If you are all GREEN'd out with the GREEN theme, and the word GREEN, then you may want to quietly back your GREEN hybrid out of here, because we are talking GREEN! Oh wait, you are an average American in the median income range of around $24,000 (BLS) and you cannot afford a hybrid, never mind, you are staying. Sorry, more GREEN to brighten your day.
The point of this article, since having a point is always a bonus, is to look into whether the green theme is going to translate into any jobs for you, or will it just mean less green in your pocket due to significantly hire energy costs, vehicles you cannot afford, more burdensome regulations and controls on businesses (you know, those evil entities that employ people), less hiring, less money to pay for higher education, less money to build a nest egg, less economic growth, etc.
What made me think of this was the green marketers. I had to do the double take to make sure, but I believe I just saw a TV commercial about a bank, not just any bank, but a green bank. A green bank. Is it green with money? Not sure, I just know that of all of the things it could say about itself, it has chosen the green theme. What does that mean anyway? I think they are trying to say they are green because they are using less paper. How original. Haven't banks been trying to eliminate paper for years. Why? Because of their greenness? No, it saves money. Obviously, the marketing of everything green is to supposedly appeal to all of the green folks. Are there that many obsessively green people to warrant it? I don't think so, but they can do what ever they want. Are you going to do business with a bank because they claim to be green?
As I invest an additional 2.5 seconds of thought on it, I sincerely could not put the green factor any further down the list of important criteria when considering a bank. Yep, it is dead last. Tell me about about three things in a commercial, price, quantity, and quality, and maybe I will stop in for some free checking. Wait, isn't all checking free? Shouldn't they be promoting no checking because of the paper? I don't know. I get confused sometimes. By the way, does anyone actually use checks anymore? It is not like the good old college days when floating one could get you through a fun weekend.
Let's just all agree so we can move on to the topic at hand. I'm green. You're green. Company's are green. We're all green. We love green. Green is good. Chemical companies are even green, video games are probably green, plastic must now be green, etc. Another guess, but I am fairly confident with this one, is that the average American (the ones trying to make ends meet) don't give one rat’s behind whether a company or product is supposedly green. I just do not think most really care that much, especially to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice any portion of their standard of living, if they even have one, so they can be all things green. I think the green marketers have way overestimated this one, and green now is a political topic. There is one thing that does not match well with smart business practices, mixing in politics. You need to market to all people to be successful and not turn-off half of them.
Sure, nobody is for needlessly littering and polluting, and there will be some faction of the population that buys green because their identity is all wrapped up in being green, but for the most part, I just do not think people are buying into what is being sold with regard to the impending end of our 4,500,000,000,000 year old earth. Sorry if I missed a zero or 10. That's 4.5 billion, or is it 6 billion, if you want to compare that to the five to 10 years of highly disputed and incomplete environmental data that seems to be released every half hour by groups with an ulterior motive and an agenda. Don't get me wrong. You can be all things green until you are green in the face. Everybody has things they like, and that's great, but not everybody has to agree with you.
Back on point. Does green mean jobs? My first thought is of people sanding windmill arms, filling batteries with green acid, installing solar panels on celebrity's homes, a switch operator at old faithful harvesting geothermal, driving buses and trains because no one can afford cars, driving a combine to get some more product for that corn fuel idear, installing hydroponics in homes, writing articles for an activist org looking for a little more green, or passing out oxygen tanks to the coal miners on their way down. You know, I still cannot figure out if coal is supposed to be green. It must be. They have a coal commercial saying they are. I think I may have heard it too from one of those highly objective and very balanced fact check websites.
If you are not aware, all of the energy ideas you are hearing about today, as if they are new, have been around for a very very long time. Photovoltaic's/Solar Cells? Geothermal? Wind Energy? Corn? Battery powered cars? These all go way back. What did not seem to happen then, and what does not seem to be happening now, is more jobs. We live in a semi-free marketplace, some freedoms and many government controls and regulations. The consumer dictates what gets produced and what gets purchased. Products cannot be slammed down a person's throat if the perceived value is not there. Use this a litmus test. If you need Uncle Sam (you) to provide a monetary incentive to put solar on your roof or to buy something green, well then it is clearly not ready for prime time.
We need real life examples to remain objective, so let's look at everyone's favorite example for everything good in the world, Denmark, and see if going green has meant new jobs. After implementing carbon taxes / cap and trade, manufacturing shrunk 25% (government statistics). I do not think it takes a Harvard MBA to know that if you burden businesses financially, and needlessly, they will pass this along to their customers in the way of higher prices, job cutbacks, and less hiring.
Denmark has an even bigger problem that its government acknowledges. Young workers, motivated by more than a desire to subsist in life, are fleeing Denmark in droves to lands of lower taxes and greater opportunity, no easy thing to find in EU. Denmark has up to a 63 percent marginal income tax rate for its motivated folks to enjoy. That is the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world. I am sure Denmark is a very lovely place in many regards, but an economic world powerhouse raising the standard of living of its citizens, and for the world to emulate, is not really debatable. So, for Denmark's green implementations, unless you count more government workers processing unemployment claims, it seems green has not meant more jobs.
If you can enlighten us as to what we all may be missing with the green jobs creation movement, please do so. We are all for more good quality sustainable jobs. Is anyone else tired of that overused and abused word?
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