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Exploring New Solutions for Climate Change:
The Green Economic Environment (GEE)
A decade ago, global warming was still considered by many but a theory. Today, the crisis is very real.
What we have been doing is not working!
Our own babies are now born with dozens of contaminants in their tissues. Non-renewable resources are being depleted, permanent damage is done to oceans and the planet....
Most environmental problems directly result
from the way economies are setup.
The strategy proposed by Henderson would
change the incentive structure of economies in such a way as to create a green economic environment which would naturally promote markets and demand for greener goods and practices, reduce CO2 and other carbon emissions, and turn economies around.
Addressing the cause of problems would be more effective than a cap-and-trade strategy and cost less. It offers a powerful new solution for global warming and the environment.
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A Daring Work:
It argues that we have the means today to turn things around...
More below...
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The depletion of non-renewable resources and its consequences for the future of humanity and the earth. |
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What if we were able to develop a strategy to achieve full employment, to give a job to everyone that wants one? |
A Structural Strategy for
Global Warming and the Environment
Chapter 7
The First Premise:
Appropriate Scale |
Environmental problems are massive: climate change, pollution, deforestation, resource depletion, jet fuel in baby formula, etc.
We need more powerful approaches, ones that can deliver change on the scale needed. |
A large-scale strategy could not be based on a massive social commitment to additional funding. Nobody wants to pay more taxes!
Fortunately, there are revenue-neutral options. They offer a free and effective tool for the environment.
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Chapter 7
The Third Premise:
Minimal Social Commitment |
Chapter 7
The Fifth Premise:
The Use of Efficient Mechanisms |
To be successful, environmental strategies need to use efficient mechanisms. Subsidies and regulations will continue to have an important role but have limits.
Structural strategies that address the causes of problems could deliver more change and do so more powerfully and efficiently. |
The Green Economic Environment (GEE)
A Structural Strategy for Global Warming, Resource
Conservation, Toxic Contaminants, and the Environment
Henderson's strategy, the Green Economic Environment (GEE), attempts to deal with the root of environmental problems rather than just their symptoms as current approaches do. As the strategy is revenue neutral, it would be free for taxpayers and everybody else. As seen below, the cost of unenvironmental goods would go up, but consumers would see a decrease in taxes on income and retail goods in compensation for this. See revenue-neutral taxation.
Specific changes to the incentive structure of economies could create a green economic environment that would significantly increase demand for green goods and practices. As a result, businesses would naturally shift their production and R&D (Research and Development) to environmental alternatives. The strategy would make the massive power of markets work for the environment instead of against it and be that much more powerful for it.
The GEE would raise the cost of gasoline and fossil fuels. This would decrease their use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as provide a boost to the renewable energy sector. Remember that the system is revenue neutral and people would have more money to spend. The GEE would also increase the cost of toxic products, including those used in manufacturing. This would shift markets to more environmental alternatives. Not only would consumer goods become greener but so would industries and manufacturing processes.
The approach would target non-renewable resources, such as metals, to bring about conservation, create and enhance natural markets for recyclables, and shift products to greener and renewable components. It also addresses other issues such as packaging, hybrid, hydrogen, and electrical vehicles, the management of renewable resources, agriculture, renewable energy supply issues, etc.
The GEE is far more comprehensive than cap-and-trade, addressing most of the issues on the environmental agenda in addition to global warming. It would also be easier to implement as well as less costly.
See Cap-and-Trade vs. the GEE for details.
Henderson's strategy could deliver change quickly
and on a large scale. It would address not only global warming problems but also the majority of the issues on the environmental agenda.
More details about the GEE and its components are available through the links below or at
The Strategy.
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A Proven Strategy:
The Renewable Energy Turnaround
For decades, many people struggled to make grounds for the environment. Most of it was to little avail. Despite all the efforts, SUVs' popularity
surged as if climate change or the environment did not exist. The
gas guzzler industry thrived up until very recently, and environmentalists
could do little to change that.
As the price of oil shot past $147 a barrel in mid-2008, the industry collapsed and major North American SUV manufacturers announced plant closures virtually overnight. A month later, they were all talking about their latest hybrid and upcoming electrical vehicles... and the struggling renewable energy industry was quickly becoming the wave of the future.
What environmentalists failed to accomplish in three decades was achieved by markets in three months.
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Henderson's green strategy is based on market principles,
i.e. on the same forces that turned the North American automobile industry and renewable energy sector around virtually overnight.
Could the Green Economic Environment
be the solution we have been looking for
for climate change and the environment?
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The Book's Predictions -- Mark C. Henderson
'Wasters, polluters, and those who do not care for the
environment or are unable to adapt would only fall behind
and see the
fate of the dinosaurs.' (p. 83)
-- Mark C. Henderson, July 2008.
In September 2008, major North American automakers Ford and GM begged governments for grants and subsidies to help them retool for new generations of green vehicles. Unlike European and Asian manufacturers, they had made the environment a secondary concern and focused on gas guzzlers like the SUV. But, there was a price to pay for that...
Only a month later, they were on the verge of bankruptcy... just one step away from seeing the fate of the dinosaurs.
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