Modern society requires large amounts of energy. This will be true even if we become far more conservation conscious, far more humble in our appetites, and far more efficient in the production and use of energy resources. In fact, developing nations, aspiring to the same life-style that we have attained, will multiply the global challenges manifold.
But such massive energy consumption produces enormous externalities. Global warming, environmental contamination, and destablizing geopolitical repurcussions are all by-products of our energy consumption. Our reliance on non-renewable resources, consuming them at a rate that will make further extraction astronomically expensive in a matter of decades, compels us to be proactive in our political and economic stance toward energy and the environment.
Environmental contamination, particularly in the forms of carbon (and “black soot”) emissions, and groundwater contamination, combined with rapid economic growth in some developing nations and with an increasing scarcity of water in many regions, are global problems that cannot be ignored indefinitely. In Colorado, water scarcity coupled with population growth, and groundwater contamination through processes such as “fraccing” and uranium mining, pose urgent challenges that require assertive solutions.
Robust, system-sensitive local, state, national, and global responses are called for in response to these challenges.
A state-wide program of subsidization of research and development in the New Energy Economy is one such response. It is good for Colorado, and good for the world. We are currently forerunners in this nascent industry. Few things are predictable in world history, but the near certainty of an impending and sustained rise in the importance and value of “green” energy technologies and industries points the way toward a very important long-term economic strategy for the State of Colorado. Providing increased educational opportunities for New Energy jobs, and increased investment in New Energy technologies and nascent industries, is a wise economic and ecological course for the State of Colorado
