I agree that we can't just flip a switch one day and shut down the coal mines and stop buying oil from overseas. I realize that there are moral questions regarding stem cell research. I realize that the Kyoto treaty might not be the best solution to global warming, I realize that there is a lot of work to do on renewable energy sources. The problem is that this administration is happy to live in the past and continue on our current course or in some cases turn the clock backwards.
According to Wired:
President Bush has stated that his administration's goal is to make the United States "much less dependent on foreign sources of energy." But if the next four years are anything like the past four, his administration will continue to trim government involvement in renewable-energy projects while strongly encouraging research that favor the fossil-fuel industry.The evidence is no clearer than in the administration's budget requests. For instance, its original request for fiscal 2002 (announced in May 2001) called for federal renewable-energy funding to be cut by 36 percent. Specifically, funding for solar, geothermal, hydropower and wind-energy research each would have been cut by 50 percent or more.
Though the request was eventually set aside by Congress during the appropriations process, it marked the first battle in an ongoing war between renewable-energy proponents and the Bush administration. So far, advocates for renewable energy are losing.
Another example: Federal funding for solar-energy research in 2004 was down 10 percent compared with 2001. And the administration's 2005 budget request proposes to cut the program an additional 3.5 percent. Biomass-energy programs, which have seen a less than 1 percent increase since 2001, would be cut by 16 percent under the proposed plan.
To be fair, the money has not disappeared completely. Rather, it is has been redirected to fund President Bush's hydrogen initiative. Unveiled during the President's 2003 State of the Union address, the initiative is a multiyear $1.2 billion plan to accelerate development of vehicles that run on clean-burning hydrogen fuel.
But the plan, as it stands today, directs a large portion of its funding to developing technologies that create hydrogen from nuclear reactors and fossil fuels — both of which have environmental drawbacks and, in the case of fossil fuels, would not lower America's dependence on foreign oil.
Is this progress? I think not.
Article comments
1 - Big Time Patriot
Don't forget, the Arabs were leaders in science and math until their culture got in the way. The Chinese were great explorers and traders until their culture got in their way. I myself don't care for America becoming it's own little "dark ages" where science is repressed and ignored. George Bush couldn't do more to bring America down from its position of power in the world in any more effective way then letting it fall behind in the technology race..
2 - Eric Olsen
I think he's all for technology, it's pure science (which leads to future technology) where he sucks. However, science will carry on apace despite his superstition
3 - Hal Pawluk
I think he's not for technology, either, but for corporations who happen to use technology - he'd be for them whether they did or not (and how would he know?)