As a purely political matter, jobs before climate change is a no-brainer.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
As a purely political matter, investing in green industries and infrastructure to lessen our dependence on fossil fuel would create jobs. You know, the old kill two birds with one stone trick? Why is hardly anyone of significance suggesting we do that?
Because practically everyone is either stuck in a late Bronze Age mindset where they think God will magically take care of everything, or else in a late 18th century mindset where they think the market will magically take care of everything.
And pixies make the flowers grow.
as a purely political matter, wpa,ccc. just two federal job programs!!
FEDEERAL!!!!!!!!!!
We don’t hire public servants to engage in politics to preserve their own power. We hire them to solve problems.
As a purely practical matter, jobs won’t matter a whole hell of a lot when the interior of the US is reduced to a desert and our coastal cities are swamped by a rising, mucus-choked ocean. The whole jobs vs. environment false dilemma serves to mask the more important (and real) dilemma: survival vs. extinction.
We don’t get to choose between jobs or the environment. At best, we have, as Steven noted, a driving need to find a way to satisfy both needs.
A massive alternative energy infrastructure program is the no-brainer. Solar, wind, and possibly biomass projects would employ a broad range of skills, provide training for the future economy, and bring useful work to every part of the country. Same for mass transit and high-speed rail, rebuilding the electric grid to increase its capacity and efficiency, and turning schools and other public buildings into demo projects for energy self sufficient shelter.
If we can afford useless wars, going to the moon, and continued building of obsolete roads and structures — none of which produce broad-based, future-oriented employment or training — we can afford a massive push to end the fossil-fuel economy starting now.
What will wreck such an obvious solution are two things: the money-driven corruption of the kind we’re seeing right now with healthcare reform, and the failure so far to present climate-change, environment, and the economy as a single problem rather than a bunch of fragments that each has its own constituencies. I think it’s unfortunate that climate change continues to be pushed as if it were somehow separate from the problems of energy, environmental sustainability, and the economy. If lefties/liberals want to work for lasting change, creating a unified and revolutionary energy/environment/work/economy movement is the ultimate battlefield.