President Obama and Steven Chu

Both President Obama and Steven Chu are in support of not only changing the way issues surrounding energy sustainability are but also in other countries. Currently, the two are actively working on a plan to halt climate change, raise standards for energy efficiency on technology for both transportation and household items, increase utilization of renewable energy sources, protect the environment, and decrease dependency on foreign oil. President Obama described an overview of the general plan in a statement this March:

"So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world's leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that would allow us to become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stop it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity."

-President Obama, March 19, 2009

The Obama federation has already and plans to continue investing billions of dollars in creating jobs to maintain renewable energy at home to help both the economy and the climate. There will also be laws passed to increase the miles per gallon standard for cars and trucks. There has been a movement to get other countries, along with America, to put restrictions on mercury emissions around the world.
Moving the focus to lifestyle, Obama and Chu have also addressed how the way Americans live is affecting the climate. In order to change this, particularly through home living, the government is putting more aggressive regulations on household appliances, such as refrigerators and dishwashers/washing machines, and better building codes for commercial buildings, including government buildings. Looking further into the issue, our foreign policy is going to be more oriented towards energy sustainability than it previously was. First, the two men are looking to decrease importation of oil and increase exportation of renewable resources. This would help our economy as well as international relations. Furthermore, though both men want to decrease the use of fossil fuels, both are in support of harvesting home oil (in Alaska) as well as increasing other sources. This is to increase the use of domestic energy and decrease dependence on other countries. One thing they're going to be doing to increase use of renewable energy resources is harnessing the currents on the continental shelf and using more wind energy to power the surrounding areas. The overall goal with this is to make America energy independent. There will also be caps placed on commercial pollution to decrease carbon emissions. In order to accomplish this, competitiveness regarding such technologies will be promoted. The revenue coming into the government for such would work be returned to citizens struggling from the economy, so that money would be released back into the economy, to improve America's financial strength.

Concept Map

This is a concept map of everything related to Energy sustainability.

1. Two trends that can be identified from the concept map are the decline in polar bear population, as can be seen from the impact of climate change on the arctic, and cost to produce is rising as the supply of oil gets smaller.
2. One time delay shown on the map is climate change does not happen immediately after greenhouse gasses are put into the air from the burning of fossil fuels, it take a while for them to build up to notice any change in temperature at all. Another time delay occuring within the map is education, as the youth learn to be capable of developing new techonology to increase energy efficiency, but it will take until they reach a working age until we are able to see the results in their inventions.
3. One feedback loop is that the better technology gets, the easier and more accessible education will become through computers and such, creating a well educated generation. This generation will, in turn, create better techonoly for a new generation. Also, the more who ride public transportation would create lower gas prices, which would then lower the price of the bus, creating more people to ride the bus, which continues to lower has prices...
4. If you increase public transportation, less fossil fuels are burning which then in turn slows climate change. Also, decreasing war and bettering international relations would result in less money being spent on military as well as oil which would better the economy and increase funds to power new ideas for reneweable energy resources.

Bibliography

• http://www.articlesbase.com/nature-articles/what-are-renewable-resources-and-how-can-they-benefit-us-569005.html
• http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-280.html
• Why aren’t we using more renewable energy?

Resources to help gather information

• An article regarding what steps need to be done to live a more "green" lifestyle.
• Websites that address the past climate changes and how this pattern will continue to change.
• An article concerning the cost of changing to solar or wind power, as well as how that power would be transported to homes and businesses.
• An article giving more detail as to exactly how this plan of transitioning to renewable energy would occur and what it would require of all energy-using people.

Possible Solutions

While some solutions that some people would consider is cutting down on nonrenewable resources and increasing our use on renewable resources, that in itself would not fully remedy the problem. We believe that what would be more important is changing our energy use in terms of technology and our lifetime living styles. This is to say that we need to increase the efficiency of technologies. For examples, cars that get more miles per a gallon, and applicances that use less electricity. In addition to this, though it may not be a popular idea, critical changes critical changes need to be made in the lives of humans, in America particularly. This means, using the car pool more, or conserving water and just being more low maintenance in general.

What do we need to know to understand the problem?

We need to take a closer look at the rate of energy use in the world throughout this past century and use the pattern to estimate a future rate of energy use in order to determine exactly how much energy we will have to generate. We need to figure out how to make our lifestyles more "green" and understand what that would take. What is the strain that changing to renewable resources would be as far as cost?