“I said it (Iraq) was a war we didn’t need to have,” Retired Four Star U.S. Army General Wesley Clark said today in Chicago at the 2013 NASCAR Green Summit.
Al Gore was the primary keynote speaker today (more on that here), but the man that preceded him, General Clark, was by far the most captivating speaker of the day.
“It’s all connected- war, energy, climate change. Forty years, three wars, trillions of dollars, is what we’re paying in national security to import oil. Every economic crisis has been caused by a jump in the price of oil, we elevated oil in oil producing countries,” the former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe and NATO said.
General Wesley Clark came to Chicago fresh from Washington D.C. where he said the first thing on everybody’s mind right now was Syria.
“I think the American people have a real sense of what’s going on and they don’t want another war in the Mid-East,” Clark said after his speech. “I support what President Obama is trying to do — he is trying to keep chemical weapons from being used.”
During his speech, General Wesley Clark made the argument that an ethanol blend of fuel, similar to the kind that NASCAR uses in its race cars, is just as good as the gas Americans are buying at the pump. NASCAR uses Sunoco Green E15 fuel made from 15 percent ethanol.
“I’m so glad NASCAR is using ethanol and taking us off this addiction to oil,” he said on dais at Venue 610.
“It (foreign oil dependence) got us more deeply involved in a volatile region that has a long long long way to go,” he continued.
Clark is the Co-Chairman of Growth Energy and was considered a top candidate to be Obama’s running mate in 2008. The way he owned the room on South Michigan Avenue today, you’d think General Wesley Clark was running for office. Or will be soon.
And the way he denounced America’s dependence of foreign oil, and passionately advocated ethanol, he would probably win.
“Every economic crisis has been caused by a jump in the price of oil, we elevated oil in oil producing countries,” he added.
The General gave his speech on the same day UNEP, United Nations Environmental Programme, released the results of a pressing new study. Waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report released today.
The study claims $750 billion in annual economic consequences. As we were talking about environmentalism, and food at the NASCAR Green Summit, I asked General Wesley Clark about the movement away from oil and its relationship to food supply.
“What you’re doing with ethanol, in respect to food is providing a stabilizing force in the grain markets. Farmers can plant, there’s a guaranteed taker for product in the United States,” said Clark.
“This is not the corn you eat, this is feed corn, going to live stock, so there’s enough takers to maintain some degree of price stability. Last year corn went over $8 a bushel because of the drought, because of that we didn’t produce enough ethanol. When corn prices are down, ethanol plants are buying, and producing ethanol, stabilizing the price in a range where farmers can still afford to plant and not get government subsidies.”
“There are no government subsidies for ethanol.”
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup opener is at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet on Sunday, Sept. 15 (1 p.m. CDT, ESPN).
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and Facebook.