Hi, my name is Amy Beck and I am proudly part of the "FourTitude" team. I am pretty excited to see what this class has in store, with discussion and the practical experience working with a social entrepreneur in this community! This week our class was assigned to read a couple of articles. The one that I found the most interesting was a selection from Van Jones' The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. This was from the introduction, titles "Reality Check". I found it most interesting because I never looked at "going green" as a very smart economic decision. It seems obvious to me now, but before all I could see was all of the money our country would have to spend to get everything rolling.
The reality check that Van Jones gives to the reader was that there is not an endless supply of fossil-fuels on this planet, and instead of living only for the present, the people of the world should plan far enough in advance that they are not wondering how to stay warm when the fuel runs out (Jones, 2008, p. 4). The part I especially liked, the economics lover that I am, was how Jones spoke about how this move to making our country more green would supply MUCH needed jobs. "So who will do the hard and noble work of actually building the green economy? The answer: millions of ordinary people, many of whom do not have good jobs right now."(Jones, 2008, p. 9).
I personally believe that one of the major reasons this isn't happening at this moment, as quickly as it should, is because there are certain people (those who are making all of the money off the fossil fuels) who are paying off the innovative thinkers to hold off while they make their millions. This is a huge injustice, and I believe there need to be more bold, and not easily persuaded social entrepreneurs to take up this idea and really make it happen.
REFERENCE LIST:
Jones, V. & Conrad A. (2008). The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
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Although I agree with the idea that we need to go "green" and also that going green can create jobs that can stabilize the economy, I'm not so sure that I agree that it solves all the problems. First, we need to find a way out of dependency on fossil fuels, but we need money to find out problems. I'm OK with government spending if it fixes issues for the long run, and a good government paid program that that could help recycle money back into the economy, but for how long? Second, fossil fuels are finite and it is suggested that solar, wind, and wave energy are all infinite, but if you begin over using these source, can we still say that they are truly infinite?
ReplyDeleteWe as people have to be open minded both to change and reality. Change to keep us ahead and reality to not get ahead of ourselves.