Posts Tagged ‘Economy’

I keep saying that we need to make steps towards improvement that are sustainable. It appears that Atlas has a similar opinion.

Here’s an excerpt from an article about the first hybrid moving van.

There it is right there - economics and environmentally friendly working together in order to create sustainability. Let’s hope that we see more of these trucks on the road in the near future (hauling environmentally friendly products).

In fact, consulting on these trucks might be a nice new profit center for Atlas – just be responsible about it and don’t overcharge. Remember, it is about the environment.

You can read the rest of the article at 14WFIE

Finally… I finally hear about someone who wants to use some of the federal stimulus money to help conserve energy. Not to spend it on some expensive alternative energy project - but to simply encourage building “green homes” and retrofit existing homes. What a practical approach

Here’s one comment made about Jacksonville’s plans with regards to 8 million dollars of stimulus money.

She even went on to talk about sustaining the projects and staff in the future. Here’s someone who is thinking not just about the environment, not just about the economy, but both the environment and the economy and how they can work together.

You can read the rest of the article at WOKV.Com.

Sustainable?

What does it mean to be sustainable? Does it mean that we are able to support and maintain ourselves environmentally? Does it mean that we can support and maintain ourselves economically?

I would argue that it means both.

We can not charge ahead with environmental changes that we can not support in the long run economically.

This is illustrated in a recent study conducted at Juan Carlos University in Madrid by Gabriel Calzada. He points out that as we push towards “greener” sources of power the economy suffers. This is because governments typically subsidize green projects.

In fact they subsidize them extremely heavily. The end result is that organizations are being paid up to 11 times the going rate for comparable services and products if they make use of green products and energy sources.

Now the need to move towards environmentally friendly solutions seems to justify such aggressive behavior. Unfortunately, as in all aspects of life, there are consequences from such actions.

Every dollar that the government overspends on “green” solutions is a dollar that can not be applied to other projects – even green projects. In fact, Calzada calculates that every time a “green” job is created, 2-1/2 conventional jobs are lost because of the extra funding required.

This is simply not sustainable. When people lose their jobs they will be unable to pay to heat their homes. Do you think that they are thinking about what damage to the environment will occur if they light a fire or take some more drastic action?
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