The liquid golden light of winter floods our flowering yard, perfumed by blooming narcissus, cymbidium orchids, Andean lilies, and others. Tropical? No, we live in a temperate zone, but this year's unseasonable balmy to hot, dry weather persisted from the US southwest to the now-not-so-frozen Canadian north, as climate change melted away white Christmas hopes. Ah, warm, sunny winter weather -- an insidious, sinful delight of climate change. Perhaps that is why the Republican slate of presidential wannabes ignores the issue entirely, focusing instead on lack of jobs, despite President Obama's attempts to create green ones.
But are the jobs that Republican candidates propose really going to solve our nation's biggest problems? As the overwhelming majority of reputable scientists agree, burning fossil fuels produces air pollution that harms the health of Americans, and heats our global fluids enough to change climate worldwide. In 2011, enhanced droughts, hurricanes, heat and floods wiped out people, crops and infrastructure throughout the US, creating record costly damage. Now, consider: for the first time ever, fossil fuels, in the form of gas and refined oil, were the prime export of the US in 2011. Yes, the stuff behind huge health costs and harmful climate change is what the US now exports the most. And the Republicans want us to produce more of these fuels. Their twisted utopia includes jobs to import more dirty Canadian oil, frack for more dirty gas, and burn more dirty coal.
These are junk jobs, as disastrous as junk bonds and mortgage loans, and under Republican pressure the US continues to misguidedly subsidize the industries that create them. Is this the dirty future we want? Indeed, the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook report states that such subsidies result in waste and inefficient distribution of energy, while often failing to meet their stated goals of reducing poverty and encouraging development.
In previous blogs and our free online book, we point out the alternative reality that other nations, and even some US states, are already prospering from: green jobs for a green economy. The latest news out of Massachussetts, for example, is that cap and trade of greenhouse gases is creating more jobs and saving energy -- primarily because the state is investing the revenues into improving energy efficiency. Various Midwest cities are starting to boom from manufacturing clean renewable energy technologies. More and more people are turning to rooftop solar generation. And nationwide, the green effort is starting to pay off. The US became more energy secure in 2010 by using 20% less energy than it did the previous year -- advances mirrored by the funding of energy efficiency programs by utilities. Meanwhile, both the costs of solar and wind energy approach that of fossil fuels as dramatic technological breakthroughs continue to increase the production efficiency of these clean renewable energy sources.
From 2008 to 2011, we learned that a green compromising president is not enough to lead this nation into a green future. If we are to create a greener utopia of lower health costs and good jobs, it means we have to stop voting for the Santas that continue to stuff coal in our stockings. We not only need a green future president, but a green future Congress -- 60 green votes of courage in the Senate, and a green majority in the House. Whether right, left or middle, it is those candidates our nation desperately needs. It's time to vote for green, not junk, jobs.
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 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
So, start finding out who are the green candidates that you can vote into office in the US Congress, within your state and within local governments. ALL are important choices.
Abstract
The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy
source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public
financing of renewable energies. Germany’s experience with renewable energy
promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere, being based on a
combination of far-reaching energy and environmental laws that stretch back nearly
two decades. This paper critically reviews the current centerpiece of this effort, the
Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), focusing on its costs and the associated impli-
cations for job creation and climate protection. We argue that German renewable
energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to
harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective intro-
duction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary,
the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these
incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for
stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security.
In the case of photovoltaics, Germany’s subsidization regime has reached a level
that by far exceeds average wages, with per-worker subsidies as high as 175,000 €
(US $ 240,000)
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/germany/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf
Find a better, non-partissan source before you accept conclusions from such a biased source!
The hard truth is the electricy the authors used to write this article came from a power plant that uses coal, or a nuke plant.
The authors also travel to their tenured employment using "dirty oil" .. as well as the 99% of us...if you have an electric car then it comes from coal....
Around 1% of energy produced is from wind/solar etc..........not because of technology, or politics - its because we consume alot of energy.
And right now, the only economically sustainable way to meet that demand is from coal, nuke, or hydro plants - until fusion power or something groundbreaking is figured out .............just a thought - how bout researching new energy production instead of 1970 technology that doesn't do the job?!?
The answer is clear when, as always, we follow the money - the authors recieved $2.5M from a partisan organization in the form of a "grant"...guess where that money went? Just some more paid academic shills for partisan politics. What a waste of public research dollars.
Obama, Barack D $3,800
Lee, Barbara D CA $1,250
McNerney, Jerry D CA $1,000
Pelosi, Nancy D CA $1,000
Clinton, Hillary D NY $250
Minnick, Walter Clifford D ID $200
Recipient Party Total
Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte D $33,500
National Republican Congressional Cmte R $500
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/all_recips.php?id=D000034127&type=P&filter=&stfed=F
The bulk of research done by John Harte is funded by the National Science Foundation, and has been devoted to various aspects of ecology, including the effects of climate change on a subalpine ecosystem over two decades. His most recent grant has been on exploring the ecological ramifications of a branch of information theory applied to ecology: maximum entropy. His publications are in peer-reviewed, reputable, scientific journals, and he has received numerous awards within the scientific academic community acknowledging his ecological contributions through the decades. This is all public knowledge that you can easily access at his webpages at the University of California at Berkeley.
Either state your sources for your assertions, or be recognized for acting like what you accuse others of being: a "shill for partisan politics"....
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/germany/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf