Low-carbon vs. Fossil Fuel Economy

What will we do?Will creating the “green” economy actually net jobs or will it just destroy the already fragile and crumbling employment numbers. This is the debate taken up by Reuters today. And I want to reprint their lead sentence in full, to see if you all get the same thing from it that I do:

“Leaders at companies that develop low-carbon energy told a Senate panel that climate legislation would create millions of new jobs, but lawmakers from fossil-fuel dependent states said the bill would hit employment in the traditional energy economy.”

*Low carbon energy company leaders are saying that climate legislation will create  millions of new jobs.

*Lawmakers from fossil-fuel dependent states said the bill would hit employment in the traditional economy.

Um, yeah.

Does everyone else see that there is no real debate there, that there is a massive opportunity to transition the people in the traditional energy economy to the low-carbon energy economy? This is not brain surgery. Retrain. Create. Think about how much time and money is going to be spent arguing about this entire process, all the while there will be lobbyists trying to convince us all that coal can be clean and that the folks who work in the mines don’t need health insurance anyway. (Ok, stay on topic here, right?)- but that’s the point… we are seeing the convergence of three realms: financial fallout politics merging with the new environmental economics merging with the healthcare reform movement- it’s all the same thing. Is our country one that is interested in being a caretaker or a user- will we sustain ourselves or use each other up?

Taken in that context, the question about low-carbon and traditional energy jobs seems like the definitive issue of our time. Will we decide to make a push for the green economy, and when we do, what will we push for and what will that look like? Or, will we choose to fight for every last ounce of fossil fuel work and worth, keep it going until it collapses in on itself and we don’t have anything in the wings waiting to take its place.

Who are we, anyway? What does it mean that this is even a debate in our country? Are we too far removed from the concept of a collective soul by our ceaseless pursuit of the American dream of the individual to think of the green economy as a necessary option? Is it a band-aid on an amputated arm? Or heart? What gives, America? If the chips are going down on the table, who’s holding the cards?

Who’s going to keep their poker face?

When I wake up in the morning it’s cold at my house. We choose not to turn the heat on at night. It’s not a financial decision. It’s a supply-based decision. Our energy comes from fossil fuels and we make the choice to be a little chilly in the morning to reduce that energy use. If we confidently knew that it came from solar, we could wake up warmer and feel good about it.

The debate isn’t really about which kind of energy should get funding. It’s about when we are going to get around to using the money for the transition.