It is not surprising to see green collar jobs making its debut in an overwhelmingly changing global economy. They are the dot.com versions of a highly evolved, technology driven, renewable-energy and energy-efficient industry that could grow to as many as 40 million jobs by 2030, according to a report by the American Solar Energy Society. Whatever the reason for this green jobs evolution, i.e., switching careers for higher paychecks, acquiring and developing green skills or awakening an inner passion for saving Mother Earth, private industry is outperforming government in a sprinting race to save the Planet, and of course making plenty of money in the process.
As I strolled in to work this week, I caught up with work announcements calling for a greener work environment. I work in a government building in Capitol Hill, where the average employee is a middle class citizen, and gets its benefits, commute, childcare, and savings plan subsidized by an out-of-touched government. My husband on the other hand, works for an architectural design firm, where employees are encouraged to take mass transportation in an effort to be more socially conscious. In fact, industries like construction, finance and marketing are pioneering the movement towards a greener lifestyle, and this output has translated into half a dozen or so other industries following their lead.
But in my office, computers are not turned off, lights are on 24/7, and copy paper is a renewable resource. In fact, while many residential and office buildings across the US, including some government buildings, are going green; this turn of the century, vault of wisdom and American values institution, which has been retrofitted twice, still uses incandescent light bulbs, and recycles very little.
People like Al Gore, a private industry individual, have put global warming in the forefront of our public policies concern, but now it’s the government’s turn: The new tenant of the White House has to cast this government in a leadership role and turn this race into an economic advantageous pursuit as well as a humanitarian gain.
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
April 21, 2008
October 30, 2007
The grade on Global Warming: When hypocrisy is larger than skepticism
I have been a skeptic all my life. In fact, I am in a state of remission. You name it: the Bible, the Christmas story, Santa Claus, politics, the UN, the Bermuda Triangle, the war in Iraq, even the Paleolithic age seemed iffy at one point -not too bad considering almost all evangelicals, the most rapidly growing Christian church in the world, believe God created the universe less than 6,000 years ago. Nevertheless, we evolve and our horizons broaden depending on the juxtaposition of life experiences, which shape our instincts and decisions as well as those around us.
Writing about global warming is like having sex, the sinful kind, the very experience can be daunting not say risqué. But this is the Right's perspective on it, the rest of world of course, sees it as a responsibility that is both liberating and compromising, knowing that there are still some hearts to be won.
But let's face it; it can also be emotional and unraveling, and that is the difference between good publicity on global warming vs. bad publicity. Preferably sticking to the facts and avoiding the melodramatic overtones that the Right frowns upon, a good article on global warming requires enough special effects to rivet the most skeptical mind and avoid an overboard splash, or it can cause indifference and detachment, just like unilateral sex.
In some of these conservative arenas, the issue of global warming, if not the word itself, has become somewhat synonymous with the word sex, it has been plastered everywhere by the media, just like the symptomatic effect of a highly addictive drug; global warming is something which should not be discussed if you want to be taken seriously by these skeptical groups, and like sex, its corruptive 'power' destabilizes uh.. well, what exactly, the status quo?
In a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Americans believe the effects of global warming are already manifesting or will happen within five years. By a nearly 2:1 margin, Americans believe human activities rather than natural causes explain the rise in the Earth's temperature. But the truth is, attitudes on the environment remain highly partisan: A plurality of Republicans (47%) are positive about environmental conditions, contrasted with only 9% of Democrats, according to the Gallup website. In fact, most Democrats (and independents) are negative about environmental conditions. The same Gallup analysis suggests Democrats are also more likely to be sympathetic to or active in the environmental movement (76% of Democrats vs. 49% of Republicans), and to give priority status to the environment over the economy or energy production.
Sarcasm aside, these numbers are very suggestive. As an environmental convert, they are alarming, because it's my skeptical nature to ponder that the other 52% of Republicans in this poll are either hypocrites or playing possum. Even, when the issue of the environment has always been a Left-leaning issue, the fact is, it was born from the very skirts of capitalism, with traceable roots in the Conservation Movement particularly preached by Theodore Roosevelt, and then eventually sprouted up dramatically in Earth Day in 1970. Sort of like the French Revolution meets Sierra Club. In other words, conservative Republicans influenced its birth, supervised its upbringing and then completely abandoned it, only to be rescued from the dirt by Left-leaning activists in an act of deliverance during the 1960's civil rights movement.
Even today, according to the NY Times, 86 evangelical Christian leaders are now backing a major initiative to fight global warming, yet hard-core Republicans are still skeptical. This could be the single most unifying issue in American politics, not to mention U.S. foreign policy, something the war on terrorism has not been able to accomplish. And I ask myself if not this, then what? And my skeptical nature wanders again, it occurs to me that the Right's stance is a stainless steel shell which can only be transmutable by a collapse on the global economy, which by then, of course, it will be too late to prioritize national dialogue.
Writing about global warming is like having sex, the sinful kind, the very experience can be daunting not say risqué. But this is the Right's perspective on it, the rest of world of course, sees it as a responsibility that is both liberating and compromising, knowing that there are still some hearts to be won.
But let's face it; it can also be emotional and unraveling, and that is the difference between good publicity on global warming vs. bad publicity. Preferably sticking to the facts and avoiding the melodramatic overtones that the Right frowns upon, a good article on global warming requires enough special effects to rivet the most skeptical mind and avoid an overboard splash, or it can cause indifference and detachment, just like unilateral sex.
In some of these conservative arenas, the issue of global warming, if not the word itself, has become somewhat synonymous with the word sex, it has been plastered everywhere by the media, just like the symptomatic effect of a highly addictive drug; global warming is something which should not be discussed if you want to be taken seriously by these skeptical groups, and like sex, its corruptive 'power' destabilizes uh.. well, what exactly, the status quo?
In a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Americans believe the effects of global warming are already manifesting or will happen within five years. By a nearly 2:1 margin, Americans believe human activities rather than natural causes explain the rise in the Earth's temperature. But the truth is, attitudes on the environment remain highly partisan: A plurality of Republicans (47%) are positive about environmental conditions, contrasted with only 9% of Democrats, according to the Gallup website. In fact, most Democrats (and independents) are negative about environmental conditions. The same Gallup analysis suggests Democrats are also more likely to be sympathetic to or active in the environmental movement (76% of Democrats vs. 49% of Republicans), and to give priority status to the environment over the economy or energy production.
Sarcasm aside, these numbers are very suggestive. As an environmental convert, they are alarming, because it's my skeptical nature to ponder that the other 52% of Republicans in this poll are either hypocrites or playing possum. Even, when the issue of the environment has always been a Left-leaning issue, the fact is, it was born from the very skirts of capitalism, with traceable roots in the Conservation Movement particularly preached by Theodore Roosevelt, and then eventually sprouted up dramatically in Earth Day in 1970. Sort of like the French Revolution meets Sierra Club. In other words, conservative Republicans influenced its birth, supervised its upbringing and then completely abandoned it, only to be rescued from the dirt by Left-leaning activists in an act of deliverance during the 1960's civil rights movement.
Even today, according to the NY Times, 86 evangelical Christian leaders are now backing a major initiative to fight global warming, yet hard-core Republicans are still skeptical. This could be the single most unifying issue in American politics, not to mention U.S. foreign policy, something the war on terrorism has not been able to accomplish. And I ask myself if not this, then what? And my skeptical nature wanders again, it occurs to me that the Right's stance is a stainless steel shell which can only be transmutable by a collapse on the global economy, which by then, of course, it will be too late to prioritize national dialogue.
May 24, 2007
Global Warming: The last remnants of skepticism
Wish you could go back to 1978 when global warming hysteria in the political spectrum along side the ticking population bomb theory of the 50’s was a poster child issue conceived by the ‘radical’ Left?
Remember FDR’s New Deal? A series of programs whose goals of relief, recovery and reform of the United States economy during the Great Depression was the ultimately architectural design of big government and not the last for that matter, then came the Marshall Plan, etc.
Today’s conservatives are at it again, concluding that global warming is just the latest temptation of aspiring bigger government. However, the same market forces that conservatives deeply believe in are handing the Right a big defeat on global warming, because the scientific findings have become so compelling that even big players like Exxon Mobil and General Motors have stopped questioning the theory.
Needless to say, the scientific evidence is really strong. Climatologists say that according to weather patterns, there is over a 90% likelihood that the increase in temperatures is traceable to human activity. A panel of over 2,000 world scientists concluded the same in March this year. This is no small ice-age, or a cyclical warming of the earth, like conservatives guiltlessly emphasize. This means change, and the only meaningful and effective rollback that can make global warming slow down is big government in the form of policies that directly address it.
Although our understanding of what climate change means for the future is largely theoretical, conservatives cannot keep lucratively resisting calls for regulating greenhouses emissions. Having allied themselves for years with groups proposing “intelligence design” and other crackpot theories, the Right has lost much of their intellectual rigor. President Bush’s White House has been in a constant warfare with scientists and this has damaged their reputation considerably.
If what the Right fears in the global warming action list is a ‘consequential economic meltdown’, then they must accept that this criticism is no longer reputable, given the fact that corporate entities and market forces are joining to bring about economic incentives in developing and distributing sustainable and renewable products and services.
But if their resistance to global warming consensus is a fervor-driven crackpot theory born out of the very same natural fiber of intelligence design, then consider the last skeptics on the endangered list and let’s not allow the oversold imagery of global warming taint our efforts to slow it down.
Remember FDR’s New Deal? A series of programs whose goals of relief, recovery and reform of the United States economy during the Great Depression was the ultimately architectural design of big government and not the last for that matter, then came the Marshall Plan, etc.
Today’s conservatives are at it again, concluding that global warming is just the latest temptation of aspiring bigger government. However, the same market forces that conservatives deeply believe in are handing the Right a big defeat on global warming, because the scientific findings have become so compelling that even big players like Exxon Mobil and General Motors have stopped questioning the theory.
Needless to say, the scientific evidence is really strong. Climatologists say that according to weather patterns, there is over a 90% likelihood that the increase in temperatures is traceable to human activity. A panel of over 2,000 world scientists concluded the same in March this year. This is no small ice-age, or a cyclical warming of the earth, like conservatives guiltlessly emphasize. This means change, and the only meaningful and effective rollback that can make global warming slow down is big government in the form of policies that directly address it.
Although our understanding of what climate change means for the future is largely theoretical, conservatives cannot keep lucratively resisting calls for regulating greenhouses emissions. Having allied themselves for years with groups proposing “intelligence design” and other crackpot theories, the Right has lost much of their intellectual rigor. President Bush’s White House has been in a constant warfare with scientists and this has damaged their reputation considerably.
If what the Right fears in the global warming action list is a ‘consequential economic meltdown’, then they must accept that this criticism is no longer reputable, given the fact that corporate entities and market forces are joining to bring about economic incentives in developing and distributing sustainable and renewable products and services.
But if their resistance to global warming consensus is a fervor-driven crackpot theory born out of the very same natural fiber of intelligence design, then consider the last skeptics on the endangered list and let’s not allow the oversold imagery of global warming taint our efforts to slow it down.
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