About those green jobs
Read some WSJ on Dead Tree last night on the plane. Good editorial about the climate change fiasco facing the G8. It's always a little more complicated than it seems, isn't it?
Thomas Sowell laments frequently that politicians don't "think beyond Stage One." Stage One gets somebody elected. Stage Three is somebody else's problem. We need to start recognizing that Stage Three is everybody's problem, and address those realities with more vigor, coherence, and frequency that has been done in the past -- and do it before these time bombs are lit.
Meanwhile, the supposed economic benefits of "green technologies" are evaporating. In Germany, government subsidies for installing solar panels -- and, it was presumed, thereby creating domestic manufacturing jobs -- backfired when it turned out that it was cheaper to make solar panels in China. A recent paper from Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Álvarez noted that since Spain started investing in a "green jobs" policy nine years ago, the country has lost 110,500 jobs in other parts of the economy. That amounts to 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created.
Thomas Sowell laments frequently that politicians don't "think beyond Stage One." Stage One gets somebody elected. Stage Three is somebody else's problem. We need to start recognizing that Stage Three is everybody's problem, and address those realities with more vigor, coherence, and frequency that has been done in the past -- and do it before these time bombs are lit.
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