Going Green in Ohio

The key green slogan is: Think Globally — Act Locally. It is imperative that Ohio go green, not only for the good of our small planet but to revitalize the Buckeye State economy. As Governor, I would set an immediate goal to have 20% of all energy be green energy within my first term. This would not be difficult to do.

With research institutions like Battelle which have the capacity to produce green technology, and with our world-class universities and colleges, we could move easily away from fossil fuel to alternative energy. Last year I wrote an article concerning a local inventor who had already developed a fuel that can replace gasoline gallon for gallon.

With recent technological breakthroughs, the breezes that blow along Lake Erie are powerful enough to create commercial turbine power. The city of Bowling Green already has two utility-scale windmill turbines. A flood of inexpensive wind-driven electricity would be created under my administration. We have few alternatives. We can continue to invade oil-rich middle eastern nations under the pretense of bringing them democracy. But these last desperate fossil fuel wars will only bankrupt our nation.

The reality is, we have squandered great wealth in this country. Following World War II, roughly 80% of all items manufactured in the world were built in the United States. In the 1950s, nearly half of the production on the planet was made in America. We know how to make things in this country.

The rise of transnational corporations and the globalization of the economy has led directly to our jobs being shipped to authoritarian nations like communist China and Vietnam. Another Cold War is not an option. The massive fossil fuel pollution generated from Chinese industrial development threatens the planet. And I’ve seen firsthand the so-called free-trade zones, maquilladoras in Mexico, where widespread pollution and human rights abuses go hand in hand. Much of this has been paid for with our tax dollars and with U.S. corporate wealth.

We have spent the wealth of our nation, and Ohio, building energy inefficient suburban sprawl. Rather, what we need to do is begin to build sustainable local economies. The Wal-Mart model of buying products made in China and hiring a parttime workforce in America to sell them, is no longer sustainable.

We must rethink suburbia — making it more energy efficient and community oriented. Mayor Michael Coleman of Columbus is right, we need to bring back the trollies, and at the same time, build a rail system from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati. By going green in Ohio, America’s foremost swing state and test market, we will signal the nation and indeed, the world, that America is on a new course of ecological economic sustainability where a generation of new jobs flow naturally from our high-tech green technology.

If you wish to read more about my ideas and policies, go to bobforohio.com and let me know what you think.

I know what our government thinks. Their own reports show that global warming is a greater threat in the next 20 years than global terrorism.