Growing the Green Economy

After watching this program on Thursday night a lot of information was thrown into my face and I feel like my eyes were opened to what people are trying to do about going "Green". This program really couldn't have come at a better time with my last paper being about global warming and the polar ice caps melting. So, some things were reiterated while a bigger portion was completely new to me. The first thing that stood out to me was that Chicago was considered one of the greenest cities in America. While doing research I discovered that California was supposedly one of the leading states to buy into this "green project" and doing something about it. I guess I assumed that one of the cities in California would be the greenest but Chicago's Climate Exchange seems to be working and being able to include huge corporations like AEP and Ford will hopefully rub off on to other corporations in different cities.

Another huge fact that surprised me was that the recycling business was a $238 billion industry. Not only is the money important but the jobs that its creating for a completely destroyed economy is just as, if not more, important. I think that the reason that this statistic astounded me is because I'm not a very active recyclable person, something that I'm not proud of at all. My family seems to only recycle aluminum cans and my none of my friends recycle, so when I heard this it was reassuring that there are people who do recycle and that I would like to become part of this $238 billion project.

A stat that was presented in the program that caught my attention because it was a main point in my paper is that 5% of the U.S. population uses around 25% of the world's fossil fuels. If not mistaken though China has recently became the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Now part of this is because they have the largest population of any country but another reason is that the factories that are emitting these gases are making goods that is being shipped to places like Europe, India, and the U.S. These are a couple of other civilizations that are catching up in the use of fossil fuels, especially India according to the program.

The program even talked about the production of corn, something that we have just got done watching a video and discussing. According to the show corn has doubled in price due to its high demand in the U.S. and amount of land that it consumes is not healthy for the environment as well. All is not lost however, capitalists are trying to find ways to use solar panels to run entire businesses and bring power to places in the world it was never possible before. As a nation in whole I feel that we need to use the wind and sun more to at least heat and cool our homes and businesses to cut down on the burning of fossil fuels. Another positive is that water treatment plants are becoming safer even though the consumption of water by bigger and more advanced nations could be cut. There is no reason why the amount of fresh water on earth can't provide for everyone on it. However people within certain countries are constantly withering off due to the fact the distribution of water is so "one sided" that they simply have no clean water to drink, cook with, or even bathe in.

All in all, I liked the show. It moved in fast paced manner, even for being an hour long the way information was spewed at you gave me little time to write everything down which may have caused me to miss some key points here and there. As a said before had I not written this argument piece before or even had it in my thoughts then it could have been a little difficult to follow or at least get into. After all of its through now, the research, the paper, and now the program, I know that I have a lot of work to do in my own life before I go out and start criticizing other peoples' way of living.