Clean Energy Nation and Psychiatric Problems of Child Soldiers

(Rep. Jerry McNarney and Montion  Cheek, Clean Energy Nation (New York: AMACON, 2012)

Excerpts From The Book:
p. ix -. "Worldwide solar sales have been growing 50 to 60 percent per year for the last decade."

p. 17 - "To power cars , homes, and industries, the United States, with around 4 percent of the human population, uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day, according to the EIA." (Energy Information Administration)

p. 49 - "Over the last fifteen years, solar energy production has increased by 30 percent annually while the price for photovoltaic (PV) power has dropped an average of 4 percent a year during that time period."

p. 56 - In theory, the wind flowing over the plains of North Dakota would provide up to 33 percent of America's electric needs."

p. 66 - The United States has 104 operating reactors, more than any other country, and they produce 20% of our nation's electricity." France's 59 reactors produce 78 percent of its electricity.

p. 91 - OPEC has approximately 80 percent of the proven conventional oil reserves.

p. 99 - The IEA (International Energy Agency) predicts that by 2035, China's energy demand will climb by 78 percent.

p. 109 - The U.S. has more than 600 coal-powered plants, producing about 54 percent of our nation's power.

p.133 - The Department of Energy says the average thermal efficiency of the power plants on the U.S. grid is 33 percent.

p. 134 - The U.S. will need an additional 281 gigaments of power by the year 2025 and it will require 937 megawatt power plants by the same year.

 Child Soldiers and Their Psychiatric Dilemma
"The proliferation of light weapons in Africa had suddenly made children effective as fighters, and they returned from the wars having missed crucial steps in their psychological development. They tended to be easily provoked, and prone to disassociate states, a coping mechanism that had once allowed them to be calm in the face of extreme violence." [1]

 Former child soldiers taking  psychiatric medications means announcing to their communities that they are crazy and damaged, a stigma that would contaminate their families. Theresa Betencourt, a professor at Harvard University, has been following war-imposed youth in Sierra Leone and has found that child soldiers tend to respond to "any threats to their well-being or personal safety in a really disproportionate way." [2]

ADDENDUMS:
*Michael McCord, the Pentagon Comptroller, estimates that by the year 2021, the  U.S. will need to come up with $10 billion per year through 2035 in order to fulfill current plans to modernize its nuclear weapons, delivery systems and production facilities. The U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion in nuclear weapons modernization over thirty years. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost $80 billion to build a new nuclear-warhead-carrying long-range bomber.

*The Marshall Islands are threatened by rising sea levels and the effects of nuclear bomb testing from 1946-1958, linking climate change and nuclear weapons.

*Although black-on-black murders are emphasized in the media, the FBI estimate that 82% of murders of whites are committed by whites, which is close to the FBI estimate that 90% of murders of blacks are committed by blacks. Close association is a major factor in the commission of murders.

Footnotes
[1] Rachel Aviv, "The Refugee Dilemma," The New Yorker, December 7, 2015.

[2] Ibid.