Current Event #1

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33025088/ns/us_news-environment/

This article is about California's new $3.1 billion energy efficiency plan, aimed at making homes and other buildings more energy efficient. The program, called CalSPREE, hopes to cut energy use by 20% for up to 130,000 California homes by 2012. $175 million will go towards programs designed to make zero net energy buildings, $260 million will be used to make local homes more energy efficient, and $100 million is set aside for educational programs. California is the biggest U.S. alternative energy market and has some of the highest environmental standards in the nation and the world.
I chose this article because I am interested in what the nation is doing to help environmental issues. This article shows that California is clearly at the forefront of the environmental movement. I believe that if the rest of the United States as well as other countries around the world adopted California's environmental policies and worked together in creating other energy efficient programs, the world would be a much cleaner and nicer place to live. I also liked that the article was clear and concise, making it easy for anyone to read and understand.

What political party are you most closely aligned with and why?

The political party that I am more closely associated with is the Democratic party because they believe that people can still work together to achieve important national and global goals. On the other hand, Republicans seem to think that the only role the government should play is in security functions. Although the private enterprise has achieved much, their profit motive (greed) can aggravate some problems and will not address others. An example is universal health care because there is no profit in providing health insurance to sick people who really need it. Sometimes the government has to step in and set fair rules for everybody to play by and to achieve common goals. The democratic party believes in working together to achieve that.