Fundamental changes are coming as we move toward a post-fossil-fuels economy. Global climate change is a compelling reason why we need to shift to an economic order that uses energy efficiently and meets most of our needs for energy services with renewable resources. Meeting our energy demands through efficiency and renewables will also reduce our dependence on imported oil, reduce the demand for energy resources that cause major environmental impacts other than global warming, and create the kinds of jobs that are not readily outsourced to other countries.
See Roger H. Bezdek, Green Collar Jobs in the U.S. and Colorado: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century (American Solar Energy Society 2009), www.ases.org.
For reasons such as these, Thomas Friedman says that America should step up and lead the world in the green energy revolution. Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America (2008). As Friedman puts it, we need to go “Code Green.” A green energy revolution will yield many kinds of benefits in addition to dealing with the main cause of global warming. We will have “cleaner air and water, more efficient products, more workers trained in the next great global industry, higher energy prices but lower bills, greater productivity, healthier people, and an export industry in clean power products that people across the world will want to buy.” Id. at 174. We will also have many kinds of amenities that add up to an enhanced quality of life: sunspaces in passive solar homes, daylighting in public buildings, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods clustered in transit-oriented development, organic vegetables from local farms, less land paved over, and more land left for the plants and other creatures that make up the web of life.
