Global Warming. A problem that has effected our country for decades, not just as a city of Buffalo, or as a state of New York, but as a country, the United States of America. The problem has recently become rather famous in the eyes of the American people since the early 1990’s. Scientists have linked man to the rapid increase in our Earths temperature, and the change in our weather patterns, but no one listened. Until 1997. The Keyoto agreement.
1997. Keyoto, Japan. The United States and other world leaders agree to sign a treaty. This treaty known as the Keyoto agreement, guarentees a mandatory cut back in CO2 emissions used by the many countries of the world. For the United States, the 1990’s were the best economic times in the countries history. Prices were down, spending was up, and stock was never higher, and under president Bill Clinton, who dertermined to keep us in a green surplused economy, it seemed like things were looking great for the future. The Keyoto agreement was sure to pass under Bill Clinton. It wasn’t.
2000. The election of George W. Bush. The Keyoto agreement was stalled until the new president was elected. Bush, being the Republican that he is, his conservative beliefs in the economy and offshore drilling, rejected the Keyoto agreement, saying it would hurt the United States economy in the future. We reject a treaty that was supposedly going to hurt us, but yet we get ourselves involved in a pointless war, another Vietnam, and spend trillions of dollars of taxpayers money, and spiral ourselves down into the worst economic downslide since the Great Depression. How ironic, we reject a treaty that can help our country, but we fear it would “hurt” our economy, but the exact thing we were afraid of came true, without the Keyoto treaty even put into effect.
If the United States or Buffalo have any hope to survive this crisis, instead of spending newly appointed President Obama’s stimulus money on bonuses on people that don’t deserve it, they should spend their money on things that matter, like the middle class, or factories. Factories of wind mills, or solar panels, or flo0resant lights, anything to go green. I believe this is the best way to help the country go green and to save our economy.