Christmas Wish List

This week's newspaper column:

Lately, one economic indicator after another suggests that our nation is in the doldrums. Corporations on Wall Street - newcomers to the financial strain - are being bailed out right and left. American car companies are next in line. But Main Street has been feeling the pinch for quite a while with no relief in sight.

Amidst all the gloom and doom, talk has swirled about the need for some kind of stimulus package to right the economic ship. The last stimulus package passed by congress and signed by the president involved sending out tax rebate checks in hopes that people would run out and purchase big screen TVs, thus giving a shot in the arm to our consumer-based economy. Some people did just that. Some socked it away in savings. Many just paid down bills.

But that strategy proved to be unsustainable. Like a New Years’ sparkler that blazes and then dies out, the economic benefits were short-lived and now we’re back in the same fix – only worse. Credit markets have seized up, companies once considered invincible have gone under, and the country has lost almost two million jobs since the beginning of the year.

Recently elected federal officials of all stripes are “feeling your pain,” and chances are there will be some form of economic stimulus package passed into law soon after the new Administration is sworn in. But what form will that stimulus package take?

What would happen if, in lieu of dropping hundred dollar bills out of a helicopter at a football game, we as a society took that money and invested it in building a sustainable future?

Sustainability, by definition, is the act of fostering a built environment that is self-sufficient and self-perpetuating, is healthy and inclusive, and is more responsive to the human condition than it is to market conditions.

We have the technology and know-how right now live sustainably. What we do not have is the infrastructure.

Targeted support for sustainable projects such as solar and wind farms, the development of electric and hydrogen powered cars, and streets with sidewalks and bike lanes would start the process of weaning us from our current fossil-fuel based energy system. And tax credits for energy-efficient building retrofits and the installation of alternative energy systems on homes and commercial buildings would result in a decreased demand for large-scale energy production.

This conversion to a green economy will not be cheap. To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, ‘a hundred billion here, a hundred b billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.’ But look what we’re spending now to prop up the current system.

Investment in sustainable infrastructure will result in the creation of millions of new green-collar American jobs and, in the process, bring about a cleaner, healthier living environment for us all. So the question is not ‘can we afford to go green’ but ‘can we afford not to?’

Van Jones: Working Together for a Green New Deal

After the election, where do we go from here?

Van Jones advances the school of thought that all things are interrelated, including environment and the economy. Jones, coming from a background of anti-poverty advocacy, envisions a new green economy that enhances all sectors of the economy, including traditionally poor and disadvantaged segments of the population. He lays out a plan for a new New Deal in his book, The Green Collar Economy.

From an article in The Nation magazine adapted from the book, here are a few excerpts.


(A)t a certain point it occurred to me that what we need is less investment in the fight against and more energy in the fight for: for positive alternatives to violence and incarceration. It was around that time that I got involved in the environmental movement. And I came to understand that the answer to our social, economic and ecological crises can be one and the same: a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

The fact is, when many ordinary people hear the term "green," they still automatically think the message is probably for a fancy, elite set--not for themselves. And as long as that remains true, the green movement will remain too anemic politically and too alien culturally to rescue the country.

Enlightened, affluent people who embrace green values do a great deal of good for the country and the earth--and they are making an important difference every day. But nobody should make the mistake of believing that a small circle of highly educated, upper-income enviros can unite America and lead it all by themselves.

For the sake of the ship--our planet--and all aboard it, the effort to go green must be all hands on deck.

We can take the unfinished business of America on questions of inclusion and equal opportunity and combine it with the new business of building a green economy, thereby healing the country on two fronts and redeeming the soul of the nation. We must.

Read the article - Working Together for a Green New Deal - here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/jones