An Iowa community college’s wind turbine technology program is the backdrop this morning as Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet releases his plan to address climate change.
“Climate change is a global crisis that we must confront now and the majority of Americans believe climate change is real and humans are contributing to it,” Bennet said earlier this morning on a conference call with reporters, “and they are demanding action by this generation.”
Bennet, who is a U.S. Senator from Colorado, has set the goal of having 30 percent of American land and oceans “conserved” by 2030. Bennet would create a “climate bank” to finance public-private partnerships that develop technology or infrastructure to address climate change. He said these efforts would drive economic growth throughout this century.
“We should never have lost an election to Donald Trump over jobs and especially the way he framed it and we cannot allow it to happen again,” Bennet said. “…The plan we’re putting out today will build and sustain 10 million high-paying jobs, create more opportunity for people to choose clean energy, zero emission vehicles and other technologies that contribute to solving climate change.”
According to Bennet, there’s been a “corruption of inaction” in Washington, D.C. when it comes to devising solutions to this and other issues.
“I don’t think climate change has to be an instrument of division,” Bennet said. “I think we can and must engage a broad constituency, enlisting all of America to overcome our political inertia.”
If he’s elected president and congress balks at taking action, Bennet said he would use executive authority to implement as many of these proposals as possible.
On Sunday, Bennet visited the Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids and a farm near Nevada where more than 30 different vegetables are grown and sold to customers who buy shares in the harvested produce. This morning, he’s visiting students and instructors in the wind turbine technology program at Des Moines Area Community College.