Energy Secretary Steven Chu, in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, said the U.S. did not need "100 percent certainty" before it acted on climate change, Cybercast News Service reported. Chu was quoted as saying: "Maybe if half the bad things that happen with 80 or 90 percent certainty is enough to say, 'Okay, how do you want to plan your personal life?'"
In his speech, titled "Is the Energy Race Our New 'Sputnik' Moment?," Chu said the U.S. should invest more in research and development in science and technology or countries such as China would replace the U.S. as the dominant force in science, leading to serious economic impacts, Earth2Tech reported. Chu was quoted as saying: "Time is running out. We shouldn't lose sight of this, and federal support for science R&D will be critical for our economic competitiveness. We are looking hard at how to use our precious resources in the future. It's a nonpartisan issue, it's all about economic prosperity."
Chu pointed out that eight of the 10 global companies with the largest R&D budgets were establishing facilities in China or India, the Economic Times reported. Chu recommended that the U.S. collaborate with India and China: "In 2030, what India will look like in 2030 doesn't exist--80 per cent of what it has today--what it will have in 2030 doesn't exist today. Eighty per cent of that infrastructure is yet to be built. So these countries present new markets. They also present a means, a laboratory, to see, okay, we can test it. This is going to work."
AFP, CNS News, Earth2Tech via Reuters, Economic Times, McClatchy Newspapers via Miami (Fla.) Herald, Washington Post's Post Carbon blog, Nov. 30.
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