Climate Change Response Requires Innovation
There is little doubt that the energy resources to be developed in Michigan are dependent on the state and national response to climate change and global warming. Energy and greenhouse gases are inextricably linked. It is disapointing to see that the international community is unable to coalesce around targets and strategies on glabal warming which is turn would provide direction and guidance for energy policies around the world.
Meanwhile, in the vacuum that currently exists, the U.S. and the State of Michigan need to take the lead in this challenge. Author Tom Friedman’s clarion call in his recent writings has correctly linked energy policy and climate change when he calls for a global energy technology revolution to address supply and demand of energy, the decline of natural resources, climate change, energy poverty and biodiversity. The solution he suggests is abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons, with the admonition – “invent, baby, invent.” Michigan’s contribution to the development of low emission vehicles is the right thing to be doing at the right time. R&D on electric generation and other transportation components (e.g. jet engines) that will provided by Michigan research (such as the new GE facility) will put Michigan in the middle of the innovation that is needed.
