Veterans push to stop global warming for the sake of national security

Reported by Justin Earley

Some U.S. military veterans say climate change isn’t just a threat to the environment, but national security. A busload of veterans on a crisscross tour of the nation are in the Natural State to bring attention to the problem. And the country’s leaders are listening.

Retired U.S. General Wesley Clark said, “I know to most of us national security is about men and women in uniform, it’s about a strong national defense.” But Clark told folks at Monday’s town hall meeting in Little Rock that it’s also about protecting Americans from natural disasters. And he says global warming caused by over-use of fossil fuels poses a threat. “A series of changes of rainfall, snowfall, glaciation, moisture, sea level, which taken together are so enormous that they will displace millions of people,” he said.

Meetings Monday in Pine Bluff and Little Rock kicked off a bus tour across the south for Operation Free Veterans for American Power. Along with climate change, veterans say Americans’ dependence on foreign oil will lead to an international crisis down the road. Marine Matt Victoriano served two tours in Iraq. “We were specifically protecting foreign resources and foreign oil in a foreign land, when we very well could have been producing our own resources,” Victoriano said.

Clark says the answer to all of it is alternative energy sources: electric cars and biofuels. Clark says putting 15 percent ethanol in gas instead of the current 10 would cut down oil use by a million barrels a day. Then there’s wind energy. Along with protecting the environment alternative energy production can put people to work. That’s why the group is pushing for passage of the Clean Energy Jobs in American Power Act. Representative Vic Snyder, (D) Arkansas, said, “that’s a big part of this bill. This bill is about the jobs of the future.”

The Clean Energy Jobs in American Power Act passed the U.S. House and now it’s in the Senate. Critics say it doesn’t provide any incentives for nuclear power but Congressman Snyder says the nuclear power industry backs it. Supporters say the act could create as many as 1.9 million jobs between 2010 and 2020.

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