For the last few days all I heard and read was how the Energy Bill is going to hurt the consumer and how it is going to cripple the US economy and the global economy by extension.
I am no environmentalist, but if we don't believe we are living on a distressed palnet and that global warming is a reality, we must be delusional. The palnet needs fixing and it needs it now.
It is not going to be cheap, and the longer we wait the harder and more expensive it becomes. Well of course cap and trade will hurt the consumer, not the legislation but how businesses will implement it, just pass the cost to the consumer. Airlines will just do that, the same way the fuel surcharge has been added the carbon tax (and I hate the term) will be added.
Yes, let us all take the easy way and pass the cost along. This legislation should be the dawn of a Green revolution (over dramatising a little, but what the heck) the start of a cycle of innovation and creativity and transformation of the way we do things and may be the way we live. All I hear is how bio fuels are more efficient for aircraft use, but what incentive does anyone have to make bio fuels the norm and not the exception, so they are produced intelligently without starving the planet and efficiently, that their cost is lower so the consumer and the environment can benefit.
This should help us redesign things and look again at what is considered conventional wisdom in business and life, we need a different kind of wisdom a GREENER and more begnin one.
It is a whole new ball game, a new clean slate waiting for millions of innovative ideas and creative solutions that will produce a whole new industry that will provide jobs, sustainable and stable jobs.
So please stop whining on how it will hurt the consumer and think how much more it will hurt all of us if we don't do anything about it.
Interesting that Cap and Trade is based on a fundamentally capitalist idea - a free market, with a slight twist. Take a look at all the pundits who are predicting the doom of the American economy from this - not exactly socialists are they. Would they be hurt by this, or the economy?
ReplyDeleteThe Big 3 automakers have been buying patents for more fuel efficient engine components with the sole purpose of shelving them. I'm sure they are not alone, but why? New technology is a threat to an existing corporate strategy - always has been and always will be. We build corporate strategies to have our companies win - that's the idea. Nothing wrong with that. When the results those strategies are an unsustainable rate in anything (population, illness, pollution etc) some entity has to put a limit in place.
I too am looking forward to an era of rapid technological advance in energy generation, use and perhaps re-use. I believe government is the right entity to set the limits and gradually draw them down. I also believe Cap and Trade is the capitalist and best way to address the change fairly and in a way that provides people opportunity.