That’s what The Breakthrough Institute asks, saying that the US is dropping fast in funding for cleantech and in education for science.
If America does not take immediate action to bridge its energy education gap — and if we fail to make substantially larger investments in our own clean-energy economy — we will effectively cede the clean-energy race to Asia. A decade from now, we may still find the burgeoning clean-energy economy promised by Obama and Democratic leaders. It will simply be headquartered in China.
They make good points about education and funding cleantech, , but why does this need to be framed as a race in such Cold War terms? It’s not really a race nor is Asia the enemy or an opponent that needs to be outgunned (which seems implied here.) For cleantech to work, the entire planet needs to be involved. That means cooperation and maybe even, gasp, sharing of technology and ideas.
Great post. I agree that it often gets termed as a brutal competition rather than a common global goal. We’re talking more about the clean energy race here and would love to hear from you: http://bit.ly/BtVMe