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Greene 3 (1:49)
Topic(s): Car Culture / Environment / Foreign Oil /
Government
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Video Transcript
I think there are three main issues that we have to address
with respect to energy for transportation. In the United
States we know we have a problem of oil dependence. This oil
dependence costs our economy hundreds of billions of dollars
every year in excess economic costs. It makes us dependent on
certain foreign suppliers who, you know, we may have foreign
relation problems with and maybe gets us involved in military
situations we'd rather not be involved in. Also, well, that's
probably all I want to say about the oil security problem.
We also have a problem of greenhouse gas emissions. Our
transportation system alone produces more greenhouse gas
emissions than any country in the world except China. So our
transportation system is a major source of climate-changing
greenhouse gases.
So first, oil dependence for the United States. Second,
greenhouse gas emissions for the world. And third, there's
this problem of sustainable energy, which I've touched on
before. That is that we're reaching the limits of being able
to continuously increase the amount of petroleum we produce to
support the transportation system every year. And we're going
to have to find—if the mobility in the world is going to
continue to grow in places like China and India especially,
we're going to have to find other sources of energy to power
the transportation system, and we're going to have to make it
more energy-efficient at the same time.
