Blogs & Ecology

Stephen Roach writes in the New York Times:

The good news is that lines should be short for today’s “first shopping day” of the holiday season. The bad news is more daunting: rising unemployment, weakening incomes, falling home values, a declining stock market, record household debt and a horrific credit crunch. But there is a deeper, potentially positive, meaning to all this: Consumers are now abandoning the asset-dependent spending and saving strategies they embraced during the bubbles of the past dozen years and moving back to more prudent income-based lifestyles.

Warren wrote earlier today "wasn’t it rampant consumption that got us into this mess?"

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, is asking the same question.

None of the politicians seem to want to discuss the fact that consumption is at the root of our environmental problems. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the reasons for that.

Doesn't reducing consumption make perfect sense? Why is it the elephant in the living room? Are people too selfish to consume less? How do we move towards a less consumptive society? How much would it help with the climate crisis?

The LEED-certified Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Health & Healing

Few people know how to pull a rabbit out of a hat better than Felix Rohatyn, who is credited with saving New York City in its fiscal crisis thirty years ago. Today in Forbes he calls for an "investment oriented stimulus package", noting that paying for infrastructure is not a bailout but an investment in the future. After the usual suspects like roads, bridges, transit and schools, he goes on:

Prince Charles meets Asimo

Prince Charles is current champ in our quote of the day count, beating out Tom Friedman and our beloved Michele Bachmann. While in Japan on a visit he delivers another:

"It is not an exaggeration to say that we face the biggest challenge our planet has ever seen, literally a battle for survival.

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Source: TreeHugger

We have gone on about how we need a green new deal. FDR biographer Conrad Black writes from his Florida retreat about the scale of the FDR new deal; imagine if this much energy and effort was directed at insulating our buildings and rebuilding our transportation and energy systems.

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Mark Roper at Triple Pundit asks: With all the hype over green collar jobs, where are all the green collar workers? He was at a conference recently and learned that the photovoltaic industry is facing a shortage of workers.

Civilian Conservation Corps Working With Bricks

We keep saying that the best source of energy is conservation and efficiency; by coincidence, Franklin Roosevelt set up the Conservation Corps to build ditches, plant crops and reforest America in the Great Depression. Now leader of the free world Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK is doing the same, creating a new Conservation Corps to conserve energy- training thousands to insulate attics.

Ok so we have all heard of white collar and blue collar jobs, but what is all this about green collars? In the rough times of economic downturn, its important to keep focused on the next wave now hitting the marketplace: Green Collar Jobs!

Economic forecasters are seeing the “Green Collar Job” market on the horizon and expect it to fuel our economy as the manufacturing and service industry is falling.  So perk up all you college students out there and start doing your research.  You could be the next leaders of this exciting and revolutionary industry!

George Bush said this weekend " experts would say there isn't a recession" (so why the zillion dollar bailout?) but others think we are already in it. (Visit Planet Green to find ways to get recession ready and how to spend your tax credit wisely)

Have you changed any of your habits in the face of these challenges, particularly when it comes to "green"purchases?