Friday, December 5, 2014

Seth Tilley 6-12-2014 - It's smart business

It's smart business

American auto manufacturers fought against fuel-efficiency and emissions standards back in the 1970s and 1980s. While Europe and Asia focused on efficiency, we focused on short-term profits. This "win" for the industry resulted in American autos becoming less competitive in an evolving international market.

Now America has the opportunity to lead the transition away from a carbon-based economy, but we're, again, abdicating that role to countries like Germany and Japan. These countries are pursuing alternatives to carbon because "externalities" like poor air and water quality, increased healthcare costs, unstable energy supplies and pricing, international resource wars, and man-made climate change are simply too costly -- and the alternatives are better and cheaper. The externalities of carbon are crippling the U.S. economy, and making our planet less hospitable for humans.

Yes, the transition from fossil fuels must happen for the sake of future generations, but it's also smart business now. To remain economically competitive on a global scale America needs to discourage the carbon economy and encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy.

As businessman Jigar Shah has said, climate change is "the largest wealth creation opportunity on the planet." So why are we resisting this inevitability instead of leading the charge?  

Seth Tilley

Read more here: http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=14E69BAF40D63FA8&p_docnum=2#storylink=cpy

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