Pretty soon, Kermit the Frog is going to need a new song to sing. I'm not saying it's easy being green. But it's getting easier.
As part of the $787 billion stimulus package that President Obama just signed, the federal government will be investing about $60 billion in clean energy, environmental projects, and scientific research.
Gene Karpinski, head of the League of Conservation Voters, calls it "by far the biggest investment in new green technologies that we've ever seen from the federal government."
This is a huge step forward for America. The twin crises of economic collapse and ecological devastation have proven that the old, pollution-based economy has failed both the people and the planet. The 'green' money in the stimulus package is a down payment on a clean, green economy that will serve both the people and the planet.
Check out some of the details:
Plus, the final version of the bill eliminates the loan guarantees the Senate had included for nuclear and so-called clean coal technology development -- false environmental 'solutions' that would have made matters worse, not better.
It's an especially exciting moment for me and my colleagues at Green For All, the Apollo Alliance, the Workforce Alliance and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The stimulus includes $500 million for green jobs training -- funding we've been trying to get for two years. That means that the recovery package won't just stimulate the green economy. It will also make sure that the green economy includes pathways out of poverty for low-income people and people of color.
If only the billions that went to tax cuts had been used for even more green investments! Then Kermit would have had to completely rewrite that song.
Alex Pasternack: China Eats the World: How America Learned To Bike And China Learned To Drive
Just as Americans are starting to realize the errors of excess, suffering at the gas pump and learning the virtues of saving energy, the Chinese are headed in the other direction.
John Kerry: Taking Control of Our Energy Future
Today, Senator Boxer and I introduced our "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act" that aims to put Americans back in charge of our energy future and our security.
I have to say "no" to that idea.
It closer to a Down Payment on a Democrat Party future.
Our politicians have learned that they are very likely to secure their power and position by buying votes. The Stimulus Package's primary targets are big spending DNC supporters and masses of self-serving non-community minded voters who don't know any better.
Why is the 'post-partisan Obama going along? Because going along is what he does. It is all he does and he will never stop until all non-DNC supporters are so marginalized that they become a non-issue in American politics.
I agree with nearly all of your points as I have throughout your rapid growth in the renewables community, but you are still missing on a very key issue. Throwing money is a good start, but we will watch that money burn away quickly with limited long term results unless our government starts implementing price points on things such as gas prices and carbon emissions. These effective means of generating activity will cost little, but are crucial to long term sustainability in regards to pushing renewable energy progress forward.
http://www.mygreenscene.com
http://www.greensceneems.com
Come on we can do better than this...not that I disagree with you Van, but if we stop building things in places where people keep blowing them up, and built things here we could be making a lot more than just a down payment..towards the future...
Best,
Mark
And what a perfect way to catch impaired, speeding and bad drivers!
Wes as President
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDSn-bDyvdA
Peace,
Mark from YERT
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
There are many people from both the left and right who, if we are going to spend such huge sums of money on stimulus, would like to see a meaningful return on our investment, in the form of our nation's (and planet's) long-tern health and sustainability while providing good, rewarding, lasting jobs.
Economic stimulus for green jobs that produce measurable health for our society and planet is a very worthwhile investment. Which is the wiser choice: Treating surface symptoms (with the chance of the same old illness coming back again, even worse), or using the opportunity to dig into root causes and build core health?
Getting it exactly wrong has always been a mystery to me. I wonder it comes about and have no clear politically correct answer.
Since spending Hope dollars on so-called "green" projects, as listed above, has zero to do with stimulating the economy now, I wonder if green enthusiasts understand that economic crisis was caused by a meddling US Congress.
It was congress that refused to reign in Freddie and Fannie.
It was congress that created the "market to market" rule. (Requires assets to be valued at current market rates as opposed to how much loan is.)
It was congress that did no oversight on the regulations they created.
And it was congress that is paying the bad actors, those greedy CEOs, to continue to take home billions of dollars despite their atrocious performance.
Green is a fine research project and we need it, but we did not need to pile on the national debt to get it going. Besides, there are already thousands of companies researching green.
1. Wind kills- aside from occassional birds being killed, the fact that birds fly thru trees at full speed in windy conditions kinda shoots that argument in the foot. Plus, the larger wind farms have blades that turn much slower and methodical, further reducing bird deaths. Pollution kills too, and not only birds...
2. Most electrical grid infrastructue will be updated and new forms of electricity will course thru these existing areas.
3. The trem "stable base" is passe thinking and the reason it still exists is because there has been no electrical infrastructure improvements in quite awhile.
4. Nuclear and coal will always have a place in this, just an increasingly smaller one.
5. For some reason you are assuminmg that you are smarter than everyone and therein lies the problem. The grown ups are in charge now, not the big people...
Updated by whom? Government using Hope dollars? The power company?
When was a "new form of electricity" discovered?
"3. The trem "stable base" is passe thinking"
Yeah, we don't want to have anything to do with "stable" anything. Stable markets, stable workforces, stable incomes, all very passé.
"4. Nuclear and coal will always have a place in this, just an increasingly smaller one."
Coal use may be reduced when an economical substitute is discovered, but anytime soon. I read that there are at least 150 coal fired electrical power plants in the works to be built. Nuclear power isn't used enough. If we used more nuclear power to make electricity (the traditional kind) we could use less coal.
"The grown ups are in charge now, not the big people..."
Funny, but I rarely hear grownups tingle with delight over a political candidates. More like little girls. And candidates that preach personal responsibility, then do everything in their power to kill personal responsibility.
Who's the tool?
I'm glad I live in Texas where we supply half the country's power and our own through Nuclear power.