Confronting the Climate Crisis
No community is immune to the dangers of climate change, and the urgency to combat the threat gets greater by the day. Every possible solution should be on the table. As one of the earliest supporters of the Green New Deal, I believe we must invest in green jobs and prioritize untapped sources of clean energy, including nuclear energy, but we can do it in a way that grows our economy and American jobs.
By further incentivizing environmental technology investment, we can make America the global leader in green innovation and then sell those technologies to China and everyone else — not the other way around. This investment must go hand-in-hand with reductions in the use of greenhouse gasses, which is why I am a strong supporter of the carbon dividend and preventing additional drilling on federal lands. We can cut pollution even further by shifting funding for highway expansion and air travel to cleaner, faster, and more sustainable systems like high-speed rail, giving Americans more options in the process.
When it comes to the environment, action matters, and it’s only going to cost our economy more the longer we wait. The U.S. should lead the way in sustainability, resiliency, and innovation, setting an example for the rest of the world. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to get this right.