How Will the Economic Stimulus Plan Affect Environment and Energy?
February 15, 2009 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Sustainable Development
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
Possibly Related Posts:
- 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
- Sustainable Development Creating New Business Opportunities?
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Changing Energy Sector Revealing Investment Opportunities?
November 10, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Sustainable Development
Good to know, the discussion about climate change and the challenge of
preventing it isn’t all doom and gloom. There are some legitimate
opportunities to make some real money at a time where it may get scarce
for a great many people. The wants and desires of people change
according to the amount of discretionary income they have to work with.
Preparing to meet a massive consumer demand when suitable technologies
are found to reduce carbon emissions and petroleum dependence will be
golden.
Renewable energy is perhaps the most obvious sector to consider investing
money or a little bit of yourself in. This includes the cheap and
convenient generation of solar, wind, geothermal power, to name a few.
Sustainable development also envisions climate change threats to the
fresh water supplies of many places, so water conservation in the form of
landscape consultancy or miserly fixtures for retrofitting is also sure
to be a growth industry in the 21st century.
Possibly Related Posts:
- 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
- Sustainable Development Creating New Business Opportunities?
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Solar Power Innovation: Cheap Electric on the Horizon?
October 1, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Renewable Energy, Solar
Since people are going to need energy, eliminating carbon dioxide emissions will require adopting renewable energy. However, the cost has been prohibitively high for most of the commonly used and available methods. Home generation has many possibilities, including getting a check from the power company for excess power that you’ve sold back.
The best and only way to make its manufacture as cheap as possible. Several recent innovations in solar technology have brought humankind to the brink of affordable solar power that can be used anywhere. Flexible film solar can be built into just about anything, from awnings to bikinis. New advances is how to put the flexible sheets together has recently come from an American company that literally prints the solar cells onto a substrate at dizzyingly fast rates. Even solar paint is on the horizon.
The next step to really getting solar everywhere as it should be is to have similar revolutionary advances in storage technology.
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- Can Renewable Energy Sources Charge Your Cell Phone?
- Future is Bright for Solar Energy As an Alternative Energy Source
- Solar Power Innovation: Cheap Electric on the Horizon?
