Tonight’s Presidential debate on foreign policy comes after the 67th anniversary of the United Nations yesterday. 2012 is the UN’s Year of Sustainable Energy for All. The Michigan State University Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) and the Greater Lansing Chapter of the United Nations Association are showing the connection between sustainable energy and economic development. They’re hosting a conference today and tomorrow at the MSU union. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
The group met last night to hear from Melinda Kimble. She spent 30 years with the State Department in West and North Africa. She speaks French and Arabic. The U.S. failed to commit to the Kyoto Protocol in Japan in 1997 and the Climate Change accords in Copenhagen in 2009. Melinda Kimble compares that to the U.S. negotiations with the former Soviet Union.
“When we did arms control talks our drivers made more money than the state department spent on any of the environmental negotiations in a single year. There is an incredible imbalance.”
Kimble is an economist. But she says the market is not giving signals about the cost of climate change. Droughts, floods and hurricanes the last decade should be factored in. National security isn’t being measured correctly either, says Kimble.
“We talk about the wrong numbers. We measure our security in numbers and airplanes and Abrams tanks. But our security ought to be measured in diplomats on the ground, understanding cultures, speaking different languages and expanding our connections with people of the world.”
Mitt Romney is likely to offer a different point of view in tonight’s debate in Florida.
For more on this two day event click on this website.
