Imagine a $700 Billion Bailout for the Environment
The economic crisis currently facing the nation has caused a flurry of political action. From McCain “suspending” his campaign to massive bailouts, the response has been immediate and serious. Even though the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street was rejected by the House of Representatives, which would have been the largest US government financial market intervention in history, I can’t help but wonder what a $700 billion bailout would do for the environment. What if the US government had responded to the twenty years of dire warnings by James Hansen in the same manner as the current economic crisis? Such an aggressive response may have stopped climate change and saved our economy through green jobs and technology.
>> See also: Why Van Jones should be Obama’s Secretary of Prosperity
Government scientists, like James Hansen, have been muzzled for warning us that the Earth “is nearing… a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.” Sounds like the sky is falling to me, but when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says it, the government takes note. As Bruce Marks, founder and CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) explains:
Paulson says the sky is falling, we have to bail out Bear Stearns, $30 billion; the sky is falling, we have to bail out Fannie and Freddie, $200 billion; the sky is falling, we have to bail out AIG, $85 billion.
I can’t fathom $700,000,000,000. Jon Stewart told us $700 billion is equal to around 2,000 McDonald’s apple pies per individual American. The investment could turn our economy green on a larger scale rather than fatten us up on apple pies. As Van Jones explains:
It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America’s No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. … You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.
Former presidential candidate John Edwards and the NRDC proposed the April 2008 $100 billion stimulus package be spent on green infrastructure investments, such as “retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency, expanding mass transit and freight rail, constructing ’smart’ electrical grid transmission systems, wind power, solar power, and next-generation biofuels.” The program was even proposed to be paid for by auctions of carbon permits and would have created two million jobs!
What could 700 billion do for the environment if invested in a green economy? The economic crisis is real, and I don’t know the solution, but climate change is also real. I just wonder when the environment will get its bailout.
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You couldn’t have put it any better!!!
Peter you obviously just got off the yellow bus
Don’t worry, Psycho Sarah and grandpa McBush will rescue us by delivering millions to the rich and billions to China. When the rest of us can’t afford power we can cut down the trees and burn them for heat and make room for more McMansions maybe?
A lot of the republitards don’t even believe the earth is more than 6,000 years old, they also believe Armageddon is just around the corner and that the earth was given to them to lay waste to.
The real irony is that the average blue collar republitard will end up with his job overseas and his house being foreclosed on him.
Vote Democrat and cross your fingers, at the very worst they can’t be as bad as 4 more years of this pestilence. If Obama can create a new green economy and actually work on the power grid it would be a good thing. We have $10B per month for nonsense now, why not for our own country?
10,500,000 US households? No, it’s 150,000,000 US households. Your math is off by a factor of more than 10. Very careless — ruined what could have been a good point.
I don’t think anything can or will be done about it and we will all live to regret that mistake. A lot of the technology to help the environment existed for quite some time. The government just let their greed and gluttony rule their choices. Unfortunately the world we know as earth will pay the price and we will all just sit and watch the consequences that come from it knowing it’s too late to do something about it. It all starts at home. If you ever walked on Coney Island board walk you will notice that the waste baskets are virtually empty but the ground surrounding it has nothing but trash. We can’t even teach our children a simple thing like how to use a waste basket. What makes you think they’ll conserve water or electricity or any of the multiple things that will help the environment.
Your numbers are wrong. It’s about 2,000 dollars per person (or about $4,000 per taxpayer) so $66,666.67 per household you would have 30 people in your house! With interest, it could be up to $7000 per person. It IS a lot of money, but it’s nowhere near THAT MUCH! This misinformation is why no one is supporting this bailout. Of course we can’t afford 66,000 each household (or the ridiculous $400,000 I saw in an email). But $2,000 to $4,000 is something the country CAN manage. Get your facts straight - please! I’m an environmentalist myself, but this is ridiculous!
Ugh. Fix your math. 6000 is still a lot, sure, but no where near as impressive as you false make it out to be. There are over 100 million households.
I got a chain email that cited better uses for the AIG bailout (85 billion) and suggested every american could get $425000. When in actuality, it’s $425.
YES! But it unfortunately will not happen until we can squeeze the very last drop out of our expendable natural resources. It’s just how people are. They never put up that warning sign on the hairpin turn until enough people die on it. Same thing with everything else. Until it becomes a realized threat it won’t get any worthwhile attention. Am I a pessimist? Nope. I just see things how they are.
Photoshopped.
“if America only had 10.5 million households each household would need to average around 30 people to make up the 300+ million population in America.”
…LOL. That would be crazy.
“What good is Obama’s #1 green policy if terrorists come over here and wipe out the people, they may even take out a few trees in the process, wouldn’t that be terrible?”
Tsila, you’re statement basically implies that this country should just stick its head in the sand and give up and not worry about doing the right thing for the planet. I don’t know about you but I don’t plan my life around whether or not a terrorist is going to come destroy everything. You shouldn’t watch that propaganda crap on Fox, Tsila.