The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance.
Rather than continuing to base our economy on a finite supply of dead things, we can base it on sources that are practically infinite and eternal: the sun, the moon, and the Earth's inner fire.
The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.
The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun.
If we do nothing, the ensuing climate catastrophe will wreck our economy - including wreaking havoc on our food production systems. All credible scientists agree on this point.
Nobody wants a nanny state, where the government is stamping out initiative and telling us what to do, but the idea that the only alternative to that is to throw the American people overboard into a global economy with no protections to cushion us from some of these blows is absurd on its face. That's why I think there's been a concerted effort to distort my message. When you hear me speak beyond the sound bites taken out of context, I think I make a lot of sense to people, even those in Red States like the one where I grew up.
We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around.
We have the chance to build this new energy economy in ways that reflect our deepest values of inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity for everyone.
The Trump phenomenon has a lot of really good stuff in it, the anti-elitism, the concern for America's economy in the Rust Belt, the desire to see better days for the country. That's all great stuff. Some of that stuff is Bernie Sanders stuff. The problem is that it's marbled through with xenophobia and misogyny and bigotry.
The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.
Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new "green economy" they are birthing?
Donald Trump's promised the moon. Now he has power. He's going to fail to deliver. He's not going to be able to bring a bunch of coal jobs back and a bunch of factory jobs back in this global economy. Period. Because you can't. It's not going to happen.
A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs.
We're now moving into a stage where the green economy isn't just going to be the place for people to spend money. It's going to become a place where a lot more people can earn money, and also save more money. These kind of solutions require collective action and government action. So as an advocate for government change, even somebody like me gets to have a role.
To shift America (and the world) to a cleaner energy economy, millions of people will have to go to work in new industries. This necessary shift opens up tremendous new opportunities for work and wealth creation.
It's a tremendous challenge now: to make sure the green economy is big enough that there is enough labor demand that people who've been thrown out of work can be re-employed AND people who are new to the workforce can be employed. And that is going to be very difficult.
Right now, the government is spending billions of dollars supporting the problem-makers in the U.S. economy - the polluters, despoilers, incarcerators, and warmongers.
Too often we think about the green economy as an elite market niche, one in which affluent people spend more money to consume greener and cleaner products.
The first few feet of sea-level rise alone will displace more than 100 million people worldwide and turn all our major Gulf and Atlantic coast cities into preKatrina New Orleans - below sea level and facing super-hurricanes. - Joseph Romm210. The generations living today get to retrofit, reboot, and reenergize a nation. We get to rescue and reinvent the U.S. economy.
We tend to overlook the fact that a mature clean energy economy in fact will give an opportunity to ordinary people to earn more money as clean energy workers/entrepreneurs - and save more money, through conservation and energy efficiency.
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