Green ($) Technology

There is a great article over at Grist talking about the progress that has been taking place in America at the state level regarding alternative energy and efficiency initiatives.

I encourage everyone to read the entire article here, but the main point of the article is that despite all the positive movement, the clean-energy sector is at risk of being crippled by certain politicians running for governor of their respective states.

I know, I'm shocked as well.

My favorite excerpt is:

"Of the 37 Republicans running for governor this fall, 22 reject the science of climate change..."

I'm going to go ahead and ignore the part of my brain that is screaming at people ignoring simple scientific trends and current events and instead present another argument:  Alternative Energy presents an opportunity to make and save (a lot of) money.

Are you kidding me?!?!?!!

Money is good.  This is something that most people can agree upon no matter what their political views are.  So, even if you don't believe that the climate is going to shift due to our continually increasing carbon emissions (duh*), it would be politically irresponsible to ignore the opportunity to create jobs and make money off of these technologies.

Job creation is one of the biggest issues today and alternative energy has the potential to help mitigate this issue.  To simply dismiss these technologies due to political reasons is short-sighted and backwards.

There are countless examples of alternative energy and sustainable living programs popping up all over the country (many of which I am listing on Sustainabili-city's Twitter page), politicians just need to wake up and realize the money making potential of these programs.

Oh yeah, and while the money is being made and saved, there is a side-effect of making the world a cleaner place...if living in a clean environment is your sort of thing.



*I rarely say 'duh,' which should give you an indicator of how I feel about climate change.