Quit Bailing. Start Building.
When it comes to America's financial crisis, there's plenty of blame to go around. You don't have to dig far into the toxic sludge of bad credit, soaring deficits, fiscal mismanagement, and deregulation to see that all of it blends together to form a really big mess. And, you don't need a PhD in economics to know that the financial market meltdown is a warning sign that America's economy is in desperate need of an overhaul.
Leaders of nations, just like executives of financial institutions, are responsible for understanding and responding to new market signals. And as we've learned in the last few months, when they don't, the economies of great nations -- just like the credit worthiness of corporate giants -- can crumble with frightening speed.
Which brings me to the biggest emerging market opportunity of our lifetime. That, of course, is the opportunity to galvanize American technology, workers, ingenuity, and courage to do something truly great -- building a clean energy, good jobs, made in America economy that will power our nation forward in the 21st century.
Clean energy isn't a mirage. It's the fastest growing industrial sector in the United States. It is already generating $25 billion a year in sales and revenue, is growing at 30 percent a year, and has produced more than 500,000 new American jobs over the last three years. And that's happened with almost no support from the federal government.
Imagine the growth in jobs, technology, equipment, suppliers, and productivity if the United States actually treated the development of clean energy as a national economic priority. And consider just as seriously the remarkable benefits to America's security, environment, economic stability, and communities that would be realized by keeping at home the nearly $400 billion that we send each year to foreign nations, many hostile to our interests, to import their oil.
It's time for America to quit bailing and to start building. That's why the Apollo Alliance this month unveiled The New Apollo Program, a comprehensive clean energy, job generating strategy to restore America's economic strength. This 10 year, $500 billion investment plan aims to create 5 million jobs while helping to solve the climate crisis, the energy crisis, and the economic crisis facing our nation. Recalling President John F. Kennedy's bold commitment to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, the Alliance is taking its plan to town hall meetings across the nation to build the popular support that will help President-elect Obama and Congress launch America toward a clean energy future.
The New Apollo Program calls for a sweeping set of actions -- from bold commitments to energy efficiency to dramatic increases in the use of renewable energy to reinvigorating our manufacturing base to building advanced fuel-efficient vehicles -- to put Americans back to work here at home. And, it renews our nation's historic commitment to innovation, research and development, science, and workforce training and education.
Unlike the nation's first Apollo mission, this one isn't rocket science. We can put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work right away by retrofitting the buildings in this country that consume nearly 70% of our electricity and are responsible for almost 40% of our carbon emissions; constructing public transit systems to connect our neighborhoods and cities; building a smart grid to recapture some of the $20 billion we lose each year to transmission inefficiency; and using the sun and the wind to generate clean electricity for our homes and businesses.
Our current economic crisis has reminded us once again that financial engineering and manipulation are not substitutes for long term investment and job creation. The time to change course is now.
People need jobs and relief from high energy costs. Our dependence on oil is putting our nation's security at risk. Foreign competitors are moving rapidly to exploit the opportunities offered by clean energy. We can seize the opportunity to become the leader of a new global green economy. We're Americans. Let's do it.
Phil Angelides is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of labor, environmental, business, and community leaders committed to building a clean energy, good jobs economy.
Follow Phil Angelides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ApolloAlliance
Phil Angelides: Golden State Blues
When Californians look to Sacramento, they see a governor and a state government that have consistently failed to honestly address the state's chronic fiscal disarray.
Phil Angelides: California Voters Don't Want Dire Cuts; They Want Leaders to Get It Right
Before the governor and the Legislature take a meat ax to the budget, they should take a breath, accept responsibility for the voters' judgment and try to get it right this time.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
we need obama's energy plan to retrieve windfall profits from oil companies for alternative energy research. see how much money the oil companies are making: http://www
Please take 10 minutes to write your senators and congress rep to help stop HIG from receiving 3 billion in bailout money for buying a small savings and loan in florida to qualify for the money. Please help stop this ripoff.
I completely agree. If we took the money we wasted and actually invested in the new energy we would have created real productive jobs that cannot be offshored, stopped sending a trillion $$ overseas to buy oil, circulated our dollar on the local level, and cleaned up our environment. Obama should concentrate on real economy and not on bailing out the peddlers of financial scams.
Our last stimulus package cost 168 BILLION. It didn't do a thing to improve our economy. Not enough credit is being given to the role the record breaking cost of gas played in the downward spiral of our economy. The average family broke the budget filling up the car alone. Then to add insult to injury, every consumer product cost us more due to increased production and shipping costs. So, we cut back and this sadly results in even more jobs being lost! OPEC responds to our lowered consumption by cutting production and they continue to cut and will do so until they get the price per barrel back up. We have so much available to us in the way of FREE energy sources such as wind and solar. We have modern technologies such as hybrid and electric plug in cars. Why don't we invest in America becoming energy independent. 168 billion would go a LONG way towards getting some of these things set up plus would create millions of badly needed new jobs. We are using oil at the rate of 2x faster than new oil is being discovered. World demand is rising as 3rd world countries become more modernized and populations explode. Jeff Wilson has a new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW. I highly recommend this book for anyone worried about our economy and our dependence on foreign oil.
The idea to reduce our use of oil energy is not impossible. What we need to do is to change our behaviour and our mind that we can't live without oil. There's a lot of source of energy in this world that came from the nature and there's plenty of it. We have to try to discover it and use it not just make it as paper headline and don't do about it. CHANGE WE NEED!!!
The alternative energy industry has been sticking its snout in the public trough looking for subsidies for decades. When does it become self-sufficient and compete without subsidies? Pacific Gas and Electric Company was forced to buy alternative energy at the highest market prices around for years. It's electricity rates are among the highest in the country. Two good developments that have had a positive impact on energy conservation have been the development of the CFL light bulb and the government requirement that appliances such as refrigerators meet higher and higher energy efficiency standards. I am always suspicious when ex-politicians recycle themselves into senior lobbying positions. When it comes to "green" energy and other schemes, I am very wary. I guess I am lucky that i only have to use air conditioning a few days a year. Pity people in places like Houston or Palm Springs - high air conditioning needs in the summer and expensive electricity.
Excuse me, but the oil industry has been sticking its snout in the public trough and getting huge subsidies since Nixon. It is ridiculous to say that building a green infrastructure through tax incentives is a bad idea. Green energy is not a scheme, it is good business.
What on earth would you suggest as an alternative new industry for creating 1 million plus new jobs that could be implemented immediately? You know jobs that can not be outsourced to India or China!
ok, fine, but now imagine if the producers of the energy were US INSTEAD OF BIG ENERGY, and we all got paid good money to produce more clean power than we consumed. THAT would be something interesting, and THAT would make a difference in the economy.
haven't we had enough of the "trickle down" pyramid schemes? the Big Energy monopolies? their ratepayer hijacking? supply and pricing manipulatIons? their forcing families from their homes, erecting massive, privately owned infrastructure at 100% our cost on our public lands, and their totally mercenary business and environmental models? how can we justify the enormous destruction wrought on our open spaces by Big Wind and Big Solar, just to line the pockets of crooks like Pickens when 40 countries alread have very successful Feed in Tariff programs, so that PEOPLE get checks for clean power, instead of giant, rapacious monopolies?
i'm sick of hearing the same lousy, destructive, 19th century models with new ribbons strung on them by new investors. time for a revolution, energy independence and democracy, merging with cleaning up the planet, and conservation of resources. local, point of use solutions, feed in tariffs, and NO MORE BIG ENERGY. PERIOD.
The problem is that local point of use will not work for every location in the country and for every commercial and industrial industry that currently exists, unless you would like to advocate forced migration and abandonment of large swaths of the US.
In order to have the biggest impact on greenhouse gas emissions we will need large capitalization projects to feed power into highly populated areas and into industrial plants and manufacturing facilities.
Start by rebuilding New Orleans
I just wish people would stop referencing to the Apollo Program which was a total marketing disaster. It created an enormous amount of interest..
The last thing we want to happen to renewable energy is that we go in full steam, create a short term success and then fade out and kill the whole thing because of lack of interest.
People, know your history. This is not an auspicious reference.
"The last thing we want to happen to renewable energy is that we go in full steam, create a short term success and then fade out and kill the whole thing because of lack of interest."
Actually that is the first thing that happened to renewable energy. This country grew a vibrant renewable energy industry between 1975 and 1980 as a result of high energy costs combined with Carter administration incentives. The price of energy went down, Reagan took over and let the incentives lapse, and most of those renewable energy businesses died.
It's the last thing we want to happen again.
Yes, the 1970s - the decade of the "alternative society". Not all is lost, because sometimes we're still saying "alternative" now, alongside "green". Even "green" has had its highs and lows. In the wake of Chernobyl, for example, green politics saw a great surge in interest across Europe. But it was temporary, and as the news stories moved on, so the voters lapsed back into their old ways.
The old ways are often very reassuring on the surface. But think a little deeper. If the world really is changing - and the spent coal, oil and other reserves aren't about to come back in a hurry - then we have to make some radical new plans.
You mean like corn based ethenol, which is questionable in the first place?
There have been sales and profit warnings from solar companies across the board in recent weeks. Demand is drying up because of the drop in oil and natural gas prices. Plus, most the solar companies are Chinese, which will make tough competitors for American companies.
One of the manufacturers of domestic-scale vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) is Canadian (see www.windte
Where can I sign up to be part of this revolution. I am studying International Business now with a concentration in Economics, but definitely want to be part of the green economy thing. I seriously see it as the future of our economy. Great article, btw
For a start? Stop studying "business" and start studying something like math or science, so you can actually do work instead of being a leech who sucks money out of the market.
Oh, he just wants to get into a start-up quickly, let the people who have studied math and sciences solve the problem for him so he can cash out his stock options and lay off the nerds who made it happen. That's the usual MBA wet dream.
:-)
Yeah, I never understood why mbas and marketing folks ran things. Before I went out on my own, I worked for a number of Harvard MBAs. They knew very little about running a company. MBAs are a dime a dozen and if you get a good one, they probably have worked at a real job making something before they were papered. I spent my career in consumer goods. The R&D and design groups got wasted and the sales and marketing got promoted. Here is a tip for all corporate entities, reduce your marketing group by 3/4s and increase your r&d and design groups. R&D and Design add VALUE, marketing and sales - FLUFF. True they are needed, but they are not worth the value that has been assigned to them. Marketing adds zero value to a product. Since most companies are market driven and no longer product driven , they don'y get it........
So we have a healthy, growing business that all reasonable people want to succeed, and you want the government to begin interfering with it?
Please, no government interference in green tech!
Great! Let's do it! I'm ready! Sign me up!
By which I mean, do you happen to have some of those green jobs lying around down there at the Apollo Alliance? Because I could sure use one before my life's savings vanish and my house gets foreclosed.
If it's so great, it doesn't need any "help" from the government.
All new technologies need help from the govt. Ever hear of the space program?
The oil companies are still getting massive subsidies and tax breaks from the government despite record profits quarter after quarter. For a real eye opener read "Free Lunch".
We can start with a designed wind farm off Cape Cod...unle
First we have to stop calling them 'wind farms' and start calling them 'Freedom Farms.'
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
