'Green, easy and wrong'; Article Summary

The article ‘Green, easy and wrong’ was published in The Economist on the 6th of November 2008. The link to the article is: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12562343

The article ‘Green, easy and wrong’ deals with two of the critical issues of today, the economic crisis and global warming, and the solution that has been proposed to eliminate the both of them. To solve these two problems governments have to invest in green technology which will, in turn, boost the demand for it while easing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Though this theory has become popular worldwide, it has gained most attention and momentum in America, where billion dollar proposals for ‘green investment’ are being pushed, in the hopes of creating millions of new workplaces. From the historical viewpoint, the solution should work since past synergy between two goals had been successful. However, one consequence of similar plans including subsidies was increasing food prices affecting the developing countries, due to overinvestment in the ethanol business. It seems that, though commitment to climate change and giving the economy a boost as separate entities are good proposals, combining the two by funding renewable energy will not succeed. Instead, a system similar to the European model, which makes polluters pay for their CO2 emissions and by reduces the cost of clean energy, should be developed.
Personally, I don’t think two problems that span the entire globe can a) be solved by one countries initiative alone and b) be solved by such a seemingly simple solution. Granted, the above stated solution does not consider all possible deciding factors that would be involved in the elimination of these problems, though I am sure they are where the decisions for ‘Green New Deal’ are being made. However, chances are that the environment alone needs a lot more than just change in energy sources in order to slow or even halt the effects of global warming. Then again, the easiest solutions are known to be the right ones.