[Platform] ballot question? Fwd: How green is your collar?

[John Andrews]

I think our thinking is moving well beyond that of the people quoted in the
article.  They are talking about gaining and losing jobs in the current
economic paradigm in which profit maximization (i.e. exploiting labor and
the environment) is the overriding objective for capital investment.  But we
are saying that the global warming crisis was brought about by this very
flawed operating principle (profit maximization).  We are saying that the
economy has to be designed according to *ecological* principles, which means
that economic activities are part of a *system* and the system has, as its
goal, the welfare of human beings.  This is a perspective that the
Green-Rainbow Party should be standing up for, and we are currently the only
party that will stand up for such a transformation.

The complaint that poor people can't afford energy-efficient lightbulbs is
an example of being stuck in old ways of thinking.   What poor people can't
afford is ever-rising electric bills.  Efficient lightbulbs save money.
Insulation saves money.  And reducing oil imports will create the jobs that
poor people need.  It is the rich people who can afford to burn lots of
electricity and import all the oil they can burn (although, in the end, they
too will be swept up in the collapse).

More on this topic should be coming out of the Fossil Fuel Subcommittee
soon.

- John