Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:13 PM
To: info@intelligencesquaredus.org, lisa@high10media.com, robert@high10media.com
Dear Colleagues
Thank you for inviting me to come to the next of your debates. The
motion is 'Clean Energy Can Drive America's Economic Recovery?'
I am very interested in the topic and have been for a long time ...
but the current dialog about this and many other important issues
really disappoints me.
There are huge opportunities but most of the time the dialog misses
the point. If one starts off with the premise that technology is now
more productive by an order of magnitude or two or more ... that is
resource use effective ... then the progress of modern society on a
global basis is rather pathetic. There are real reasons for this,
notably that leadership has made poor decisions over and over again
and the high powered high profile analysts and the dialog in the media
avoids looking at this.
The prevailing metrics that are the starting point are fatally flawed.
Most decision making ... that is allocation of resource ... metrics
are simply about money and profit, about GDP growth and about the
performance of the capital markets. These have some importance, but
other metrics have importance as well, such as the progress in
improving quality of life and issue regarding sustainability.
There are a number of well known people who have highlighted the
issues around economic metrics besides myself. The huge mistakes that
get made by investors and macro-economic managers as they focus on
profit and growth without looking hard at the socio-economic and
sustainability dimensions make it difficult to be optimistic about any
future for the American economy. If profit, measured as it is now, is
the only goal then the corporate community will use low cost workers
and as a result leave the American economy a hollowed out shell. The
government will be asked to help unemployed more and more and more ...
and it is not inconceivable that there will eventually be economic
revolution in the US just as there is now in North Africa and the
Middle East.
A value construct would change the trajectory of the US economy in
meaningful ways. The profit one will send the US economy over the
cliff ... essentially the same cliff that almost consumed the US just
over two years ago.
Green jobs can make a huge difference to the United States and the
world ... but it is a value construct that is an essential
prerequisite in order for decision makers who have resources to flow
funds into that segment of the economy. Neither the media nor the
well-known academics, economists and policy analysts seem to have any
deep understanding of this ... and it scares me to death.
Peter Burgess
truevaluemetrics.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
For
The current administration expects its clean energy policies to
generate 800,000 jobs over the next two years, laying the foundation
for lasting economic growth.
Consumers can save billions of dollars relying on clean energy sources
and increasing energy efficiency, leaving more money to be spent on
other goods and services.
Major investment in clean energy will lead to innovation and new technology.
Reducing dependence on imported energy frees us to spend our limited
resources domestically and protects us from fluctuations in oil prices
and climate change.
Against
The Department of Energy’s own job creation estimates are far more
modest than those of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
A significant portion of clean energy funding has gone to foreign
companies who have the advantage of having been heavily subsidized by
their own governments for a number of years.
Clean energy jobs face the same problems any other industry
faces--competition from cheap foreign labor.
A real green economy wouldn’t rely on government regulation and
taxpayer financed subsidies.
____________
Peter Burgess
Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
www.truevaluemetrics.org
www.truevaluemetrics.com
blog: http://truevaluemetrics.blogspot.com
blog: http://communityanalyticsca.blogspot.com
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Peter Burgess
Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:13 PM
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