Anne Leonard: The Story of Broke

Here’s Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff Project with her latest animated video called, “The Story of Broke.”  She poses the question, “Why is there enough money for war, to subsidise big oil or to bail out banks, but when it comes to investing in a better future, the government is broke?”

She says, “If half the US $10 billion that is spent on oil and gas subsidies in the United States goes into renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, it could provide solar energy to 2 million homes. The remaining half can be used to retrofit half a million homes and provide jobs year after year.”

She adds, “Most chemicals are made from oil. Switching just 20% of these from petrochemicals to bio-based chemicals would create 100,000 new jobs.”

“Instead of subsiding incinerators, let’s subsidise real solutions like zero waste. By raising recycling rates to 75% we can create 1.5 million new jobs, with less pollution, less waste and less pressure to harvest and mine new stuff.”

We don’t know how the figures have been calculated, but agree with the thrust of her arguments. Moving towards a green economy is possible, as long as we get our priorities right.

Here’s the video:

Video link here

Short URL: http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/?p=9009

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