The Green Journey Starts at Home ™

I am listening to Rick Santorum, GOP candidate, talk about energy conservation. He is trying to make the argument that there is a direct correlation between energy consumption and a societies standard of living. He says that we do not need to worry about energy conservation and that global warming is a hoax. He implies that energy consumption is good, since this correlates to economic progress.

Seriously? Do people really believe this drivel?

Santorum is misguided and fails to grasp the global significance and importance of becoming a leader in energy conservation and alternative energy. This is a rapidly emerging market that we will fail to have a major part of if we don’t actively engage and take some ownership in. If we don’t create and own this market, you can sure bet the Chinese will with their current billion dollar investments in alternative energy.

Santorum’s argument that there is a correlation between economic progress and energy consumption, was how things were early in our countries history as our economy evolved from agrarian to industrial. US consumption of energy per capita was high during the smoke stack days of the industrial revolution.

We’ve evolved out of this economic era, although it is abundantly clear Rick Santorum’s thinking hasn’t.

The clean tech race is on. While the Chinese are investing heavily in clean technologies and in the process creating jobs….what are we doing? We are overturning environmental initiatives. We have groups such as the Tea Party who are well financed by the oil companies trying to overturn environmental regulations in states like California. They claim it is about protecting jobs, when in fact it is about protecting oil company profits. And meanwhile the Chinese have clearly defined strategic goals to make clean tech a pillar of their society.

The arguments that environmental protection hurts job creation reminds me of India after the British were kicked out. India closed their borders from foreign trade and taxed heavily any imports. This was about protecting jobs and foreign intervention. Many of the jobs within India were in protected industries. Over the years India fell increasingly behind the rest of the world. Inefficiency and poor quality became the norm.

The parallel here is that China is progressing ambitiously towards a Green future. And what are we doing? We have groups that are protecting the interests of the oil companies and in so doing, we’ll stand the risk of increasingly falling behind in clean technologies.

See Thomas Friedman in the NYTimes

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday that the planet’s average temperature for April was 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest for any April on record. The more we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the more we expose ourselves to a sudden, unpredictable climate disruption. The more we blithely remain addicted to oil, and not face up to all its negative geopolitical and environmental consequences, the more we invite sudden catastrophes like the gulf spill.

–from the NY Times.