The Green Economic Revolution

I was watching one of those CNBC shows a couple of months ago, you know where the Wall Street experts look into a crystal ball to predict the trends of the Dow Jones, and get you to invest all of your hard earned cash in the hottest new IPO, or the just the solid old Blue Chip companies. I actually watch CNBC now more MSNBC, because one of my biggest worries is not the war in Iraq, I think that war is for the most part over for us, but the economy. Anyway, on the day I was watching, a nerdy guy in glasses was speaking of alternative energy, and another guy, a slick looking Wall Street type was basically dismissing ethanol and solar power as un-realistic replacements for fossil fuels. The nerdy guy was passionately pumping alternative energy companies, and used the phrase "Green Economic Revolution" to describe the changes he sees as key to not only sustaining the planet, but also to our own struggling economy. I thought the concept was brilliant, gas is getting more and more expensive, it is going to run out eventually, why not get behind the idea sooner rather than later? If you look at a country like Brazil, you can see where commitment, and government incentives turned the Brazilian ethanol industry into the largest in the world. In 1973, after the first oil embargo, Brazilian leaders wondered how their poor country could sustain growth without energy independence. They have worked on it for the last 4 decades and you can see the results in the economic growth.

Our Green candidate this year is not Ralph Nader, it is Hillary Clinton.

I heard her speak last week, I think she was in Washington where she lost badly to Barak Obama, and she was saying things that made perfect sense, if we are truly committed to taking on the challenge of global warming. She was talking about energy independence, funding for more research for energy efficiency, leading the world in alternative energy, and green collar jobs, to help our own citizens find new jobs. I think maybe she must have been listening to the same CNBC geek that I was, only I think she had the idea a while ago, since she has already been to Brazil to check out the ethanol industry. Her energy plan is the answer to not only the peril we face from climate change, but also the solution to economic growth.

Look, I love Barak Obama, I think that we should all dream big dreams. I agree that Washington needs radical change, there is no doubt. But America also needs solutions. While we are dreaming of better things, we need people who have practical ideas about how to solve the very real problems before us. A Green Economic Revolution will not just save the planet, it might just save the economy. Energy independence will allow us to break free of the stranglehold of OPEC, our reliance on such countries as Saudia Arabia, and bring peace to the Middle East. If we have our own clean sources of energy, there will be no need for a massive military, or wars that cost us precious lives and funds that could be better spent on making lives easier for our nation's families.

The world needs a Green Economic Revolution. America needs Hillary Clinton.

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