What the State of the Union means for Green Growth

Young Engineers Building Peanut Butter Sugar Cube Structures with Students in South Los Angeles

President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union touched on many topics related to green growth.  Highlights included: at least 5 mentions of “infrastructure” (listen for the collective cheer by civil engineers everywhere) and its importance to the development of the economy, goals for the use of clean energy and developing high speed rail, and a focus on the importance of education (which I see combined with the rest of the speech as a need for investment in STEM education).  Check out transcript of the speech to read it in its entirety.

The highlights and encouraging mentions of topics related to green growth were…

Infrastructure

He at least said it 5 times, which has to be some kind of political speech record for someone not serving on a related house or senate committee.  Key point: “Our infrastructure used to be the

Americas Crumbling Infrastructure (theeconomiccollapseblog)

best – but our lead has slipped.” And we can’t forget the important impact infrastructure investment has on the economy.   ”All these investments – in innovation, education, and infrastructure – will make America a better place to do business and create jobs.”

Of course the sobering fact is that “meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation’s infrastructure, they gave us a “D.”  To learn more about the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure visit here and see if your local chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has developed a state or local report card on infrastructure as well.

High Speed Rail

President Obama restated his commitment to building high speed rail networks around the

CA HSR Station (CA HSR Authority)

country.  He noted that “within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail, which could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car.”  Can you imagine that kind of accessibility?  With the development of the backbone of California’s San Francisco to Los Angeles line through the Central Valley about to make a giant leap forward towards construction, we’re finally showing that it is possible and it’s going to do great things for our state and its economy.

Clean Energy

President Obama’s belief that “by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources,”  and that an investment in clean energy is “…- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people” is encouraging.

I also appreciate President Obama’s challenge to our nation’s technologists”…telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy we’ll fund the Apollo Projects of our time.”  Sounds like a challenge to me!  And to address the funding issue, President Obama said,  ”instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s,” by ending oil industry subsidies.

STEM Education

President Obama also spoke a lot about the need to educate our youth and prepare them for the changing global marketplace.  “Maintaining our leadership in research and technology is crucial to America’s success.  But if we want to win the future – if we want innovation to produce jobs in American and not overseas – then we also have to win the race to educate our kids.”  A huge issue within the fields of engineering and science is that we’re experiencing serve brain drain and not encouraging enough students to pursue a related career.  Similarly,

STEM Education (urban-science.blogspot.com)

President Obama mentioned that ”…baby boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.”  If we prepare teachers to inspire students to enter these professions, we at least will stand a chance competing in the global marketplace.  I encourage everyone to take the time to visit at least one classroom.  February 20th-26th is National Engineering Week (E-Week) and the perfect excuse for organizing a school activity.  Also check out Engineer Your Life if you’re interested in introducing the engineering profession in a positive way to girls.

I took the State of the Union as a call to action for everyone.  What I think we all need to take from this speech is that “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world,” and I think people around the green growth movement ”get it.”  So start designing that emission free airplane, visit a K-12 Classroom, and let’s get high speed rail in California built!