’t the only advantage for cities. The switch from fossil fuels to wind, solar and hydropower generation is a major step in the fight against climate change, which impose large monetary and resource burdens to already cash-strapped cities. Finally, city and municipal officials can use the switch to green energy as a way of empowering their communities with energy independence. Residents should have the freedom to choose where there energy comes from, and greater access to renewables provide just that.
Clean power is both an environmental and political winner for cities and residents. Leadership by municipal officials is needed to empower communities and put them on the environmental Path to Positive.
Obama Flies to the Nevada Desert to Promote Solar Energy
By Gardiner Harrisaug | New York Times | August 24, 2015
LAS VEGAS — President Obama flew west into the blistering sun of this desert oasis on Monday not so much to issue a dour warning about the dangers of climate change — moralizing does not become this freewheeling city — but to speak with great hope about solar and other renewable forms of energy.
“We’re here today because we believe that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future than climate change,” Mr. Obama said. “But we’re also here because we hold another belief, and that is, we are deeply optimistic about American ingenuity.”
While promoting the benefits of all renewable energy, including wind power, the president focused largely on solar energy, part of an increasingly intense effort to counter global warming by instituting policies to reshape the nation’s energy industry.
