June 2007 Article From the D/FW Metroplex Alternative Energy Caucus :
Green vs. Classic Economics
Green Economics is comprised of three axioms:
- 1. It is impossible to expand forever into a finite space.
- 2. It is impossible to take forever from a finite resource.
- 3. Everything on the surface of the Earth is interconnected.
. .
Green Economics is an ever expanding movement that is seen to be encroaching into
Classic Economics turf. Currently it is being resisted somewhat successfully by classic
economists who counter that Green Economics is a fad and controversial at best.
However, there is a continuous climate of erosion to that resistance. That is because
environmental science and common sense has pointed out the three primary axioms of
Green Economics place limits on classic economics which cannot rationally be disputed
by classic economic theorists or practitioners; their Achilles Heel is that in fact that
Traditional Economic Theory is ruled by the basic premise of scarcity of resources.
Scarcity of Resources are natural laws of supply and demand that set the price point of
goods and services, in the free marketplace Scarcity of Doctors and Diamonds make
them expensive. Abundance, of sand and gravel make these items cheap, on the other
hand. Everything that is marketable or for sale finds it's price point based on the laws of
supply and demand for that supplied good or service.
As example of how Green Economics applies: 60 watt incandescent light bulbs
costing 25 cents retail each can no longer compete with equivalent compact fluorescent
bulbs costing $1.98 each, as consumers discover that they will save an average $35.00
in energy and reduce 8,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere,
over a 5 year span. The current trend of major changes in consumer buying habits in
the retail market place has driven the price of incandescent light bulbs even lower, due
to their overabundance, because of a major shift in consumer buying habits who are
now passing up incandescent bulbs, in ever increasing numbers, for Compact
Fluorescent Lamps, instead.
.
Conversely, because CFL's are so popular, many production streams have created
and ramped up, exceeding the demand for these now popular lamps and the result is
that CFL price points have actually lowered and they are about 50% cheaper than a
decade ago for the same generic type. And that is BECAUSE production exceeds
demand to a marginal degree in the open marketplace, based on the Law of Supply
and Demand.
.
The net result of reduced electric demand, as outlined above, is a ramped-down need
for more coal fired plants electric plants to be built and a reduced carbon dioxide
footprint for the country as a whole. In turn this stresses the public utilities who are
profit motivated to build more and produce more electricity without a discernible need
for this action.
.
As a result artificial demand is created by power companies by taking "old plants" offline
during peak demand to create rolling black-outs and thus there are public outcries for
more electric plants to be built by consumers who are not aware that they are being
manipulated by the utilities, directly. In turn, it is not in the interests of utilities to fund
enhanced education in the market area of their service because the less educated their
customers and future customers, the easier to manipulate them. Thus they end off on
contributions to scholarships, special projects for schools, etc. They use the excuse
that they don't have the money for those things anymore because Public Utility
Commissions have tied their hands.
.
The point of the above is to illustrate the Green Economics are confrontational and
revolutionary in nature. Only through self-education and awareness can Green
Economic practices be implemented and melded into the world business and consumer
infrastructure without turning the change into exercises in guerrilla warfare skirmishing.
.
Public Utilities, the transportation and auto industry's, the energy export and import
and production conglomerates are just a few examples of industry's in the throws of
battle against consumers over the advent of Green Economics. The United States
government whose elected officials receive campaign funding from business lobbies
has been committing Psi-war with its constituents in order stave off the pressure for it to
change its mindset use of Traditional Economics, which would make our country
accountable for our astounding exploitation of the environment and our world trade
partners as well as other nations of the world.
.
Green Economics adds into and melds quality and sustainability of environment
into the Classic Economic mix. Green Economics does not dispute Traditional
Economics; rather it includes environmental cause and effect issues as an expanded
function of simpler classic supply and demand economics. In truth, the raw materials for
economics of any kind come from the far corners of the globe and by definition all
economics are global interactions at their roots.
.
Using Green Economics, the heretofore disregarded impact on the air that all plant,
animal and human life breathes on earth becomes an economic function of the energy
and goods we consume in our daily lives. For consumers, the energy for these things is
supplied for the most part by carbon dioxide emitting generation facilities and forged in
factories from that energy. Acid rain downwind from the coal fired generators of the
whole country not only impact the forests and cities of the Midwest and Eastern
Seaboard of the United States; acid rain also impacts the sea life of the Atlantic and
disrupts the weather of Western Europe and Asia and the Eastern Pacific.
.
"Cheap Coal Energy from Texas and Appalachia and western Canada" has an
immense hidden cost in terms of reduced forestation and their forest denizens. It raises
Atlantic seafood costs and renders inedible many species of sea life. As well has the
effect of fomenting political and economic unrest in formerly stable Northern
Hemisphere trade partners who are feeling the impact of pollution on their resources,
Downwind and Down-current from the U.S.A.
.
Fertilizer use in the Midwest for increased yields of hybrid corn-to-grow-bio-fuel has an
impact by increasing the inpatient counts in hospitals along the Mississippi River and by
the ever widening size of the dead zone around the mouth of the Mississippi River Delta
which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Likewise the widespread practice of bagging
consumer goods at points of sale in plastic bags has created rafts of floating plastic
discards in all oceans, some that are larger than many countries. The plastic is none
organic and inert to all intents. Thus only the constant jostling and motion caused by
floating in ocean waves and storms eventually breaks plastic down into micro-sand;
which is breathed and ingested by the food chain and returns to all consumers'
stomachs and kidneys where it clogs our bodies with it's debris. There is no viable way
of escaping it now that it is produced and distributed into the realities which are the
green economic world.
.
With Green Economics, it has been recognized that the political unrest that can be
fomented in terrorist sympathizer countries is paid for with funding from barrels of oil for
automobile fuel; which is purchased by and exported to foreign trade partners. Oil and
Natural Gas production has become a function of negative capital risk in the open
market place when connects the fact that terrorist acts are funded by these oil revenue
profits.
.
Sweet Crude is also the commodity which eventually becomes carbon emissions; which
has much the same affect as the economic effects of drugs. Like drugs it is causing the
not so gradual suppression of the lives of those that "benefit" from being high
consumers of Sweet Crude products such as gasoline and plastic and fertilizer to name
a fraction of the products created from it. When barrels of sweet crude grow high
enough in price, the purchase power of Foreign Arabic oil interests, makes the sale
price of the average American home owner only a function of their current need, It is no
longer a function of their afford ability.
.
Likewise, cash to pay for goods manufactured in China is shunted instead into buying
exorbitantly priced gasoline, thus building up a multi-trillion dollar credit crisis with
China. China's citizens currently buy more autos than the U.S.and soon they will be
driving up the price of oil for gasoline to even dizzier heights. No U.S. Citizen has the
cash to repay China for its debt if China were to call in that debt, because American
surplus cash was spent on gasoline and now on maxed-out credit card debt for
gasoline during the last price crises for that product. That fact contributed in no small
measure to the current economic meltdown that has spread from the U.S. to the whole
world. There are also a growing consensus that the demand for oil and natural gas
energy will drive China and other countries into a world war with western powers for
control of those products. These examples are tied together by all three Green
Economics Axioms...
.
While amoral global business interests pay millions for ads that lie about their
environmental sensitivity, our air and water and food and homes are being poisoned in
ever increasing increments as their products are used by end-consumers. The ads use
bull-baiting techniques and much like a bull fighter swirling a cap to capture attention,
most consumers are ignorant to the fact that while these products may be
manufactured in the midst of pristine habitats, they are missing the point that
they-themselves, the end users, are poisoning the atmosphere, water table and the
globe by their personal use of those products...
.
While the dollar cost for fossil energy that drives economic engines, historically has
been relatively cheap, its ecological cost is enormous. As it happens, in the face of
emergent technology the cost, in terms of carbon footprint growth, is no longer
necessary. Energy-neutral building construction; Tidal generators, stream and riverbed
mounted Generators; Multi-junction Photo Voltaic and Focused Solar tracking steam
generation as well as solar water pre-heaters and Wind Turbine power generation and
Geothermal Energy are all clean, zero carbon footprint technologies just waiting for
universal acceptance as energy generators of preference. By a simple act of legislation
mandating that all new municipal vehicles be fitted with batteries for commuting
distances and that they be distributed-energy capable, an almost immediate 20%
increase in electric storage capability would rapidly become available without the need
for one Nuclear or Coal Fired generation plant being built to create that energy.
Municipalities can easily mandate building incentives that make energy neutral
construction in their city the preferred method.
.
It is only the profits underwritten and guaranteed by state legislators and the state
appointed regulatory bodies of utility organizations that impede the phase-over to
alternative energy in this country and those that follow their lead or count on our lack of
acumen on this subject. A recent public relations coupe was done by Energy Future
Holdings when it announce that it would fund the installation of 1,400 solar panel
systems for its electric utility customers. It's alleged purpose was to build the
intermediate businesses up that contract and install these systems, because that was
very much lacking in the state of Texas where this initiative would be piloted. It failed to
mention that it will be the latest in a series of enterprises to start up such projects which
has had the historical effect of getting good PR and then pulls the plug as soon as any
real interest is ginned up on this area. Thus putting several start up solar businesses
out of business, once again, forth with.
.
Putting such anecdotal instances aside: Once zero carbon footprint sources of energy
production become mainstream, the cost/benefit ratio economies of scale will improve
at a rapid clip. Some European countries have eclipsed the U.S. Economy in spite of
having no oil or coal reserves. Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland on a massive scale, and
others such as France, new to this mindset, to name a few. They have been able to do
this BECAUSE they have already phased into alternative, zero carbon footprint, energy
resources (Solar/Wind/Geothermal/Nuclear... In that order.).
.
For vehicles, current Lithium Ion leading edge battery packs, some with 16 minute
recharge capability, that can convert already high mileage hybrid cars, trucks and
buses with mileage in the 30 to 55 mile range into plug-in capable cars, trucks and
buses able to deliver 100+ miles of mileage, now. Coming on-stream during this year
and during 2009 are a number of "Micro" Zero Emission Cars, as well. "Tree Huggers"
and other environmental activists are telling us not to overlook improving and
enhancing current automobile efficiencies, as well.
.
We have the means to wean off of fossil burning energy, we just apparently did not
have the will to affect a major change toward Green Economics. That time is now.
.
It should be clear by now that no social being on earth can avoid their responsibility to
our common environment. It is time for individuals like you and I and organizations to
evolve our thinking and actions to accept Green Economic axioms. We must forever
make them an integral part of our decision making. It is incumbent on each one of us to
supplant and set aside elected officials and organizations upon which we overly depend
that cannot or will not adapt or adopt green initiatives. We must make changes
ourselves and make our representatives adopt Green Economics. It is time to step up
or find and appoint, vote for and support those that can evolve into a green,
sustainable future.
.
Old fossils and fossil energy use are on their way to extinction if they have not already
arrived. I for one choose to adapt, survive and create an environment now, that future
generations can survive well in, as well, while improving my own lifestyle. In the simplest
terms, every compact bulb one installs or convinces another to use is a step toward
that evolution. Every deciduous plant one helps grow on a buildings' south or west side
is also a viable effort toward that end. Start.
.
Editorial opinion written by: J Warren Richardson green.metroplex@yahoo.com
--
Posted in June 2007 By J. Warren Richardson to Metroplex Alternative Energy Caucus
Revised here: 2/21/2009
|
|