Economic stimulus will reduce at least 61 million tons of CO2 every year

Greenpeace research on the economic stimulus plan as proposed by President Obama revealed promising results for the environment and economy. In a press conference today, Steven Biel, Greenpeace’s global warming campaign director, stated, “We strongly support the legislation and we urge congress to pass it.”

Kurt Davies, Greenpeace research director, explained how the energy and transport portions of this legislation are projected to fight global warming. “Taken together, they will cut at least 61 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s the equivalent of taking 13 million cars off the road and equal to the electricity from about 7.9 million American homes, about 8 times the size of Chicago.”

Furthermore, Greenpeace focused on how spending money on clean energy will create jobs. Research from the University of Massachusetts has found that investments in transit will create four times the amount of jobs when compared to investments in oil. Investments in efficiency are projected to produce at least twice as many jobs as investments in coal.

Beil concluded, “The job creating potential and environmental benefits of clean energy is virtually limitless, we would urge congress, if anything, to put additional investments into these programs.”