4 Reasons Why Recession is BAD for the Environment

1) When squeezed, companies will reduce their investments into research & development and green programs. These are usually not short-term profit centers, so that is what's axed first. Some progress has been made in the past few years, it would be sad to lose ground now.

2) Average people, when money is tight, will look for less expensive products (duh). Right now, that usually means that greener products won't make it. Maybe someday if we start taxing "bads" instead of "goods" (pollution, carbon, toxins instead of labor, income, capital gains) the least expensive products will also be the greenest, but right now that's not the case.

3) There's less money going into the stock markets and bank loans are harder to get, which means that many small firms and startups working on the breakthrough green technologies of tomorrow can have trouble getting funds or can even go bankrupt, especially if their clients or backers decide to make cuts.

4) During economic crises, voters want the government to appear to be doing something about the economy (even if it's government that screwed things up in the first place). They'll accept all kinds of measures and laws, including those that aren't good for the environment. Massive corn subsidies anyone? Don't even think about progress on global warming...

More Economy/Recession Posts by Michael Graham Richard
No Recession for Bicycle Makers
Pork-Laden Senate Version of Bailout Bill has Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Credits
Thinking of Buying a Pellet Stove? We Can Help!
Miles Traveled by US Drivers Down for 9th Straight Month

Comments

[sheepguy42]

Perhaps businesses will learn to look further ahead in their investing, and retain their green programs while phasing out those that end up costing tons in lawsuits 10-20 years later.

As far as investing in "breakthrough green technologies of tomorrow," I am getting really tired of people focusing on technology we might have tomorrow to fix things when we have all the tools we need to fix things right now. Studies have shown that distributed sustainable organic agriculture can feed everyone. The government only gets away with what we the people allow it to—if we really care about ending corn subsidies and forcing consumers to pay the full real cost of what they consume, we'll make it happen. We know how to reduce energy consumption: together with existing renewable tech we could clean up our energy infrastructure very quickly.

I hope that the bailout fiasco has angered enough people that they'll finally start paying attention to what the government does.