Great rhetoric, or are we just getting dumb?

I have heard leaders (including the President) asked the same question perhaps a dozen times in the last couple of weeks by "experts". It essentially goes like this:

"Considering the current economic meltdown, is now the best time to push green technologies?"

And the answer is always the same:

"It is imperative right now that we reduce our dependency on foreign oil"

The amazing thing to me is that this is NOT an answer to the question, and that the "expert" questioners seem to give all the politicos a pass with no followup or pressure.

If the GOAL is reduction of dependency on foreign oil, there are 2 ways to do this.

Method 1: Replace the foreign fuel with other energy sources. This is the method leaders typically align themselves with. It gives them all kinds of opportunity to talk about new job creation, evolving markets, green technologies, the environment, and of course, spend HUGE amounts of money.

Method 2: The second method of reducing dependency on foreign oil is to buy less. How come we don't talk about this? It's easy, it's virtually free. We can use more of our own oil reserves (which might require relaxing our own emissions standards), encourage reductions in consumption, or allow prices to increase some (which was quite effective in reducing consumption recently), or a combination of all of the above.

I'm thinking that the biggest immediate goal of the vast majority of the American people is to fix the current financial crisis, and the "foreign oil" argument is a bait and switch, where leaders pretend to be addressing the biggest current problem, while actually advancing their own political agendas.

I'm a big fan of developing green technologies, but I see it as a 20 year or more process. Does it REALLY have much value in discussions of the current short term economic crisis? Wouldn't it be wise to include it in small pieces as PART of an approach to the problem?

It looks like an excuse for politicians to spend money like they never have before, with minimal promise of real improvement. The jobs created will be fewer than those lost, the compensation will be less than those lost, green jobs are difficult to export, which could contribute to the trade imbalance, and there will be a HUGE shift in the demographics of the workplace (look at a map of the immigrant population of the US, and compare it to a map of the geographic areas that excel in solar and wind technologies).

It looks to me like it will lead to an enormous redistribution of wealth, a net loss in jobs, a net lowering of income and buying power, a weakening of the dollar, and a tremendous restructuring of the demographics of the political landscape in the US (maybe that's the real point).

I think green technologies should be pursued with a fervor, but not at the expense of US survival 5 or 10 years from now.

The "green technology" and "reduction of dependency on foreign oil" arguments were at the forefront 30 years ago, and President Carter didn't do too well with them. I honestly don't see much different in the current scenario, except the depth of how badly it is going to hurt our economy.

discuss...

SVreX wrote: I think green technologies should be pursued with a fervor, but not at the expense of US survival 5 or 10 years from now.

This particular part of your post caught my attention.

Really...I think it's too late and the population (and thus depletion of resources) is probably going to do the whole "overshoot and decline" thing sometime in the next 1,000 years or so.

However, I don't see how reducing our use of non renewable resources now could possibly HURT the US's situation 10 years from now.

Frankly, renewable resource research and development has been going on for a long time (as you noted when talking about the earlier oil "crisis").

I know folks can argue both sides of all this...but can anyone really argue that we should not be taking better care of the planet? I certainly think we should be.

Clem

The planet started as a ball of molten rock and noxious gasses. We are just returning it to its natural state.

MrJoshua wrote: The planet started as a ball of molten rock and noxious gasses. We are just returning it to its natural state.

In the grand scheme of things...the earth will be just fine. Probably after a few million years...whether humans are around or not.

Sounds kinda doomsday theory, but if humans weren't around, the earth would cope...better.

I think you are 100% overlooking the amazing amount of small businesses green tech is generating. I have one friend who was dumped by catepillar now working for a large solar panel company. I was dumped by cummins but am now going to work for a giant company that is using energy savings, through green technology, as a competitive advantage.

http://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Business-Review-Profiting-Paperback/dp/1578512336/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238097080&sr=1-21 <-- I've read that book and love it. It is selections from the Harvard business review on green business. If you want I'll send you my copy.

I seriously believe that any company that does not take green initiatives to its very core and use them as great cost cutting measures; will be left behind.

An example. http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/03/25/pepsico-launches-industrys-lightest-water-bottle <-- Pepsi is releasing a new lighter bottle. It uses less energy to make, makes trucks lighter and therfore more fuel eff. and finally uses less resources so iwill be ultimately cheaper.

I'm not overlooking it at all.

President Obama is currently saying he would like to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs in the next 2 years, a number which most people doubt. While I'm not sure what "save" jobs actually means (I think it means he could meet his goal by creating ZERO jobs), I DO know that we have lost 5 million jobs in the last 2 years.

That's not a net gain, unless you are doing that "new math" stuff.

I need to do a daisy wheel for this but what other uses, supplies and paths are needed to determine the "Energy Chain"?

Energy Uses : E1 - transportation, E2 - residential grid, E3 - commercial grid, E4 - agricultural grid, E5 - other

Energy Supply : S1 - coal, S2 - nuclear, S3 - hydroelectric, S4 - wind turbine, S5 - geothermal, S6 - petroleum, S7 - other

Energy Transit Path : P1 - overhead wire grid system, P2 - underground wire grid system, P3 - oil pipeline system, P4 - oil trucking system, P5 - other

Green isn't only about the "energy chain" but then you get into things that start really freaking people out like permaculture or urban redevelopment or roadless towns or stuff like this http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx

I think I see your point SVreX.

Start now by purchasing less foreign oil but still concentrate on green tech for a payoff further down the road.

I don't see a problem with that.

Now, using the politician's stance...advocating pain, sacrifice, and good sense has never elected anyone. If a politician says "We're going to raise the cost of gas during a recession to help the environment...." do you think he'd get votes compared to Mr. Feel-Good-And-Happy?

The politicians are doing what they want. They're just putting a big smiley face on it for the public. Notice how our gas prices are struggling to get below 1.80 or so a gallon where I live. The last time oil was this low in price, at the wholesale per barrel level, I was paying 1.20 for gas. The price is still artificially high. Quite possibly on purpose but I doubt it's for any altruistic reason.

I think most politicians are following your line of thought while CYA'ing with the typical answer you quoted above.

I agree. Just think we (the public) should wake up, and "experts" (like journalists, etc) should have the huevos to ask real questions, and recognize when their legitimate concerns are being blown off.

ignorant wrote: Green isn't only about the "energy chain" but then you get into things that start really freaking people out like permaculture or urban redevelopment or roadless towns or stuff like this http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx

I mean no disrespect, ignorant, but I was reading the Mother Earth News before you were born.

That's EXACTLY my point. Green doesn't always make sense, and the current approach (throw all the money you can at one solution which will NOT have a payoff for a VERY long time) does not help us with our current problems. It helps with our imagined future problems, but only while we feel the pressure (the 30 year old public love affair with green technologies ended a long time ago when we realized we loved our green money more)

It is only gaining popularity again now as politicians somehow convince us that it is good for our economy in the short term (which is not true).

Bill Clinton said it best, "It's the economy, stupid".

ignorant wrote: I think you are 100% overlooking the amazing amount of small businesses green tech is generating. I have one friend who was dumped by catepillar now working for a large solar panel company. I was dumped by cummins but am now going to work for a giant company that is using energy savings, through green technology, as a competitive advantage. http://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Business-Review-Profiting-Paperback/dp/1578512336/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238097080&sr=1-21 <-- I've read that book and love it. It is selections from the Harvard business review on green business. If you want I'll send you my copy. I seriously believe that any company that does not take green initiatives to its very core and use them as great cost cutting measures; will be left behind. An example. http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/03/25/pepsico-launches-industrys-lightest-water-bottle <-- Pepsi is releasing a new lighter bottle. It uses less energy to make, makes trucks lighter and therfore more fuel eff. and finally uses less resources so iwill be ultimately cheaper.

Please produce the prognostications of how many jobs green-tech enterprises are producing and where they are located, then compare that data to where job-losses are concentrated and whether (or not) green-tech can absorb the difference in said areas.

Are green-tech job skill requirements anywhere near the same as the skill-sets held by those who have lost jobs? And when re-training is necessary, who fronts the funding? Then, will there still be enough green-tech jobs to absorb the unemployed and those who will soon join the work force?

SVrex is on the right track by questioning the abrupt and disruptive method of abandoning current methodology in order to forcefully insert a radical alternative - an alternative the ignores the benefits of current (and future) nuclear and fossil-fuel technologies.

Politics is driving the rush to green-tech while ignoring the social and economic chaos that will occur because no one wants to compromise towards a balanced, realistic, long-term solution. There is a logical way to achieve (relative) energy independence, but there are way too many parties with there own agendas interfering with reaching the goal.

While many believe their envisioned long-term result may justify the means to achieve it, there seems a tacit denial that the resulting social/economic chaos would ever allow it to play itself out. And there are decades of evidence that suggest the "tools" inside the Beltway are incapable of mandating and legislating a clean departure from the status quo.

SVreX wrote: I mean no disrespect, ignorant, but I was reading the Mother Earth News before you were born.

no problem. I remeber touring passive solar homes in the early 80's with my dad, I was like 5.

ignorant wrote:

SVreX wrote: I mean no disrespect, ignorant, but I was reading the Mother Earth News before you were born.

no problem. I remeber touring passive solar homes in the early 80's with my dad, I was like 5.

Perhaps I built a couple of them.

Here's an interesting article:

US News and World Report

oldsaw wrote: energy independence

I hate that phrase.

other than that I don't have any data to back up exactly how many jobs are being created. But I want to dispell one damn myth about the jobs and money going overseas with green jobs. Faux News at work again. Suzlon and Siemens have both set up factories for wind turbines within half a days drive of my in laws place in IL.

As for those who do not have the new skills for the jobs that are open now, sorry. I think we're going through a second industrial revolution.. compete or die.

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/02/13/green-jobs-reality-and-rhetoric

SVreX wrote:

ignorant wrote:

SVreX wrote: I mean no disrespect, ignorant, but I was reading the Mother Earth News before you were born.

no problem. I remeber touring passive solar homes in the early 80's with my dad, I was like 5.

Perhaps I built a couple of them.

In Kansas City, Mo?

And here's an interesting interactive map on immigration. Sure looks like a lot of Hispanics in those sunny and windy places! Scroll over the map for stats on any county in the US.

Interactive immigration map

So, we loose vast numbers of jobs in MI, the NE, the Gulf Coast and other industrialized areas, and create a bunch of jobs (which pay less) in other areas with different demographics.

Could it be, that a major initiative toward jobs for Hispanics (translation: democratic votes) could influence the push for green?

Ignorant:

I read your article. Did you read mine on the same subject?

They have obviously come to different conclusions. Call me jaded, but I'm more inclined to to expect US News and World Report to be less biased on the issue than GreenBiz.com (Greener World Media).

But, let's look at a few of the stats your article quotes:

• The Apollo Alliance's New Apollo Program proposes an investment of $500 billion over 10 years to create 5 million jobs that's $500,000 per job. Sounds pretty costly

• The Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute call for spending $100 billion over two years to create 2 million jobs Well, they work a little faster, but it's still a cost of $100,000 per job. Don't they intend to have any profits to help pay for stuff?

• A report prepared by Global Insight for the U.S. Conference of Mayors forecasts that renewable power generation, building retrofitting, and renewable transportation fuels will together generate 1.7 million new jobs by 2018 and another 846,000 related engineering, legal, research and consulting positions. That total jumps to 3.5 million jobs by 2028 and 4.2 million by 2038.These guys seem much less optimistic about job creation than President Obama. They are suggesting spending 30 years to create fewer jobs than we have lost in the last 2

• A study by the American Solar Energy Society asserts that the renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries represented more than 9 million jobs and $1.04 billion in U.S. revenue in 2007, 95 percent in private industry, and could mushroom to as many as 37 million jobs by 2030 -- more than 17 percent of all anticipated U.S. employment. These guys are at least serious about job creation- 28 million jobs in 21 years. Who shall we believe-them,the President, or the other guys?

• A report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation predicts that a $50 billion investment in the smart grid over five years "would create approximately 239,000 new or retained U.S. jobs for each of the 5 years on average." These guys don't seem to want to create any jobs, and their cost is over $209,000 per job

I understand where you are coming from, but by their own admission your article only proves my point. All the financial and political eggs in the Green basket will NOT solve our current job problem.

SVreX wrote: I understand where you are coming from, but by their own admission your article only proves my point. All the financial and political eggs in the Green basket will NOT solve our current job problem.

I know they won't. They'll definitely help. Why I chose to post that article is that it was pretty balanced in its approach. I don't contend that the green revolution will solve all problems. The economy is in a contraction, period. The ONLY thing that will surefire put people to work is a new WPA.

Now, I have heard you talk many times about faith and hope in other matters. I got both about green industry. As an atheist, I don't through faith around lightly.

Forgot to say that the article I posted is from a green recruiter and I really liked his conclusion paragraph...

To our benefit, we are nearing an inflection point. Consumers are demanding environmentally responsible goods and services. Citizens are holding governments accountable for their air and water quality. Corporations are identifying new revenue streams. Governments are regulating on what were previously considered externalities. It won't happen in a day, or probably even months or years. But acting as a nation, across the public-private spectrum, we can and will realize the illusion of green jobs to find better lives and livelihoods.

Wow.. I just read the follow up comments to the article on greenbiz. Theres a good one looking for the elimination of the word "green job".. Pretty good.

The jobs will only follow in the production and efficiency increases that green technology brings and the cost savings that will also happen. If Opec can keep oil cheap enough we won't switch. Green has to make sense from a return on investment standpoint or we're toast.

ignorant wrote: The ONLY thing that will surefire put people to work is a new WPA.

Do you really believe that? Is there a reason you picked THAT particular FDR program, leaving out things like the NRA, the TVA, and the FCIC? How about a couple of doozies that started along with it like the FHA, the FDIC, the SEC, or Fannie Mae (all of which were started by FDR and contributed to our current dilemma). Social Security was another winner!

Criticisms of the WPA (from Wiki)

Unlike the quite popular Civilian Conservation Corps, the WPA had numerous conservative critics. One of the principal criticisms leveled at the program was that it wasted federal dollars on projects that were not always needed or wanted. White-collar WPA projects in particular were often singled out by conservatives for their allegedly overtly left-wing social and political themes. One criticism of the allocation of WPA projects and funding was that they were often made for political considerations. Congressional leaders in favor with the Roosevelt administration, or who possessed considerable seniority and political power often helped decide which states and localities received the most funding. The most serious criticism was that Roosevelt was building a nationwide political machine with millions of workers.

Some who were critical of the WPA referred to it as "We Poke Along", "We Piddle Along", "We Putter Around" or the "Whistle, Piss and Argue gang". These were sarcastic references to WPA projects that sometimes slowed to a crawl, because foremen on a government project devised to maintain employment often had no incentive or ability to influence worker productivity by demotion or termination. This criticism was due in part to the WPA's early practice of basing wages on a "security wage", ensuring workers would be paid even if the project was delayed, improperly constructed, or incomplete.

ignorant wrote: I know they won't. They'll definitely help. Why I chose to post that article is that it was pretty balanced in its approach.

Can you please give a few concrete examples of why you believe that they will definitely help our current job problem? I've offered my perspectives, and shown a few holes in your "balanced" article. I'd like to hear another perspective from someone I have some level of respect for. It's not ONLY faith, is it?

ignorant wrote: The ONLY thing that will surefire put people to work is a new WPA.

I mean that to be all encompassing meaning CCC, TVA etc.. etc.. I meant to say the Only thing that will put everyone to work will be a new sort of WPA. Basically thats the only surefire way.

I don't 100% disagree with you. I don't think there are enough jobs for everyone available. I think the "green jobs" will be a way to tap into new entreprenurial ideas and new business models that were not available before by incentivizing the energy change.

An example of a solid concrete company that is having great success in the US is sun edison.

http://www.sunedison.com/ <-- Great business model. You purchase energy from them at a set rate and they maintain the solar equipment on your roof.

Beyond that.. I don't have much more, except its like a snowball going down hill. Small now(and proving your point about not providing an immeadiate impact), but will be giant later. Thats about all I got.. A promise that it'll work and its the right thing to do.

I'm afraid I just can't put as much faith in a governmental solution from a government that in many ways got us into this mess in the first place. The LAST place I want to put my faith is in the government for saving us by job creation, especially since they are so darned good at creating imaginary jobs.

I agree, there are many good companies making an impact. I work for one.

I also agree that some effort is the right thing to do.

But I can't agree with the idea of running full speed toward a cliff of economic collapse, while accelerating the problem through bad planning, overspending and poor decision making because we've got "a promise that it will work", and nothing more.

I think the movement towards "green" living is going to be out of necessity. For example: It takes quite a bit more Roundup to get the same results as twenty years ago. The resistant weeds survive, causing generations with greater resilience. Residual chemicals remain in the ground, and those have to go somewhere... ground water, for example.

It's amazing how much crap we have left behind in just the last century. Plastics came on the market, what, five decades ago, and look how it has already accumulated (do a search for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Just imagine if we keep accelerating at the same rate and disposing as much with the increased population. It all has to go somewhere.

But it's going to be pretty hard to get rid of us. Even if there was a nuclear war or disease epidemic or whatever, it's hard to say that we will go extinct... assuming there are seven billion of us on the planet, even killing 99.999% of us will leave 7 million behind.

Edit: I'm not quite sure where I was going with this post, but I went there.