Pelican

Australia could be developing new industries and job opportunities...

The following article about clean, sustainable and safe industries must be what Col means when he regularly parrots “Socialism by Stealth”

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=green-collar-jobs&sc=CAT_INNO_20081212

Green-Collar Jobs--The Future of the Global Workplace

Investing now in clean energy technology will create millions of jobs and lifelong careers.

By Jerome Ringo

I grew up in Lake Charles, LA., where we fished and hunted, living off the land. Like many others, I went to work for the petrochemical industry and stayed for years. That’s where the jobs were. But in 1994 my company offered a buyout. I left and started pushing the chemical industry to clean up its pollution and treat people fairly. I also tried to convince oil companies to explore alternative energy supplies.

Progress was difficult. Fossil fuels were cheap. The underlying principle of the American economy was this: the more fossil fuels we consumed, the richer we became.

The situation is strikingly different today. Spiraling oil and coal consumption drains the economy, depletes the environment, puts America at the mercy of oil-rich states that don’t like us, and weakens the middle class. Domestic jobs are being lost.

Some economists predict trouble, but others see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change how we propel the nation. High fuel prices? Scale up cellulosic ethanol plants. Soaring electricity rates? Retrofit older buildings and construct new ones that are more energy-efficient. Melting glaciers? Replace conventional coal-fired power plants with alternative technology.

This green economy is already unfolding. Production of renewable energy systems is the fastest-growing industrial sector in the world; revenues are rising 25 to 40 percent a year.

What’s more, the clean energy, conservation and efficiency sectors are employing hundreds of thousands of workers. Green-collar job creation is starting to replace the 4.1 million blue-collar jobs the nation has lost since 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Green-collar jobs—installers, line workers, electricians, pipe fitters, and many others—pay wages capable of supporting families and producing careers.

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The wind industry alone now employs nearly 20,000 Americans. Newton, Iowa, which lost 1,800 washing-machine manufacturing jobs in 2006, has replaced more than a third of them with two new plants that produce blades and towers for wind power companies. More than 25,000 people reportedly work in the U.S. photovoltaics industry. Sharp Electronics has converted a fading Memphis facility to solar panel production and employs nearly 230 union workers earning solid wages.
All of this sounds encouraging. But to make the transition from the old blue-collar economy to a new green-collar economy, the U.S. needs to scale up its capacity to design and build clean energy in ways that encourage suppliers and users. If the nation wants to supplant Germany, China, Spain, Japan and Denmark and really lead these robust new energy markets, federal and state governments must establish new investment policies that aid entrepreneurs, new tax and credit rules that provide financial incentives, new funds for research and development, and new thinking that quickly shifts our transportation policy away from cars to efficient rapid transit.

The consequences of such a move can be dramatic. In a well-regarded 2004 study, my organization, the Apollo Alliance, showed that a $300-billion investment in the country’s economic and energy future over 10 years would produce 3.3 million jobs. The new principle of American prosperity in the 21st century should be this: clean energy technology that curbs climate change, makes the world more secure, and produces vast new industries and business opportunities can provide the country with millions of good jobs.<<<

Australia could be in the lead with this technology - why aren't we?

Spot on Fractelle

We could be leading on these technologies if we just made the commitment to invest for the long term. It seems ironic that we are investing heavily in bailing out the car industry and heavy metals but failing to put the same weight behind renewables.

What evidence is there that more CO2 forces temperatures up further.
Could somebody please give me a truthful answer to this and not a fairy story as if there is no truthful answer then the emperor has beautiful new clothes that only the WISE cans see and finances and resources are being diverted away from things that matter.

Pelican I agree with much of your post except “What has happened to the Murray Darling because of the influence of big business like cotton is just criminal.”

Ask the question “who issued and were paid for the licences to extract that water?”
The answer

state governments

With all the Eastern states run by labor, you have the name to blame.

I happen to believe water is an exception to most rules. It is an essential for life, unlike power supplies, telecoms, banks, airlines and most other government enterprises past or present.

I believe water should be managed as a national resource however, I am concerned, we appear to have a federal government who, if the national economy is any example, are more intent on abusing our national resources than managing them for the benefit of Australians present and future and I do recall how the Victorian state government held oput against the national plans of the liberals – an exercise in political cynicism at its most contemptible..

Fractelle “The following article about clean, sustainable and safe industries must be what Col means when he regularly parrots “Socialism by Stealth””

Not at all, but when did you ever understand anything?

I have no problem with people developing “clean fuels”, “green processes”, more fuel efficient cars or finding better things to do with industrial and domestic waste.

Actually one of my software products directly targets process waste in a segment of the manufacturing and service industries and uses the benefits / value of those savings as a marketing incentive for prospective users to buy the software.

I have no problem with polluters being levied for their pollution.

I have an enthusiastic desire to see this world handed over to our children in a good and sustainable condition.

However, what I do have a huge issue with is an ego driven idiot:
A playing lady bountiful with the national budget
B dragging the Australian economy into paying interest on a budget deficit and inventing a system of additional carbon taxes, when he has just blown 10 billion on hand outs to buy votes and is planning on building roads to nowhere to employ the membership of his union masters.

And if you think there is any truth in that green-propaganda you are copy-pasting I might offer to come and audit the outcomes.

I remember when Melbourne water employed me to do that, audit the outcomes,… great fun walking around and telling people I wanted to chat to them about “outsourcing”, half of them nearly jumped out the window in blind panic.

So fractelle, I guess it is like this…

You are like so many we see who can “talk the talk” as if they had verbal dysentery but freeze when it comes to “walking the walk”.
And on the single point of the software I have developed, I might suggest I am contributing more to environmental improvements than you ever could, even with all your talk.