Barack Obama on Energy Policy and Conservation

Sen. Barack Obama gives examples of changes he'd like to make. This interview took place on November 9, 2007, at Iowa Public Television. http://www.iptv.org/campaign08/

Yepsen: Following on mike's question. You've earned the reputation in the campaign for sometimes saying things that people don't want to hear. I remember you calling teachers, saying merit pay might need to be on the table in America. You told peace activists that, no, we may in fact have to spend more to rebuild the military that's been wrecked in Iraq. You just mentioned going to Detroit and telling -- give me some examples of what you will tell Americans that we don't necessarily want to hear.

Obama: well, number one, we're going to have to start doing a better job of conserving on energy. Americans like to drive their big SUVs. They like to leave all the lights on in their house. We're going to have to change our habits.

If we want to deal with the climate change, which I think we have to deal with -- we're seeing already down in the southeast, they're seeing drought that they haven't seen in a very long time. Western states, same problem.

It is indisputable that the climate is getting warmer. That's going to affect farmers. It's going to affect ordinary folks. If we want to do something serious about that, it's not going to be painless.

We're going to have to cap the emission of greenhouse gasses. That means that power plants are going to have to adjust how they generate power. They will pass on those costs to consumers. We will have to guard against lower income and fixed income individuals having to pay more for electricity, but a lot of us who can afford it are going to have to pay more per unit of electricity, and that means we're going to have to change our light bulbs, we're going to have to shut the lights off in our houses.

And those are adjustments that won't over the long term affect our standard of the living, but it does mean that we've got to show some responsibility to the next generation, something we haven't been doing.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• IPTV
• IowaPublicTelevision
• IowaPress
• Barack
• Obama
• campaign08
• green
• conservation
• energy
• policy
• obipyt

[d3vi1ishly13]

you seemed to overlook both fission and fusion power stations both of which are being used as reliable energey sources, also not to overlook green sources such as wind, wave, geothermal and solar energy sources all being MUCH MUCH more sustainable than relieing on deminished oil and coal reserves which other nations will fight for, causing an increasing likelyhood of nucular war over something as stupid as an unnecessary source of power.

[smcmillan88]

The damage caused by reducing carbon emissions (from industry, not vehicles) will be less than the damage caused by emissions to future generations.

Should we suffer a lot now or even more in the future (maybe even generations down the road)? It has to be done sooner than later.

[GETgreentech]

Stop him before he fucks everything up? Where the FUCK have YOU been? 3/4rs of my net worth went to the FRAUDULENT mortgage bankers who BUSH bailed out with almost a TRILLION dollars of NO STRINGS ATTACHED. Two F-d up wars, BUSH partnering with Drug Warlords like his Father did with Noriega, then Saddam, and bin Laden. Reagan RECINDING renewable energy programs. Cutting taxes on the rich &raising them on the poor, raising Soc Sec to pay for it. Look it up! The country was F-d up under Bush2

[billygirlist]

more taxes great

[APB187]

THE CAP AND TRADE IS A ANOTHER TAX ON ENERGY FOR YOU, YOU WILL NOT GET A BREAK UNLESS YOU ARE BROKE, THE ONES WHO GET THE BREAKS ARE CORPORATE SWEATHEART DEALS.

[smoothistkid12]

somones gotta stop obama before he fuckjs everythiong up!

[smoothistkid12]

you know what we should comvince the house of reps to make a law against raising income taxes if the president vetos it then people will have to somhow convince the house of reps to override the presidents veto.

[smoothistkid12]

i hate barack obama hes trying to raise income taxes asshole i dont have anything against black people but thewy should have nevered let him become president president geroge bush should have stayed president for a bit longer.

[bobmac1973]

fuck him, vote him out

[bobmac1973]

goddamn this fuck face wants 2 tax the shit out of us, if you voted for him your an un-American asshole! GO MOVE 2 EUROPE! then kill yourself

[s5b678]

@d3vi1ishly13 Sorry but we do not use fusion as an energy source. We are researching it but have yet to be able to create a stable fusion reaction. However if we can one day develope an energy source powered by nuclear fusion then the worlds energy crisis would be solved. Problem is as we have discovered plasma is very unpredictable and thus we have been unable to replicate what gravity is capable of.