Earth Day 2009.

On April, 21st 2009 (Earth Day), this press statement was released by Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) of the United States:

"This Earth Day is the first in nearly a decade when we have support across America and in Washington to make real progress for a clean energy future. In the midst of a financial crisis, our country is recognizing that the right environmental decisions are the right economic decisions. We can overcome our greatest challenges to create millions of clean energy jobs, restore confidence in the financial sector, and give our children a better planet. With a president who shares our environmental priorities, a Congress poised to take action, and business leaders increasingly aware of the opportunity presented by a clean energy economy -- we have the tools to repower America.”

Sounds convincing right? Let's see what kind of propositions that President Obama is offering to the American people; in terms of a cleaner Earth, and providing new "environmentally friendly" jobs, to the millions of jobless Americans in the United States. Due to the recession.

In his speech, Obama addressed both the recession issue, and the environment. His vision is to have the United States as being "the world's leading exporter of clean energy", rather than being "the worlds leading importer of oil products". Obama wants $ 15 billion to be allocated over the next 10 years for developing wind farms, solar energy, and geothermal energy. And personally, I think this is a great plan! Not only are the people doing their part to create change and lessening their impact on the environment, but people in office are becoming more conscious and passionate about the issue as well. Also, creating these new sources of energy will provide jobs in fields like: Research, engineering, testing, readings, workers etc... and this will decrease the unemployment rate in the US.

If we combine the forces of the people, and get the government to take further action in environmental protection programs: we can increase the chances of creating change. And with this, our world will be one step closer to using entirely clean energy.

And if Obama is going to take environmental issues seriously, Prime Minister Stephen Harper should get on board too!