John Kerry
Related: About this forumKerry's speech at his "ocean summit"
http://www.c-span.org/video/?319978-1/state-department-ocean-conference - excellent and inspiring as one would expect from an environmentalist of at least 5 decades. (His speech starts about 6 minutes in)Also today, he sat down for a long interview with Katie Curic. It is an excellent interview, even if she did spend almost all of it on the Iraq situation. There is was good to hear Kerry speaking, not as someone worried about the next election, but trying to explain the very complicated situation intelligently. Even at the end, when she finally went to speak about the ocean - which is what the interview was supposed to be on - the question was if he considered cancelling it given all that is going on. (His answer summarized - It's important and the State Department is always working on many many things all at the same time all the time.)
http://news.yahoo.com/video/secretary-state-john-kerry-live-170000643.html
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Thru my foundation today I'm pledging $7 million to ocean conservation projects over the next 2 years. #OurOcean2014
https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/478947257375809536
https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/478946995177271296
prosense, i haven't seen you around for a while. i hope all is ok.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)How time has passed since that angel-head boy in Titanic....
MBS
(9,688 posts)Here are his remarks introducing the afternoon panel
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/06/227692.htm
My favorite part (bold highlights are mine):
Whats interesting about the challenges we face, I might add and is not just about the oceans but so many of the challenges that are confounding the world today actually have pretty obvious solutions that are staring us in the face. Its not as if were sitting around scratching our heads saying, How do we solve the problem? Its really a question of, How do we find the political will? How do we get people to move to sometimes move back very vested, powerful interests that like the status quo because change means reinvesting or changing the way you do business, even though in the long run it will save everybody a lot of money and a lot of grief?
Its pretty obvious about where we are. The solution to climate change, which is a serious problem with respect to the oceans, as we have all seen, is very simple, actually. Its called energy policy. Energy policy is the solution to climate change. . . The irony of it all is that the energy market that is staring us in the face is a $6 trillion market with four to five billion users today, which will grow to nine billion users over the course of the next years. Just think about that. Its the mother of all markets.
And what we need are the triggers that excite the investment and excite the marketplace itself to move. Its happening in some places; we all see that some solar breaking through, more and more windmills. . . . But not happening fast enough, not happening significantly enough. . . .
So theres not there is nothing that were looking at that doesnt have a solution acidification, nitrate overload, dead zones. We have to change the politics. And thats part of the mission thats got to come out of here.. . the summary of everything that were going to hear today is that we have to change the political will and start to make the decisions that put the money into enforcement, into science, into all the things that can actually save the oceans. . .
Sec. Kerry is doing such a fantastic job..
karynnj
(59,939 posts)I really like the tone of those comments - that echo the first 2004 speech I heard that really really made me excited about a President Kerry. (His speech that spoke of how you could deal with climate change, stimulate the economy, improve the quality of air and water, improve health AND improve national security by not depending on the unstable miiddle east.
The sad thing is that speech, which I think was part of many of his speeches, was on CSPAN. I never saw it on the cable news - where you usually heard the cable person say what Kerry spoke of -- usually focusing on only whatever he said about Bush. It still makes me angry - because this type of intelligent optimism could have inspired the US to do the right things using technology and science to make things better.
I hope that the conference has succeeded in getting people, with the knowledge and/or interest, more excited about what could be done - and that at least some previously unlikely connections were made. I wonder if Teresa's annual conferences on woman's health and other issues had any influence on the Secretary in being the catalyst for this happening.
At any rate, the interesting unusual high level Senator, very capable in writing legislation, who never forgot his own activist grassroots history is now every bit as intriguing as Secretary of State. I am impressed that in both this conference and the London conference that Hague called, he was determined that real action come out of the effort. In addition, the coordination of Kerry and Obama on Obama's announcement was very nicely done. Obama's announcement was - and had to be - the highlight of the conference, but it also was obviously done to draw attention to the conference and - in case the media wanted to doubt it - showed that Kerry and Obama are on the same page on this.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...is no surprise. I am very glad to see he is making...in a much more visible fashion...the points he made a few years back in the CFR speech about the 'win, win,win' of getting foreign policy, energy and environmental policy right.