The use and progression of eco friendly products must be considered first to curb the results of global warming around the world. If you take all the abandoned and categorized former industrial sites and dumps throughout the U.S. and put them together, you get 14 million acres of inexpensive, accessible land that could be used as sites for brand new solar installations as well as wind farms. Right now the U.S. EPA is pushing ahead with just such a plan, with the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) helping to assess brownfields and Superfund sites for renewable power. The program is called Re-Powering America’s Land. It also has a green jobs angle, through Recovery Act financing. Many of the potential places can be found in or near existing communities and could provide new work opportunities for local residents.

But wait, there’s more. In addition to supplying brand new green jobs and thoroughly clean power for local use or perhaps the wider grid, the program additionally targets eco-friendly remediation, which makes use of renewable energy to power up products used for site clean-up. When you add that up – gathering clean power from land that is blighted and functional for nothing much otherwise, while generating jobs and restoring the particular site, you gotta wonder why anybody would like to keep on blowing up America’s mountain tops, compromising our water supply, and doing damage to the Gulf of Mexico in pursuit of fossil fuels.