Robert Pollin

Doing the Recovery Right

Co-director, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Feb 03, 09.

Tagged with environment, economy, economic recovery

For most of the past generation, the aims of environmental sustainability and social justice were seen as equally worthy, yet painfully and unavoidably in conflict. Tree huggers and spotted owls were pitted against loggers and hard hats. Fighting global warming was held to inevitably worsen global poverty and vice versa. Indeed, the competing demands of the environmental and social justice agendas were frequently cited as a classic example of how public policy choices were fraught with trade-offs and unintended consequences—how you could end up doing harm while seeking only to do good.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a dramatic reversal of thinking: the idea has emerged that protecting the environment—in particular, defeating global warming—can also be an effective engine of economic growth, job creation and even poverty reduction. A small band of determined activist organizations, including the Apollo Alliance, Green For All and 1Sky, deserve credit for pushing this idea into the mainstream. Labor and environmental organizations like the Steelworkers and the Natural Resources Defense Council were open to persuasion. By the time the presidential campaign began, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had both incorporated variations on this idea as major planks in their platforms.

Now, under President Obama, the idea of a green recovery—an investment program to promote energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy—is a central feature of his $825 billion program to defeat the most severe financial crash and recession since the 1930s.

Full Story: Doing the Recovery Right
Source: The Nation, January 28, 2009

More Commentary