Solar Energy and our Environmental Future

~By Carol Browner~
Administrator, U.S.   Environmental   Protection Agency

Twenty-five years ago, EPA was established as a regulatory agency with primary federal responsibility for protecting public health and the environment. Over the past five years, we have worked to find new common-sense ways to prevent pollution, which is why our Agency enthusiastically supports solar and other renewable energy technologies.

To understand the natural alliance between environmental protection and renewable energy, you need only to look at the electric utility industry. Fossil fuel-fired electric power plants are responsible for roughly two-thirds of U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions, one-third of nitrogen oxide emissions, one-third of particulate emissions, and one third of carbon dioxide emissions.

Despite significant reductions in air pollution over the past few decades, many energy-related pollution problems remain. Millions of Americans still live in areas that do not meet EPA's health-based air quality standards, and global warming has emerged as an environmental threat that could swamp — figuratively and literally — our other environmental protection efforts.

For the first time in history, pollution — particularly from the burning of fossil fuels — is changing the earth's climate. The average surface temperature is now a full degree Fahrenheit higher than it was at the beginning of this century — and it may rise another two to six degrees over the next century. That may not sound like much to many people. But over the course of the next century the effects could be dramatic: more frequent and more intense heat waves will cause more heat-related deaths, severe weather events such as droughts and floods will become more common, tropical diseases like malaria will expand their range, agriculture will suffer, and the oceans will rise, perhaps by several feet — swamping many coastal areas.

As the President has said, tackling this problem is a great challenge for our democracy. We have the evidence, we see the train coming, but most ordinary Americans, in their day-to-day lives, cannot yet hear the whistle blowing. Unless they live in a place where they have experienced a couple of hundred-year floods in the past decade, the consequences of global warming are not yet readily apparent to them.

Back in December, the nations of the world met in Japan to reach agreement on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global climate change. The agreement calls upon developed countries including the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels between the years 2008 and 2012.

This is a goal we can meet if we bring to this challenge that which has long made this country great — our creativity, innovation, and ingenuity. As was noted in a recently completed study by the Department of Energy, a vigorous national commitment to develop and deploy energy-efficient, low-carbon and renewable energy technologies has the potential to restrain the growth in U.S. carbon emissions.

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