Thank you Rector Grekov, Mr. District Governor, Members of the Academic Council, dear Students, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you very much for the invitation. I’m glad to be back to your University. Two years ago, I told Rector Grekov that I would be back. I don’t know whether he believed me, but here I am and I’m honored to speak in front of such a huge audience.
As I have traveled around Bulgaria in the last few years, I have seen that Bulgaria is a country blessed by nature with a fragile and beautiful environment, and that Bulgarians have a particularly close attachment to their mountains and their land.
I often speak about global affairs, like terrorism, trafficking in persons, and so on, but today I would like to talk about our globe itself, and our changing climate. I think that perhaps the single most important global challenge of our century is protecting the Earth’s environment.
In my view, and in the view of thousands of U.S. scientists and business leaders, cleaning up the environment and keeping it clean is THE economic opportunity of our century, just as the enormous development of computer technologies was in the last century.
Polls show that Bulgarians believe that low incomes and unemployment are the most important problems they face today, and that economic growth is the way to solve these problems.
Dear Students, here it is. The “business of green” could very well be THE growth industry of the 21st century.
New technologies — everything from new genes and cells, to new machines and factories — are being discovered, created, applied, designed, built. Fascinating and lucrative new areas for scientific research are opening up.
Around the world, farmers of feedstocks for bioethanol and biodiesel — and their communities — are seeing huge increases in prices and revenues. Inventors, investors, and businesspersons are earning high rates of return on solar, wind, and other alternative energies.
Climate change is not just a problem. It is also an opportunity.
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Text and photo - from site of Embassy Of USA in Bulgaria