By Lenka Kollar
A colleague of mine sent me this excerpt from an interview with John McCain on TIME.com and I felt compelled to share it with my readers. McCain talks about many political issues in his interview but this struck me as so honest, and frankly, sad.
McCain did used to be very engaged on the issue of climate change and I remember him talking about building 45 nuclear reactors by 2030 during his 2008 presidential campaign. My fellow nuclear engineering students at Purdue were so excited about this prospect.
A colleague of mine sent me this excerpt from an interview with John McCain on TIME.com and I felt compelled to share it with my readers. McCain talks about many political issues in his interview but this struck me as so honest, and frankly, sad.
McCain did used to be very engaged on the issue of climate change and I remember him talking about building 45 nuclear reactors by 2030 during his 2008 presidential campaign. My fellow nuclear engineering students at Purdue were so excited about this prospect.
Q. You used to be very engaged on the issue of climate change?
I’m still interested in it. And I think there are a lot of things that we can do like this transition that we’re making to natural gas thanks to our resources and I still believe in nuclear power as one of the big parts of the answers, and that’s almost impossible to get. And I think we need to address greenhouse gas emissions. But I try to get involved in issues were I see a legislative result… But there’s going to be no movement in the Congress of the United States certainly this year and probably next year. So I just leave the issue alone because I don’t see a way through it, and there are certain fundamentals, for example nuke power, that people on the left will never agree with me on. So why should I waste my time when I know the people on the left are going to reject nuclear power? I don’t believe that you can really succeed in reducing greenhouse gases unless you have a lot of nuclear power plants. They’re against them. Well, okay, I move on to other issues.
According the quote above, McCain basically gave up on his nuclear dreams because the people on the left are going to reject it, even though they are the ones primarily concerned about climate change. This kind of thinking has to stop for us to make any progress climate change. Politicians shouldn't be making these technical decisions but instead taking the advice of the research scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy to make effective policies. I don't agree with McCain moving on the other (easier) issues because we need practical people like him on the right side of aisle.
What do you think will make Congress move forward on effective climate change legislation?
What do you think will make Congress move forward on effective climate change legislation?
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