Opinion: Keep state a leader in clean energy, no on Prop. 23
By Richard Branson
Four years ago in Long Beach, I, along with 15 business leaders, met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss how to deploy clean energy around the world. Our message was clear: Adopt policies that put a price on carbon emissions, and investment in clean energy will follow.
Two months after the meeting, on Sept. 27, 2006, Schwarzenegger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) into law, unleashing a wave of private-sector investment in clean energy. Last year, California’s clean-tech sector received $2.1 billion in investment, accounting for 60 percent of all clean-tech investment in North America. The clean-tech sector is now one of the fastest growing sectors in the state, creating jobs at a rate 10 times faster than the statewide average and employing more than 500,000 Californians.
As a result, California is home to seven of the top 10 clean-tech businesses in the country, earning it a reputation globally as a pre-eminent leader on climate change and a favorite to provide the technologies for the clean-energy revolution taking shape around the world.
Richard Branson is founder of the Virgin Group, co-founder of the Carbon War Room and a member of the Climate Group’s International Leadership Council.
While Branson flies his big jets on hydrocarbons, he sees fit to tell us commoners to eat clean cake. Richard, take a hike, oh I mean take a flight.
I attended the green energy building symposium at Lake Tahoe Community College this past year. It was interesting to note that the people saying “we have to force people to build green by imposing big fines if they don’t” are the same people, like the writer above, who are making in excess of 80k per year. Come down to MY income level, which is less than half of yours, and then see how “green” you want to be.We are BROKE! The state is broke, the country is broke, and the little people are tired of being told to “eat cake” while paying their monstrous taxes to people who spend, give away, and impose grandious ideas on the backs of the little folks. DONATE YOUR fortune, sir, and fund your dreams with your own money.
Wow how original, attack the messenger instead of the message.
Somehow I would like the California, or at least the United States to be on the forefront of Green Technology instead of letting other countries around the world continue to outpace us on innovation and manufacture of these new products.
We have already lost our past manufacturing base, would be nice to build some of it back up again.
I don’t know what the best way to get there is, maybe it’s not forcing people, though maybe a little nudging is appropriate.
I think investments, and tax incentives might work just as well, maybe even better, as everyone likes the carrot better than the stick.