Monday, August 3rd, 2015 will be a historic day in the history of the modern world, and yet most of us are unaware of the happenings of this day. On this day, US President Barack Obama will unveil his government’s most ambitious, most difficult and debatably, the most controversial plan yet, dubbed as “The Climate Change Plan”. In a video posted on Facebook over the weekend, President Obama has issued a teaser of sorts that has set the excitement levels rising among environmentalists, business groups and the public in general. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dMOeLFar3Y.
In the video, President Obama explains that climate change is threatening our economy, our health and our security. “Threat to National Security” is no hyperbole; it has been factually proven through many reports and data collected over the years that the severe floods and droughts, in the country and elsewhere in the world, are actually caused by the uncontrolled emissions by industries and, specifically, by coal fired power plants. He explains in the video that although there are regulations on dumping the amount of toxic chemicals, like mercury, sulphur and arsenic in our air and water, there are no set standards as to how much carbon can be dumped, giving power plants a free reign to dump as much carbon as they want. Carbon would, by far, be the worst of all substances, since it also affects the health of the people. Case in point: in the last 30 years, the number of asthma patients has doubled. The need of the hour is effective energy management to help us carefully assess the situation.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that in 2012, 37% of all U.S. electricity was produced from coal. In comparison, only 30% was produced from natural gas, 19% from nuclear power plants, 7% was hydroelectric and 5% from renewable sources. Ideally, the renewable sources of energy should be used more than the non-renewable sources, and the Action Plan is the first step in that direction. There is still a sizeable number of companies which rely on power generation rental equipment to satisfy their power needs. Read more about this market in our report. The onus of fighting against climate change lies more on the developed countries than the developing countries. World leaders, like the U.S., need to pave the way and show the world how it needs to be done. Read about the power needs of Indian subcontinent, which is one such developing market.
At the end of the video, President Obama asks everyone who believes that we can’t condemn our future generations to a planet beyond fixing should share and spread the word about this plan. Would you be interested in reading about the different EPA Tier emissions? Check out our last post here.
Photo Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/share/climate-action-plan