U.S. Is Learning That Renewable Energy Is ‘Safer’: Whitehouse

Last week, the White House hosted a meeting of scientists and other experts on the theme of climate delay: a rhetorical successor to outright denial of climate science, using tactics meant to stall action or dismiss clean technologies. The meeting was organized at the urging of Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (who did not attend himself), a longtime and vocal critic of the fossil-fuel industry’s contribution to climate change.

Hours after the meeting, Russia invaded Ukraine, adding more instability to U.S. reliance on foreign oil and gas. “In America’s national security and economic interests, we must free consumers from dangerous dependence on volatile oil and gas markets, by shifting to secure renewables,” Whitehouse, a Democrat, tweeted yesterday. Back in June, Whitehouse introduced legislation that would require large corporations responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions to pay fees pegged to estimates of how much damage the emissions might cause.