All or Nothing?

B.K. Loren's "Got Tape" (pages 43-52) is the personal story of one community standing together as one to stop a SuperTarget from destroying undeveloped land.

Question: why does it take a crisis for people to act? Loren notes that during the process, they learned that to keep the people working together, they had to "quit fighting against something, and begin fighting for something" (49). Fine, but why did it take the threat of SuperTarget for them to learn this lesson? Here's some undeveloped land: of course someone is going to want to do something with it. Why not act before that "evil" someone steps forward?

Question: why couldn't a shopping center be a part of a nature setting? Does it have to be one or the other? I've visited a lot of places that have strict zoning standards -- how big the signs are in front of stores, what the building are made out of, etc.

I hate sprawl as much as anyone, and I hate bulldozing down all the trees to put in parking lots, but perhaps there's a third way? After all, people have to shop. Maybe instead of "protecting" 100 acres of undeveloped land, we should "protect" all land and the way that it's developed. Just a thought.

Enemy of My Enemy

On the surface, unions and environmentalists don't have a lot in common; Laura Paskus's "The Union Makes Them Strong" (pages 32-42) does a nice job showing that blue-collar and green-collar folks actually do have a lot in common -- if only a common enemy.

Is the future of Green in the hands of unions? Perhaps so, because the underlying issue is jobs. Going green will take a lot of money, but with the money will come jobs. That's the key point. And these jobs could be union jobs, which would be a real shot in the arm to unions, which have seen memberships on the decline for decades.

Interesting to note, too, is just how far ahead of the game Europe is. Europe has set environmental goals and standards, and they are seeing real growth in green jobs. America, however, continues to subsidize oil companies in the billions while spending on renewable energy only receives support in the millions.

What will it take to change the direction of America's energy policy? Perhaps it will take Green and Blue working together.