Use Energy, Get Rich And Save The Planet

nytimes.com:

The old wealth-is-bad IPAT theory may have made intuitive sense, but it didn't jibe with the data that has been analyzed since that first Earth Day. By the 1990s, researchers realized that graphs of environmental impact didn't produce a simple upward-sloping line as countries got richer. The line more often rose, flattened out and then reversed so that it sloped downward, forming the shape of a dome or an inverted U -- what's called a Kuznets curve. (See nytimes.com/tierneylab for an example.)

In dozens of studies, researchers identified Kuznets curves for a variety of environmental problems. There are exceptions to the trend, especially in countries with inept governments and poor systems of property rights, but in general, richer is eventually greener. As incomes go up, people often focus first on cleaning up their drinking water, and then later on air pollutants like sulfur dioxide.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[RMJ50]

Using more and more energy is just another way into tricking people to consume more and more. That is the Obama plan for getting us out of recession, but we are just going to jump from the frying pan into the fire of global warming and continued raping of the planets resources.

The problem seems to be that we have forgotten what is important to life - it is not consumption, but contentment. He who knows he has enough is rich (Lao Tsu)

[sheila]

What utter BOLLOCKS.

Have feed in tariffs radically changed the way Germany and Spain produce energy? of course they have, and they would do much, much more if Big Energy weren't forcing those countries to lower and cap incentives. The only reason we cannot shift to point of use renewables and efficiency improvements is because of BAD POLICY built on Big Energy lobbying. an uncapped generous feed in tariff would get solar panels and efficiency retrofits on EVERY suitable structure within months, hindered only by manufacturing and installation capacity.

with over 6 million people out of work, many of them in manufacturing and construction industries, that should sort out shortly. Why does it work? BECAUSE IT DOES NOT EXTERNALIZE ALL ITS COSTS AND PRIVATIZE ALL ITS PROFITS, like our current model. Point of use solutions come closest to a genuine "free market" solution because they don't poison the planet, destroy ecosystems and grotesquely enrich Big Energy Robber Barons at enormous cost to the rest of us.

the fact that this guy is cheerleading over-consumption "solved" by nukes is enough for anyone with half a brain to realize he's totally off kilter. Hey, Tierney, people didn't install solar panels during the Depression because they didn't EXIST.

solar, microwind, efficiency and storage are CRITICAL to our economy and to our planet. it's time for a grassroots revolution, with the BUILT ENVIRONMENT the centerpiece of energy production and conservation, not just consumption...

[StanlyManly]

Loud and Ignorant.

Par for the course for the "green" gang.

[JnrNorman]

When we lett all those jobs go to China we could have done that manufacturing much more cleanly and with robotic help. Clean manufacturing jobs are what we need.

Why the weather is funny;
http://www.willthomas.net/Chemtrails/Image_Library/pages/chemtrails_hampton_apartment_block.htm

[plantguy]

EPA regulations are why we lost alot of jobs and going to lose more, too expensive to meet regulations and some impossilble.

[quiviran]

Silly boy. Just because there isn't a will doesn't mean there isn't a way.

[ezeflyer]

Destroy the planet to save it. Disaster capitalists always say that.