Recovery Through Retrofit

  • One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:

One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. Some of these improvements can cost a bundle.

But, the White House says, there are ways to help. Christine Glunz is a spokesperson for The White House Council on Environmental Quality:

“We want to provide American homeowners with the opportunity to get this energy efficiency done, and get the retrofit done, without having to bear a major financial burden immediately.”

Glunz says the Obama Administration is pushing for new financing options. One they support is a local government loan program that is paid back through property taxes.

In addition to financing, the plan calls for an energy label for homes and apartments. It’s sort of like an Energy Star label, so renters and home buyers can figure out how efficient a building is.

The plan also calls for more trained workers to perform energy retrofits.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Political Change on Climate Change

  • Al Gore's Vice-Presidential portrait from 1994. (Photo courtesy of the United States Government)

The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:

Transcript

The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:

The former U.S. Vice-President says he thinks world leaders will sign a meaningful climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December.

Al Gore says politicians and governments around the world seem just about ready to do something significant about climate change.

“The potential for much larger change has been building up and I think that Copenhagen is the moment when it may cross that political tipping point. Now, let me take the other side of it just for a brief moment. The consequences of a failure in Copenhagen would, in my opinion, be catastrophic.”

Gore says waiting any longer to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming could take the world past a point of no return.

That’s because tundra in the frozen north thaw and release the potent greenhouse gas, methane, creating a feedback loop that cannot be stopped.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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