Earth Equity News

Green the Bailout. Commentary by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes, September 28, 2008. "Yes, this bailout is necessary. This is a credit crisis, and credit crises involve a breakdown in confidence that leads to no one lending to anyone. You don't fool around with a credit crisis. You have to overwhelm it with capital. Unfortunately, some people who don't deserve it will be rescued. But, more importantly, those who had nothing to do with it will be spared devastation. You have to save the system... But that is not the point of this column. The point is, we don't just need a bailout. We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering... Indeed, when this bailout is over, we need the next president -- this one is wasted -- to launch an E.T., energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy -- from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats. In a green economy, we would rely less on credit from foreigners 'and more on creativity from Americans,' argued Van Jones, president of Green for All, and author of the forthcoming The Green Collar Economy."