I am of the belief that the drive for instant “Green!” has hurt the economy by inhibiting the development of resources, placing onerous regulatory burdens on business, increasing the price of energy—you know, the kinds of things that stifle growth, cause uncertainty, and generally depress economic exuberance.
But “Green!” is supposed to be the big answer. Green! jobs, we are told will turn things around! Only “Green! companies” don’t really create a lot of jobs, and thus the Green! economy has not exactly set the world on fire. And so we drift downward economically.
It is in this context that a Green! tech festival, perhaps unsurprisingly, flopped in Santa Monica—which, for those who don’t know, is on LA’s progressive West Side where Green! is supposedly popular. From the LA Times story:
It was the first New World Festival of Eco-Friendly Science and Technology and quite possibly the last. The event near the beach in Santa Monica, which had been scheduled to run through Sunday, was shut down abruptly Saturday afternoon. Its website had promised robots, a petting zoo, six stages of live music and more than 150 exhibits. But the gathering on Saturday looked more like a medium-sized, eco-friendly farmers market.
Howard Mauskopf, the festival’s organizer, said he needed to shut down because so few people had shown up. “We’re in a position where we don’t have the financial ability to continue,” he said, adding that he would have needed eight to 10 times the crowd that was present to make ends meet. He said he is going to try to reimburse food vendors next week. “I don’t know why people didn’t come,” he said.
Perhaps I can be of assistance. I think the failure of this Green! festival is a small, but interesting, reminder that radical environmentalism has not yet caught on popularly. Sure, the media get all atwitter about Green!. It is de rigueur among the liberal power structure, accepted by kids who have been scared in school that the word is DYING, in universities, and among the bureaucrats and political leaders of the current spend-thrift administration that has poured billions of heard earned tax dollars into Green! start-up and other companies—amounting to millions per Green! job. And certainly, the thought of all Green! all the time still resonates with the protest-against-anything types who cluelessly rage against capitalism—as, some have reported, they enjoy the fruits of one of the great modern capitalistic enterprises on their high priced Apple products.
But most of us don’t want to become earth monks. We know that we live better than any humans in history, precisely because we developed our natural resources and developed fossil fuel technologies. People don’t freeze in the winter. We have unprecedented mobility. Food has never been grown so productively. We live longer and healthier. Etc. beyond etc. And while we certainly want messes cleaned up and reasonable levels of environmental regulations, most Americans are turning their faces away from global warming hysteria and don’t yet even know about the advancing anti human “rights of nature” drivel.
I certainly don’t wish anything bad on the promoters of the festival and, hope the participants don’t didn’t too much money in their small attempt at a capitalistic venture. And I don’t want to make too much this. But I think it may reflect the common sense approach the majority seems to be taking to the currently unavoidable dynamic tension between the need to use fossil fuels to jump start the economy and the unquestionable duty that these things be done in an environmentally responsible ways.
I’d say better luck next year, but I don’t think it would do much good. Impractical doesn’t sell.
