Oh, I am convinced that greening the economy, energy, food production and supply, transportation, etc. not only yields new, high-paying jobs which will outnumber those of the old economy, but it will also bring about considerable savings. In transportation for instance: energy not required to propel a car (on average 15–35 times heavier than the car’s usually only occupant, the driver), equals lower emissions, savings on gasoline, makes it easier to deploy electric drive, etc. Thirdly, there is the paramount aspect of “better to prevent than to cure”. Good example is the NatGeo dramatized documentary I watched like 15 years ago about what a perfect storm would do to New Orleans, and that a mere 2 billion investment in new levies and basins would prevent a disastrous flooding from taking place… Along came Katrina. Damages? Dependent on what to include, between the 80 and 200 billion dollar!

The Biggest Challenge to any new ‘Green’ initiative? Get rid of the new red tape in the form of all those organizations that treat environmental awareness as a business model, which comes down to “don’t call us, most certainly not with your creative ideas, ‘click here’ to register and donate”. Believe me, I have been there, have tried multiple times. ‘Green’ needs the momentum, of appealing, fresh, new ideas, to be able to go against the vested interests of industries and politicians.

Cheers, Ralph

PS: the Beyond Carbon website can’t be reached, nor the email… Bummer.