What Can Save the Floundering U.S. Economy? Green Technology!

The state of the U.S. economy has a lot of people worried. They’re not just concerned about their own bank accounts (though that is a major part of it), they’re concerned about their retirements, their businesses and their children’s futures. Everything seems like a bit of a mess at the moment, and New Yorker staff writer Nick Paumgarten had some big questions for Michael Novogratz, president of the Fortress Investment Group, at the latest New Yorker Stories from the Near Future conference.

From Wired:

Our current economic woes, he said, are analogous to the dot-com bubble burst.

The internet’s turn-of-the-millennium troubles were solved by the rise of second-generation web services. Globalization 1.0, as Novogratz called it, stalled after an initial purchasing power burst among the developing world’s newly-arrived middle classes, but will be saved by globalization 2.0. All will be well.

There’s only one catch: We need another wealth-generating economic bubble. And that, said Novogratz, must come — can only come — from new energy sources and green technology.

“As the price of oil goes up, there’s got to be a green revolution. I think of what will be the next driver of the American economy, and it’s green energy. That’s a huge growth opportunity. It’s not about the pollution. It’s about the energy. Gas will go to $10 a gallon,” he said.

Anybody interested in improving our future through sustainable, earth-friendly means has got to be psyched about that. Not only could it give the U.S. economy a major (and much needed) boost, it could result in an amazing burst of creativity on the green technology front. It’s just what we need to push past this ‘age of oil’ and enter a new era of green forward-thinking technology and practices.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s all gravy. We have some major hurdles to get over, and we probably won’t get past them unscathed. It’s going to get ugly for a while – there’s no getting around the fact that we’ve already done so much damage. But, at least green technology offers a silver lining in what seems like an increasingly bleak outlook of the future.

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Flickr user borman818

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