Editor’s note by Dick Kelly: Jon Waalkes lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with his wife, Kim, Jon has a passionate interest in making this earth a healthy and prosperous place for his future yet-to-be grandchildren to live when they are old enough to be responsible caretakers for our beautiful planet.
I recently finished reading The Green Collar Economy just in time. Because, for over the past month, the need for action at the level that the author, Van Jones, described has been ratcheted up a few notches. As the Senate debates the current stimulus package, the opportunity to make the changes described in this book is a distinct possibility. At least, I hope so.
Converting from a carbon/oil based economy to a green-collar economy and the subsequent use of renewable energy to power our lives, I believe, will not happen if the governments of the world don’t dramatically change the incentives and funding behind the change. This change must start with the United States. 
As one of the big abusers of the world’s environment, our country must change in order to have the world follow, and to persuade others by our standards and purchasing power.
The opportunity is now! The challenge is to make it financially viable for individuals to participate, businesses to start up, and communities to change. This is where the federal government needs to get involved. The government needs to spend on green initiatives, finance community spending, and rebate individual consumers for energy improvements to their homes and transportation.
In addition, the government must accelerate spending in research and development into alternative energies, as the efficiency model of 2020 that will finally cut our addiction to oil has yet to be developed. This is where the stimulus bill should be headed – real jobs, right now.
Tax breaks will not create stimulus. The old conservative model of the trickle down economy is obsolete. The tax breaks for the wealthy will only result in bigger investment portfolios—investments that don’t equate to jobs for the poorest of our society. It only equates to a CEO, with a bloated salary and bonus structure, making layoff decisions based on a quarterly dividend for the portfolio holders. This is why we need to give incentives to spending in green technologies as our way out of the ecological and economic mess we are in.
The other point of Van Jones’s argument is to develop a system that penalizes violators. The government needs to make it painful to these business offenders. Tax breaks to oil companies need to be reversed and a carbon tax/cap and trade system needs to be developed. The government’s role should be to accelerate penalization without creating economic difficulties for the poorest of Americans. To do this, the economic price of alternatives needs to be subsidized for the short term.
As I read The Green Collar Economy, I kept hoping the author would tell me about a successful, green collar, free-enterprise business model—a company that could be replicated over and over across America, rewarding investors and providing long-term financial opportunities to stakeholders (vendors, employees, and community). However, that company doesn’t yet exist – at least not one that doesn’t cater to just the eco-conscious elite of our society.
The serious deficit that renewable energy must overcome is witnessed by the recent layoffs at many of the wind turbine manufacturing plants. As the economy has turned downward, so have the employment levels of many startup turbine manufacturing companies that have created new hope in many communities across America. The financial incentives of alternative energy are not present at this time, requiring that the government must fully support the change to alternative energy in order to level the playing field. Government backing will make wind, solar, and geothermal energy a financial reality for everyone.
The author of The Green Collar Economy did identify some non-profit organizations that are doing well, but this approach alone is not going to cut it. Things must change, and that change must be initiated by Washington. It appears that we will need to ask our government to act with the power to both move mountains and stop the removal of mountain tops!
While I really enjoyed reading the book, it is a bit scary knowing that the roadblocks to achieving a green collar economy are so huge and some of the solutions still very far from our grasp. However, I look forward to hearing from other readers of JustOneOpinion.com on their views of the reality of a green collar economy?
Jon Waalkes
PDF 
Jon,
Welcome to Just One Opinion. I hope that we will see more article contributions from you in the future.
I’m sure that there are dozens of companies that are ready to take off and get our “green economy” moving in the right direction, but for some reason most of their stories are never told on national TV or are rarely mentioned in the major newspapers. When someone comes up with a new product or new idea, if they get any publicity at all it seems that they end up on the same pages as stories about UFOs, sea serpents, and hot-dog eating contests.
There was a recent story about the Fisker automobile. If you blinked twice you would have missed it and the story died almost before it was telecast. This small Irvine, California company produces hybrid automobiles that are capable of over 120 mph, look very similar to an Aston-Martin coupe, and can achieve an average of 100 miles per gallon. If a small independent company with limited private funding can build such a car, why can’t heavily financed and government supported companies like Ford and GM do even better?
Some months back I happened to see a brief news story on our local PBS station that mentioned a small family-owned company located on the outskirts of California’s Bay Area metropolis. They make extremely thin and flexible solar panels that could be used to overlay a home’s roof or even the roof tops or building sides of larger commercial buildings. They are not developing these products – they are producing them. What is holding them back and keeping the prices so high for their product? Government restrictions on certain materials, EPA approvals, and local building code barriers.
It’s not the small independent private sector that can’t do the job – they’ve proved that they can – over and over again! But while the money changers and con men of Wall Street get easy access to our Treasury, these small companies are thwarted in their efforts to get their product on the market.
Here are two examples of companies that could be duplicated easily throughout the major cities of our country. With just a little help financially and getting government restrictions eased or lifted altogether, companies like these could be flooding the markets with green products that would be both profitable and economical to the broader population.
Oh, and by the way, Dick Kelly would love this: I mentioned to Dick that one of my ideas was to place solar panels on the flat upper surfaces of automobiles so that the batteries could be charged while the cars were parked on the street, in driveways, and in public parking lots. The Fisker automobile has solar panels attractively placed on the car’s roof and hood surfaces. Supposedly, 8 hours in the sun will produce enough electricity to power the car 30-40 miles on its electric motors – electric motors that combined put out almost 400 horse power.
Good to have your input. Write more soon.
We need to do everything in our power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.We have so much available to use such as wind and solar as well as technologies to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. There could be no better investment in than to invest in energy independence. Create clean cheap energy,create millions of BADLY needed new green jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.The high cost of fuel this past year did serious damage to our society and economy. Record numbers of jobs and homes have been lost due to the direct impact on our economy.Oil is finite.We are using it globally at the rate of 2 X faster than new oil is being discovered. Added to the strain on our supplies foreign countries are bursting in populations and becoming modern.China and India alone are expected to add another 3 million vehicles to their highways in the next 2 decades. I just read a fantastic book called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now by Jeff Wilson.Great Book!
http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com
Jon, to add fuel to this conversation, no pun intended, the February 9 issue of Time magazine ran an article on page 50 entitled, “The Next Big Biofuel? Jatropha seeds produce clean-burning diesel (without driving up your grocery bill).” The article goes on to say, “Renewable energy, it turns out, does grow on trees. The fruit pods plucked from jatropha trees have seeds that produce clean-burning diesel fuel. But unlike corn and other biofuel sources, the jatropha doesn’t have to compete with food crops for arable land. Even in the worst of soils, it grows like weeds. Sounds too good to be true? That’s why brothers Paul and Mark Dalton chose to name their Florida jatropha company My Dream Fuel.” India, Australia, China, Brazil, and Kenya have already embraced it. Two months ago, Air New Zealand used a 50-50 blend of jatropha and aviation fuel to successfully fly a Boeing 747. Roy Beckford, a University of Florida researcher says that jatropha “is a superior bio-diesel.”
A National Biodiesel Conference was held on February 1, so we should be hearing much more in the weeks ahead about the potential of jatropha in our countries effort to “go green.” At least, I hope so.
I’ve enjoyed reading the comments. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts.
John – your example of Fisker Automotive is right on target for where we need to go. I had the pleasure of getting a very close look at the prototype of the Fisker Karma and discussing this car in detail with Hendrik Fisker at the 2008 North American Auto Show in Detroit. I wish I could say I have a deposit on one of these beautiful cars, the reality follows my argument that the current technology can only be afforded by the Eco-conscious elite. The Karma suggested starting price is $80,000. While this is a good $25,000 less than the Lexus 460h hybrid, no one has yet to purchase a Fisker and the technology needed to have the first cars available at the end of 2009 is questionable. (By the way, the reason it looks like an Aston Martin, is that Hendrik Fisker designed Aston Martins while at Ford and he may have been inspired on his way to work as his daily driver is an Aston Martin as well). Fisker also plans to one up the option of the solar roof by having a solar panel option for your home that would charge all day and when you get back home at night you can plug in and recharge your Fisker Karma off your reserved solar energy. In theory, if you don’t drive beyond 40 -50 miles a day, you may hardly ever need to purchase gas again. I do like the solar roof idea, however, Volvo and others have used these for years as a warm weather option to circulate air in a parked car so the interior temperature on an Arizona summer day doesn’t reach the level where you get second degree burn from touching the steering wheel when you get in your car.
The technology Fisker plans to use is at very similar to the planned 2010 Chevy Volt. The speculation on this car is that it will cost $40,000 when introduced and GM will be adding a suitcase full of cash in the trunk of the car in equivalent losses (if GM exists by the end of the year and the car every makes it to production, both are heavily questioned). At $40K for a Chevy Volt, this is a far cry from replacing the 1977 Caprice Classic which the poorest in our society are burdened with driving at low entry cost (and a very high energy and ecological cost).
The other example of the solar companies that are springing up is another great emerging market. However, as you have pointed out, the restrictions of entry into this market are holding this industry back at this time. There are successful models in California and Arizona that install solar panels on homes and essentially sell the lower (or replacement cost) power through solar leases based on performance out put to the homeowners. These are great programs that need to be encouraged across the country for all members of society. This is the type of stimulus that should be under debate.
As I read the news, I can’t help but wonder why we are not allocating even more to alternative energy spending and less to tax cuts and welfare. We need good (green) jobs where people are off unemployment and assistance, and are paying taxes. Minimal tax cuts for those of us fortunate enough to have jobs and are able to pay taxes are not going to have near the impact that a person in a good paying job (paying fair taxes) would have in stimulating the economy.
Dick – with regard to the Time article “The Next Big Biofuel? Jatropha, this does look like a promising alternative, and I have my doubts. This is a substitute for an existing model of inefficiency. The ability to harness the energy for the nuts of this plant still requires processing and resources to feed it into our energy cycle. I see this as a possible transition substitute or a base for the hydrocarbon molecular structures that we will continue to need for plastics and pharmaceuticals long after we have created a new energy model for heating, processing, and transportation.
For an interesting read, I recommend looking at the study on Michigan’s Wind Power Potential published by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University.
landpolicy.msu.edu/modules.php?name=Documents&op=viewlive&sp_id=812
There is the potential to power the entire upper Midwest from offshore wind turbines with in the Great Lakes. While this is unrealistic, the thought of powering the State of Michigan’s needs could be realized with the proper legislation and backing. Now that would create jobs!
Jon, I love the clarity of your thought. We all (except Bush, Cheney) want to wean ourselves from oil, particularly foreign oil, as soon as it practicable. But, as businessmen, we know the profit motive is essential in our present economic paradigm, and therein lies the rub. Thus the need for intelligent govenment intervention; an oxymoron by many standards, but we can hope, and give government our advise.