investment

Energy will be one of our number one issues in coming years. The conflicting pull of increased demand overwhelming our grid and the need to cut carbon emissions to battle global warming before our 10-year window has passed. Both of these conflicting needs are critical needs and we have to find a way to address both.

The 21st century solutions, as seen by scientists, is increased efficiency, reforestation and new energy solutions like wind, biofuels, geothermal, tidal, and solar energy. But too often the American solution is a 19th century solution: coal. Using dirty coal, which affects our health, and adds carbon and pollutants to the atmosphere, is a relatively cheap solution to increased energy demand...but is completely stupid when we have only 10 short years to address global warming. Clean coal, which still adds carbon to the atmosphere but doesn't have as many problems as dirty coal, costs about the same as wind power...which is one of the cleanest and most practical solutions we have. Denmark, a much smaller economy than our own, generates more wind energy than the entire United States.

One problem is investment trends. Banks are slow to change their investment practices. The Union of Concerned Scientists is lobbying banks to change their investment practices to favor alternative energy over coal. I should note that I personally have profited from investing in both solar and geothermal.