Sarah: Some people say we just don’t have the money to deal with climate change because we have already spent so much on the financial bailout.
Van Jones (founder Green for All): The smartest things we can do in the short term pay for themselves. If we were to weatherize and retrofit millions of buildings in the United States, the energy cost savings would let you pay for that work in two to four years. So we literally are wasting money, time, and our planet when there are cost-effective, revenue-positive answers here that would put people to work.
The government needs to create a revolving loan fund so cities, hospitals, and universities can put people to work retrofitting buildings so they leak less energy. Slap some solar panels up there while you’re at it, and then use the cost savings to repay the government so the government can loan that money out again. Now that would be a smart strategy. Or the government could offer federal loan guarantees to get private capital moving in this direction.
That’s a way to put people to work.
via YES! magazine: Van Jones: Beyond the Politics of Confrontation.
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