Conley
04-09-2012, 04:50 PM
The politician wanted to make one thing absolutely clear. "We are not," she said, "just hippies."
Perhaps it sounded a little over-defensive, but then what Lykke Friis was defending was a remarkably bold initiative.
Denmark has announced that by the end of this decade, it will produce a third of its energy from renewable sources - wind power, in particular, but also solar power and the burning of "biomass."
More ambitiously, the Danish Government has set a goal of running the entire country on renewables by 2050.
What makes Denmark's announcement even more unusual is that it has won support from across the country's political spectrum.
Ms Friis, for example, is a front-bench spokeswoman for the opposition Liberal Party, right-of-centre and fiercely pro-business. For her, the decision to ditch fossil fuels is a matter of sound financial planning.
"No matter what we do, we will have an increase in the price of energy, simply because people in India and China want to have a car, want to travel," she says.
"That is why we came out with a clear ambition to be independent of fossil fuels: so we are not vulnerable to great fluctuations in energy price."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17628146
Wouldn't it be great if politicians in the US on both sides of the aisle could also unite behind something like this?
Perhaps it sounded a little over-defensive, but then what Lykke Friis was defending was a remarkably bold initiative.
Denmark has announced that by the end of this decade, it will produce a third of its energy from renewable sources - wind power, in particular, but also solar power and the burning of "biomass."
More ambitiously, the Danish Government has set a goal of running the entire country on renewables by 2050.
What makes Denmark's announcement even more unusual is that it has won support from across the country's political spectrum.
Ms Friis, for example, is a front-bench spokeswoman for the opposition Liberal Party, right-of-centre and fiercely pro-business. For her, the decision to ditch fossil fuels is a matter of sound financial planning.
"No matter what we do, we will have an increase in the price of energy, simply because people in India and China want to have a car, want to travel," she says.
"That is why we came out with a clear ambition to be independent of fossil fuels: so we are not vulnerable to great fluctuations in energy price."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17628146
Wouldn't it be great if politicians in the US on both sides of the aisle could also unite behind something like this?