The book argues that even today, we have

the means to turn things around...

Most environmental problems directly result from the way economies are setup.

The strategy proposed in the book 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 environment-friendly 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.

A Structural Strategy for

Sustainability and Sustainable Development

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.

Chapter 7 - The Third Premise: Minimal Social Commitment

A large-scale strategy could not be based on a massive social commitment to additional funding. Nobody wants to pay more taxes!

Fortunately, there is revenue-neutral eco-taxation. It offers a free and effective tool for the environment.

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)

This strategy 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.

The GEE is NOT an ELEGANT SOLUTION on the surface as it relies on taxation changes, which is politically unpopular. BUT it is CHEAPER (ESSENTIALLY FREE) and MORE EFFECTIVE than other strategies, which actually makes it the best choice for the taxpayer.

Specific changes to the incentive structure of economies could create a green economic environment that would significantly increase demand for green goods, technology, 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 us and help save the environment, instead of destroying it, and be that much more powerful for it.

The GEE would raise the cost of oil, gasoline, and other fossil fuels. This would decrease their use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), helping countries meet international reduction targets, as well as provide a boost to the renewable energy sector (solar, geothermal, and clean wind power, biofuel production from agricultural wastes and industrial sources, etc.) without the need for a new emission credit trading system. Remember that the system is revenue neutral and people would have more money to spend. The GEE would also increase the cost of pollutants and harmful products, including those used in manufacturing. This would shift markets to more ecological 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, reuse, and waste reduction, to create and enhance natural markets for recyclables, and to shift products to greener and renewable components. It also addresses other issues such as packaging, the management of renewable resources, hybrid vehicles, hydrogen and electric cars, urban transportation, organic agriculture, managing the energy supply, biodiesel and ethanol net efficiency 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. The transition to a greener economy would also be easier to implement as well as less costly.

See Cap-and-Trade vs. the GEE for details.

This approach 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 green agenda. Environmental degradation and destruction would decrease, depletable minerals and metallic resources would be conserved, and the protection of biodiversity and endangered species, increase. Green living would finally be achievable.

More details about the GEE and its components are available through the links below or at The Strategy.

The Depopulation-Green Economic Environment Strategy

(Depopulation-GEE Strategy)

The issues of population growth and natural resource shortages are dealt with in a second book, The Depletion Wall. Will the world economy be in danger of collapse in the next few decades as a result of the depletion and dwindling reserves of many base metals? Will we face stiff price increases for metals as we have for oil?

Many argue that continued economic growth is unsustainable. Some have proposed degrowth as a solution, but that would likely mean lower incomes and shared employment, or higher unemployment. Others advocate green growth (sustainable development), but many argue that even that will be unsustainable in the future. The GEE would deliver both, green growth in environmental sectors of the economy and degrowth in unenvironmental ones, effectively doubling the greening impact on the economy.

But, in light of the latest mineral reserve statistics, even that will not be enough. Depopulation is becoming a necessity if the world economy is to survive. A Depopulation-GEE strategy would not only deliver double the greening impact but, in combination with depopulation, could also maintain or increase incomes and lower unemployment while decreasing the world's total production, environmental footprint, and natural resource consumption.

Population Growth vs Natural Resources

Mineral Reserve Statistics

Green Growth

Degrowth

Green Economy

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 climatic change and its effects 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.

___________

The book'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 planet, 

to save the earth?

What we are doing for the environment is not working.

We can keep choosing what we are comfortable with or is convenient, or opt for what will deliver results.

There is an urgency to act, and we have a solid strategy, the Green Economic Environment. It is powerful and free and could unite various environmental perspectives.

In the four years since the strategy was released, nothing has come out that has the potential for being more effective or cheaper.

The Question is...

Do we want environmental change, or

do we want to keep going around in circles?

A New Landscape for Tomorrow

A View of a More Sustainable Society

The Green Economic Environment would be more powerful than cap-and-trade and far more comprehensive, addressing a range of issues in addition to climate change: nonrenewable resources, energy, toxic contaminant...

The GEE would restructure an economy rather than just deal with the symptoms of problems. Being revenue-neutral, the solution would essentially come free to taxpayer.

Here is a peek at the New Green Society...

The New Green Society

Under Henderson's structural strategy (the GEE), non-green consumer goods would become more expensive. But people would have more money to spend from paying less income and retail tax as a result of the revenue neutrality of the system.

Compared to today, services and green goods would become more affordable than unenvironmental practices and products. As a result, consumption would naturally shift to them. The Green Economic Environment would result in industries shifting their production to cleaner alternatives because of a greater demand from consumers.

Massive gains would be made for global warming and the environment. CO2 and other carbon emissions would drop from a shift to natural, clean, and renewable energies (solar, wind power, etc.), the presence of toxic chemicals in the environment would progressively decrease, domestic and industrial waste would go down, etc.

In the long term, society would progressively become greener and move towards sustainability.

The conservation of non-renewable resources is an important aspect of a structural strategy as most minerals will eventually become scarce and follow the same pattern as oil: prices increasing sharply as reserves drop. In a green economic environment, the use of non-renewable resources (metals, etc.) would go down as a result of raw materials facing revenue-neutral levies.

Industry would respond by decreasing sizes and substituting metals with alternatives such as carbon fibers, bioplastics, cellulose products, fiberglass, etc. Cars would get smaller and use a lot of bio-components. Gradually, urban transportation would shift to Single-Passenger electric Vehicles (SPVs). Public transit would become the focus of government attention.

Overall, the above would be achieved generally without new regulations, increases in total taxes, or the need for new sources of funding, subsidies, etc.

The approach is fully scalable, i.e. governments would be able to make changes as slowly or as quickly as desired.

The GEE offers a significant means to help save the environment, save the earth.

Following is a closer look at different aspects of the new landscape.

The Global Warming Aspect

Currently, consumers pay lower gasoline prices. In a green economic environment, they would spend more for fossil energy. However, they would also pay less income/retail tax in compensation (see revenue-neutral taxation).

The higher prices would promote both conservation and a shift to clean and renewable energy. The situation would be similar for other fossil fuels.

Reducing greenhouse gases under such a system would simply involve governments selecting appropriate pricing levels. There would not be the need for a new emission credit trading system and the initial and ongoing management costs it entails on the part of both, governments and the industry.

Under the cap-and-trade GHG target system, the price of fossil fuels would also go up as the sector would have to buy huge amounts of emission credits and pass the cost of those on to consumers. Because the GEE is simpler and more efficient, its overall cost to society (management costs and price increases) should be lower and benefits, greater.

In the long run, the causes of climatic change would be addressed, and global warming's effects on the planet would diminish.

More details... Climatic Change Policy

The Toxic Contaminant Aspect

The GEE would make toxic contaminants more expensive. As the system is revenue-neutral, consumers would not come up short overall (see revenue-neutral eco-taxation).

The approach would result in a reduction of harmful pollutants everywhere, not only as domestic goods (cleaners, solvents, pesticides, etc.) but also as inputs in manufacturing. A lot of the products made today may not be toxic but are made with chemicals harmful to the environment.

Greener alternatives (environment-friendly products, technologies, and industrial processes) would gradually develop in response to greater consumer demand.

More details... Toxic Chemicals Policy

The Packaging, Recycling, and Reuse Aspects

The GEE would involve charges on unenvironmental packaging and new materials. This would result in waste reduction, increased recycling, and a shift to greener alternatives.

Once again, the system would be revenue-neutral, with consumers seeing the higher price of containers offset partly by lower income/retail taxation and partly by selling their recyclables.

Formats for containers would be standardized, making them much more reusable and cheaper to reprocess. Consumers would pay a higher price upfront but get more money for recycling than they do now.

The GEE would make the recycling industry more profitable from a higher demand for used materials and reduce costs to municipalities and taxpayers.

More details... Recycling and Packaging Policy

The Conservation of Metals and Non-Renewable Resources

Metals are depletable and will eventually run out, just like oil. In most applications, they are not substitutable for renewable alternatives as fossil fuels are. As such, conserving them is important.

A structural strategy would increase the price of metals as inputs in the manufacturing industry in order to foster conservational designs, downsizing, and substitution.

Consumer products containing significant amounts of metals would see their price increase, but that would be offset by the lower income and retail tax rates resulting from the revenue-neutral system.

More details... Metals Conservation Policy

Managing Renewable Resources and Green Energy

Forests and fisheries are overexploited and being harmed, sometimes permanently. We found out in the summer of 2008 that a shift to renewable energy can produce undesirable effects, for example, pressure on food prices. We also saw that the production of biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, etc.) can have a low net efficiency and not be that friendly towards the environment.

The GEE would help us prevent deforestation and the destruction of valuable heritage by creating disincentives that would reduce overexploitation. It would also help steer a clearer course through the new landscape of renewable energies.

Revenue-neutral taxation could be used to deter poor management practices in the renewable resource sector. The strategy would also help the best types of green energy (for example, those that are less carbon-intensive) to emerge and take over markets.

More details... Managing Renewable Resources and Energy Policy

Hybrids, Electrical Cars, and SPV Transportation

The Green Economic Environment would lead to significant changes in transportation.

Public transit would be improved. Car sizes would go down. Today's sedans would gradually give way to single-passenger electric vehicles (SPVs), and fossil-fuel consumption would decrease to very low levels within urban environments in conjunction with the development of smart grid technology.

As a result, cities would be much quieter, healthier, and safer. Traffic congestion would be reduced, air pollution and carbon emissions decreased, and resources conserved from smaller car sizes.

More details... Green Transportation

Population Growth, Resource Depletion,

and the Environment

Population growth is a major component of the global warming and ecological problem equation. Henderson's next book is dedicated to the issue.

More details... The Depletion Wall

More information: USDA Sustainable Development The Nature Conservancy OECD Sustainable Development National Wildlife Federation Alliance to Save Energy