How Will the Economic Stimulus Plan Affect Environment and Energy?

Reading through this story in Yahoo News (see quotes below) you can see a rough explanation of where stimulus money is planned to be directed.  An effort is being made; a good sign.  But, reading through the story you can’t help but wonder if throwing money at our economic problems will help or hurt.  Part of the reason things got to this point is due to unwise spending, loaning, and profit-mongering.

Yes, putting money in the right places will go a long way to helping with our present dire situation.  However, a shift in attitude and ideas must come along with it.  If we are to repair what has been broken, we need to look beyond simply throwing money at the problem.  Hopefully, our legislators will realize this also.

Before we get into Environment and Energy, let’s take a look at just how the stimulus plan can get our nation even further into debt:

National debt:

One thing about the president’s $790 billion stimulus package is certain: It will jack up the federal debt.

Whether or not it succeeds in producing jobs and taming the recession, tomorrow’s taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

Forecasters expect the 2009 deficit — for the budget year that began last Oct 1 — to hit $1.6 trillion including new stimulus and bank-bailout spending. That’s about three times last year’s shortfall.

The torrents of red ink are being fed by rising federal spending and falling tax revenues from hard-hit businesses and individuals.

The national debt — the sum of all annual budget deficits — stands at $10.7 trillion. Or about $36,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

Interest payments alone on the national debt will near $500 billion this year. It’s already the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

This will affect us all directly for years, as well as our children and possibly grandchildren, in higher taxes and probably reduced government services. It will also force continued government borrowing, increasingly from China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia and other foreign creditors.

Now, let’s look at how the stimulus plan will affect the environment and energy; hopefully on a positive note:  Read more

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Unusual Violent Weather

If you live in an area that is known for violent weather,
then you are probably accustomed to severe storms.
But it’s quite another thing to live well outside the
range of hurricanes, say in Sweden, and then wake
up to a tropical storm bearing down on you.

Unfortunately, this is what our global environment
has seen in some recent years.  Preparedness is a key component of
sustainable development, but this is complicated by climate change.
The whole point is that you don’t know what could happen because
“normal” simply doesn’t apply anymore.

Preparedness scenarios become a problematic situation particularly for
folks who didn’t think to have a tornado escape plan for their trailer
park in January.  Springtime used to be the “normal” time of year to
expect tornado activity.   Preparedness may need some revision in Oregon,
USA, as its citizens are becoming acquainted with the sort of fire seasons
that Californians can now only dream about.

Then, ask the folks in sunny Los Angeles who wrecked their cars trying to
navigate a freak blizzard or truckers that got stuck in the mountains
during an early August white out.

Prepare to be amazed as chaotic weather becomes even more violent and
dangerous as our Earth tries to adjust itself in the wake of this fever
that mankind seems to have caused for her.

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How Chemical Pollutants Persist in the Environment

Just because the production of a given pollutant is halted due to environmental
or health concerns doesn’t mean that it’s going anywhere, any time soon.  Consider
DDT.  The production of this pesticide and highly reactive toxin is still being found
in soils and groundwater, decades after it was applied.  In fact, the breakdown chemical
DDE can still be found in very high levels in both groundwater supplies and the bodies
of people and animals who were exposed many years previously.

These chemicals persist for several reasons.  For starters, they bind to lipids, or fatty
tissues, that animals use to store energy for later use.  Fat cells are not created or
destroyed over the life of an organism – they simply fill up or shrink down.  Also, many
of the original or breakdown chemicals have an affinity for soils.  They remain tightly
bound to soil particles and minerals until something “knocks” them loose.

Yes, this is another area where sustainable development initiatives become challenging.

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• Can Current Economic Climate Help With Sustainable Development?
• How Will the Economic Stimulus Plan Affect Environment and Energy?
• Green Cleaning To Help The Environment
• Major Players in Sustainable Development
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