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A new Project Apollo
Failure is not an option.
— U.S. Climate Action Partnership (GE, DuPont, NRDC, etc.)
What does total national commitment look like? In 1961, President Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon (and bring him back safely). Project Apollo took nearly a decade and cost $135 billion (2006 dollars). It ranks with the Panama Canal as the largest non-military technology project ever undertaken by the United States. From 1947-1951, the U.S. spent $130 billion towards the reconstruction of war-ravaged Europe (the Marshall Plan). The Manhattan Project (creating nuclear weapons) cost $21 billion and employed 130,000 people. Between 2003 and 2007, the Iraq war has cost over $350 billion. The 2006 research budget for defense is $69 billion. For comparison, from 1973-2002, total U.S. government spending on renewable energy research has been $16 billion. Spending on energy efficiency research over that period has been $12 billion. During the first four years of the New Deal (1933-37), the U.S. government borrowed $191 billion. Although a lot, this was still only a few percent of GNP, and not enough to pull the U.S. out of the depression. Then came World War II: the U.S. spent over $3.6 trillion to finance the war effort. At the war's peak, more than half of GNP was devoted to the war. What would a total national commitment to clean energy, a super-efficient economy, ending deforestation, and transfer of clean tech to developing nations look like? What if we recognized that the melting of the great ice sheets, the disruption of food and water supplies, and the mass extinction of species were threats to our prosperity and security as grave as any war? NOTE: All costs are in 2006 dollars. Sources
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