Earth Day

Being Earth Day, it seemed appropriate to tackle an eco-oriented topic. As I'm sure you're familiar with, global warming is a popular buzzword in modern politics. While some refuse to believe in global climate change, the current scientific evidence is pretty solid in demonstrating its existence. Much of the reluctance to accept the theory of global warming seems to exist because of the disdain for the messenger (Al Gore) rather than the substance of the message itself, but that is irrelevant for this entry.

Saving any substantive debate over global warming for another day, it is clear that we are moving forward as a country to confront and address the problem. Currently, green collar jobs have become a popular talking point for politicians along the campaign trail, especially from Senators Clinton and Obama. Green collar jobs are those jobs aimed at helping the country move towards more environmental friendly practices and energy sources. Certainly, this is an admirable goal, but what must be defined is the government's role in facilitating and/or creating such positions.

On Senator Clinton's Presidential Website, she desires to implement a green collar jobs training program, and Senator Obama has presented a similar proposal. Both proposals aspire to create 5 million green jobs.

Additional components of their environmental platforms involve the implementation of a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions. There could be better proposals, but the cap-and-trade structure at least provides an incentive to reduce carbon emissions--either reduce emissions below the cap or purchase credits elsewhere for the failure to do so. There is also further incentive to cut emissions below the cap so that one can bank the credits for later use or sell them for a profitable gain.

Since there exists an incentive to go green within the cap-and-trade platform, I fail to see any additional benefit for throwing billions of dollars into a government training program. Granted, much of the money to pay for green job training will come from cap-and-trade revenues. However, that money could be better invested. The private sector is already responding to the popularity of "green." Consumers are making decisions based on which products are more environmentally friendly, and corporations images are tarnished if they are even perceived to be uncommitted to improving the environment. From this one could even argue that a cap-and-trade structure would not be needed because the private sector will respond to this public demand and cut CO2 emissions. However, from a fiscal perspective, the cap-and-trade system only provides a framework for the private sector to operate within and doesn't necessarily require any large monetary commitments from the government.

The most frustrating aspect of the Democrats' proposals is the way they address the issue: more government involvement. It is clear the private sector is responding, and the free market is working. These jobs are opening up all over the country, and people who never expected to be in such fields are now green collared workers (see a recent Newsweek article). But to hear Democrats talk, nothing is being done. It seems the profits of oil companies has clouded the Democrats' vision and pushed them to believe this can only be a government effort rather than a communal involvement.