Why Obama as U.S. president is a wake-up call for Ontario
My Clean Break column today argues that Ontario needs to act fast on green-economy building if it hopes to keep up with a re-energized America under a green-driven Obama administration. The province needs to announce a bold, comprehensive green strategy within the next six month and it has to market it aggressively at home, across the border and overseas. This is no longer about adding renewable energy to the grid. It’s about creating a sustainable industrial strategy that will create green-collar jobs and bring Ontario’s manufacturing sector into the 21st century. It’s also not just about climate change. It’s about energy and economic security. To quote a comment made last week by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “If you don’t change today you will get buried by the change.”
Tags: green economy, green-collar jobs, Obama, ontario
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Well, well, well! It looks like Barrack Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States- This is the first time since I could vote, starting witht the 1976 presidential election, that I have supported a Democratic candidate for the Presidency- now I hope he will make good on his promises for EV’s and for Renewable Energies. And if he is able to, take heart my friends to the north (way-y-y-y-y-y north from here in Texas;-) – it will force Canadian politicians and their energy policies to follow or fall behind- especially if Canadian voters get it in their minds that if the US voters can get a positive, enviromental change…watch out incumbants!
November 5th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Congrats to Obama. The best man really did win.
I know it’s cheesey, but I really do think that this win was a win for hope and optimism. You need that sometimes. The clean energy economy is within our grasp–all we need is the confidence to reach out and grab it.
I see that Russia’s Medvedev has taken this opportunity to do some saber rattling. Well I say screw petrodollars. I believe Obama understands that the only good energy is locally-sourced and renewable.