When Wesley Clark ran for president in 2004, he tried to get the nomination on a platform of health care and tax reforms.
And although he was the winner of a state primary, John Kerry took the nomination. The democrats were defeated and George W. Bush began his second term in the White House.
But while the Bush legacy continued in Washington, Clark began to focus his efforts in other parts of the policy world.
After a stint as a military advisor, he began to work on environmental issues and climate change. He comes to ARE Day this year to talk about America’s reliance on energy sources as they relate to our military involvement in other countries.
“The Gulf War of 1991 was fought for oil. It was absolutely, totally clear and admitted by the former secretary of state, James Baker,” said Clark, yesterday at the ARE Day summit in Snowmass Village.
Clark says he is pleased that the big players in the commercial energy industry in China have been brought in for the four-day forum. An EPA study a few years ago found that China puts out about a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases - a few percentage points more than the United States.
Now that Clark has dipped his toes into the world of environmental policy, he says it isn’t just the large cities that need to be taking charge. Small towns need to also consider how climate change affects them. Especially if the very livelihood of an area is at the whim of Mother Nature. If climate change sends a place into environmental chaos, he says, people will start to get very worried.
“Aspen’s critically dependent on snow," says Clark. "What are we gonna do in Aspen if the snow season declines? We’ve already had a couple of winters up here where it didn’t snow much before Christmas. That’s scary to people up here...Climate change affects everyone in America. That means communities have to be on guard, to look at the local effects and they have to weigh in.”
Wesley pointed out that ski resorts have had to close early because of a lack of snow. He says people were concerned then.
He realized how dependent America was on foreign energy during his time in the military. That was when the light went off for him. Now he says that the United States has dug itself into a very deep hole for the sake of oil.
“It’s distorted America’s foreign policy. It’s caused three wars. It’s cost us trillions of dollars. It’s cost us over seven thousand U.S. dead. We’ve disrupted the Middle East over this. We’ve fed terrorism. We’ve created a monster. And it all started at Spindletop in Texas, or some place with Rockefeller in Ohio or Pennsylvania. And who could have understood then?”
Wesley has been in nearly every field of policy making that there is. He has been in the military where he served as a general. He has served as a board member of several defense groups. He also has run his own business and been involved in multiple investment firms. Clark is currently the co-chair of Growth Energy. He says this experience makes it necessary for him to do what he can to help environmental causes.
“You know, I’ve been very lucky because I’ve seen business at the top, military at the top and politics at the top," says Clark. "There aren’t very many of us who’ve had those types of experiences. It’s been a privilege, but it also puts a real obligation on you as well.”
Through all of his experiences, Clark says he hopes that ARE Day can bring in more people to get the discussion going - to ensure that real, meaningful change can come out of a conference likes this. He thinks that bringing in the right people will make that happen.
“I hope this conference will grow and become even more attractive. We need to bring more scientists. More technologists. More financial...More policy people. More state and local leaders to come to things like this to see the shape of the future.”
