If you’ve ever read my blog before, you know how I feel about the word GREEN. I’m getting kinda sick of it. It’s all a scam, Sam. Don’t fall for the hype.
The biggest political promise these days is that the future is in Green Jobs. There was even a Green Jobs Czar (temporarily).
But what does this mean? It’s supposed to mean that we can kick-start an entire new industry producing green products and creating millions of new jobs. So, is it working?
Apparently, much of the stimulus money that was earmarked for green jobs and renewable energy products went overseas:
“The Department of Energy estimated that 82,000 jobs have been created and has acknowledged that as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion of manufacturing tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in countries including China, South Korea and Spain, rather than in the United States.
Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, said much of the green stimulus funding was “squandered.”
“Large grants to build green buildings don’t generate many new jobs, except for a few architects,” he said. “Subsidies for windmills and solar panels created lots of jobs in China,” but few at home.
In one of several embarrassing disclosures for the administration, a report last fall by American University‘s Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 11 U.S. wind farms used their grants to purchase 695 out of 982 wind turbines from overseas suppliers.”
Other reports show that college graduates entering the workforce hoping to go into green industries are not finding work. Why? Because the White House is trying to push an agenda that is not a high priority to most Americans.
I repeat: Don’t fall for the hype.
How about a real green job, like vegetable gardening?
That’s something we can all sink our teeth into.
It's not a scam. The fossil-fuel based energy companies want you to think it is though. These powerful corporations are fighting the push to go green tooth and nail because going green would undermine their existence and profits. The White House and the government are paying lip service to green energy, promising to create jobs etc but its all talk. They have no intention of doing so. Both parties are the paid off servants of the energy companies. And are there to do whatever the engery companies want.
Proof? According to the NY Times Oct 28 2010 in the 5 years prior to Oct 2010 the Interior Dept had approved more than 73,000 oil and gas leases. By contrast the Interior Dept has only green lighted 1 offshore wind project and not a single solar project.
Also regarding the Kyoto Protocol – it expires next year and the US has never signed onto it. In fact the US, Russia, China and Japan want to turn the Kyoto Protocols binding limits on carbon emissions into voluntary non-binding emissions controls.
Don't fall for the energy companies propaganda.
Stephen: I'm not falling for anyone's propaganda. The point to this post is that so many others ARE. The President pushes green jobs as the answer to our economic woes, puts money in the stimulus bill for them, gives money to college students to go into green industries, and then the students graduate only to find that there's not much of a market.
The scam I'm referring to is the enourmous amount of money that is spent convincing Americans that we aren't patriotic if we don't use cloth grocery bags, or buy flourescent light bulbs, or recycle, or believe Al Gore. The U.S. Government has played into this notion and is spending our tax dollars promoting an idea that has largely been proven false. Celebrities push it as some kind of religion.
Schoolchildren are taught to save the planet while math and science grades are failing. Nick Jr. and PBS Kids devotes whole shows to recycling and turning off the water and the lights. It's become a national mindset. And average Americans, who don't think for themselves, buy into it wholeheartedly.
That's the scam I'm referring to. That's the propaganda that everyone is falling for.
And that's why I say "Think Outside…"