Going Green to Make Some Green

The Dow may be plunging, even as I type this. And I ain't no Warren Buffet, so I have no words of wisdom or comfort to offer, not on the current state of the economy, anyway.

But here's what I can offer: the Future. And if I had even a dollar to invest, and the time to let that green grow, I'd be looking for the next Google... but in the Green Sector.

This isn't just hippie-dippie talk either, here. It's backed up by history. Innovation is Capitalism's best friend. Which is why it boggles my mind that America, which invented the automobile, is now getting its ass kicked by Japan and South Korea in the production of those fuel-efficient cars every fashionable hipster (and responsible consumer) seems to want. What's up with that, Detroit?

Times are too dire to be focusing on "going Green", you say? What with the mess on Wall Street, and wars raging on at least two major fronts...

Nuh-uh. It's all related. Let me be a boring history wonk for a moment, and tell you about a little speech President Jimmy Carter gave on July 15, 1979. In that speech, given just a few months before the 1980 Election (which of course he lost), Carter issued a warning re: our nation's Addiction to Oil. Carter worried that it would eventually destroy our country, economically, militarily, and morally. Reagan, that "Great Communicator", essentially said in response: "Pshaw! There's plenty of oil. And nothing for you, the American people, to worry about." Well. We all know just whom the American people chose to listen to. Because it was easier, and more convenient, to believe Reagan instead. And ignorance is (supposedly) bliss... as they say.

I'm tipping my electoral glove here (again), but I find Obama's talk of an Alternative-Energy based/fueled Economy, and the creation of a New Wave of Green Collar Workers, to be very interesting.... http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/the-obama-energy-speech-annotated/

Because there are important foreign policy implications as well. And I'm not just talking about the Middle East. We already owe hundreds of billions to China due, in large part, to our nation's addiction to oil (Why do you think our hands are kinda tied in Darfur? Even Bush Jr. would like to stop the genocide there, I'll bet). And China has already demonstrated that it is not above being ruthless--take the lead paint in our kids' toys, for example--in its pursuit of the almighty buck. But, stop borrowing money from China, and start showing them how to build a powerfully green and responsibly prosperous economy, and trust me... China will pay attention, and follow our lead.

And let's face it: Addictions can't last. And eventually, the "party" will, and has to, end. We all know that. How do you think we got into this mess in the first place? Just ask any shopoholic, or heroin addict, or the Gordon Gekkos of Wall Street: you'll forever be chasing that "first high", which requires more and more of your drug (or false "energy" source) of choice to attain, until eventually...

... you get dragged, kicking and screaming, into Rehab. By the people who truly care for you. And imho, that's where we are now: on the doorstep of the Rehab Clinic--the real kind, and not those spa-like, Look-at-me-Media-I'm-in-Rehab! facilities some celebrities seem so fond of.

Not very sexy, I know. But, I'll bet there are lots of people out there who will figure out a way to "pitch" this thing in a way that makes it sexy...

So remember kids: you gotta Go Green to make some "green". That's the new New-Wave...