While I posted a link up a while ago, that pointed out all of the jobs we are missing out on by not having a sane energy policy.
It was met with mild interest with mostly just attacking the source. In a recent NY Times column, Thomas Friedman, re-iterated what I said in my previous post.
So while America’s Republicans turned “climate change” into a four-letter word — J-O-K-E — China’s Communists also turned it into a four-letter word — J-O-B-S.
At the World Economic Forum meeting here, I met Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers, which has invented processes for separating plastic from piles of junked computers, appliances and cars and then recycling it into pellets to make new plastic using less than 10 percent of the energy required to make virgin plastic from crude oil. Biddle calls it “above-ground mining.” In the last three years, his company has mined 100 million pounds of new plastic from old plastic.
Biddle’s seed money was provided mostly by U.S. taxpayers through federal research grants, yet today only his tiny headquarters are in the U.S. His factories are in Austria, China and Britain. “I employ 25 people in California and 250 overseas,” he says. His dream is to have a factory in America that would repay all those research grants, but that would require a smart U.S. energy bill. Why?
Biddle had enough money to hire one lobbyist to try to persuade the U.S. Congress to copy the recycling regulations of Europe, Japan and China in our energy bill, but, in the end, there was no bill. So we educated him, we paid for his tech breakthroughs — and now Chinese and European workers will harvest his fruit. Aren’t we clever?
The answer to WHY? is simple enough, it comes in the form of Ron Johnson, Jim Demint, Tom Coburn, Paul Ryan, Sean Duffy, the \"tea partiers\" etc…
As to are we clever? the answer there would be not so much. It is sad that Communist China has more responsible, capitalistic thinkers than the current republican party.
PS: Not a single mention of sunspots!
I couldn’t get any further than this:
Sure lots of jobs when you’re building 2-3 coal burning power plants per week. Coal plants being pretty much the nastiest, most “global climate changing” people-killing (as many as 20,000 miners die each year in China alone) carbon emitting and perhaps worst of all, mercury poisoning way power can be generated.
But by all means, let’s follow China’s lead on this one.
China has a horrible environmental policy, worker rights policy, and human rights policy as well that the United States is in many ways light years ahead of.
That still doesn’t change the fact they have jobs though.
FYI, you might want to read about the “e-Waste” recycling law that went into effect in Wisconsin on September 1.
http://www.dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/ecycle/index.htm
-We have our share of coal – burning power plants in WI. And I would bet the right wing in this state would love to put up some more.
http://www.catf.us/resources/factsheets/files/Children_at_Risk-Wisconsin.pdf
– I agree that this article is a little too much pro-China for me, but Freidman always is. I kind of recoiled at the line about China having lower wages(no shit). The point is though, coupled with the last article I posted, it shows that they are taking a real problem and turning it into jobs.
– Nice “-e_waste law, it shows that WIsconsin is leading the nation again, and it also shows the importance of having a democratic majority.
-We have our share of coal – burning power plants in WI. And I would bet the right wing in this state would love to put up some more.
And you would probably lose that bet. But it’s always nice to just guess and attribute to the opposing side, whatever arguments you feel like. There’s a name for that.
We need an industrial policy. The world don’t have to be flat; it ain’t for, e.g., Germany.
We need to use Federal dollars to create jobs from research to production (even Andy Grove sees the need for this). This can be done just as it was for the WWII build-up in this country. On the order of 150% of GDP was spent, and it worked nicely to position the US economy on a 20-30 yr. expansion. Until we allow the Federal government to once again be the spender of last resort, and understand, you can’t be in debt if you can print the money (maybe cause inflation if you don’t match it with enough goods and services), we are simply going to follow the pre– WWII boom bust cycle, with the accompanying increase in income disparity and social instability.
A first step would be take the oil and coal subsidies, and hand them to US alternative energy companies, and require they build their factories here. This ain’t rocket science (I can’t resist) “it’s the economy, stupid”.
Economists at UMKC as well as Dean Baker have a pretty good line on this; and of course Thomas Geoghegan has some good articles on the German model.
I voted for Kagen, Feingold and Obama; I didn’t expect much, but, to put it politely, they’ve lost my vote and several others I know.
Perhaps its Palin time… after all it took a Hoover to pave the way for FDR.