This post is built on a comment I made yesterday on a post by Liz Emrich. That excellent post was related to, but not intended to address, the specific point that concerns me. But this issue deserves serious discussion followed by governmental action now. I am not saying that there has been no discussion of this issue, but if there has I have not run across it.
I am concerned about the impact of many of the coming green technologies on different demographic groups in this country. I am particularly concerned about those technologies which require the direct expenditure of substantial amounts of money by individuals and families to bring their benefits to fruition. Unless policies change, a major segment of the population is going to be left out.
There are many such technologies that exist now that fit this criterion. Let’s just take automobile efficiency improvements, like hybrids, for example. Unless we intentionally address this issue up front what I see is the dawning of a new socio-economic disparity, a new class system, if you will, between those who are "green" and those who are not. Those who are green will be at the top of the pecking order and those who are not will be at the bottom. Some may say, “Well, if they aren’t green they deserve to be looked down on.” But, even if I thought that were true, and I do not, there is still a problem with that.
The last people to join the green revolution as it applies to automobiles will be the same people who are now the last people to join any new breakthrough technology, green or not. These lesser valued participants in the new green economy are now usually called working class people, the working poor, or just poor people, or, if you are a sociologist, I guess you would call them disadvantaged people. Call them what you will, they will not be “non-green” because they don’t want to be green, but because they can’t be.
They will be the ones who will least be able to afford to go green. They will be the ones driving the old gas guzzlers, because those one time - not so long ago - “preferred” cars will become the cheapest used cars, ie: the cars and pickup trucks that poor folk can almost afford, but only with real sacrifice to do so. Actually these old gas guzzling cars and pickups are already the cheapest older used cars and trucks that you can buy, and we are just starting to convert the fleet of US privately owned cars to more efficient, green friendly vehicles.
Those families, the working class/working poor/poor/disadvantaged ones, won't have either the money or the access to the credit to buy a new hybrid. Even if there were a substantial tax write off there is likely no way that they could pay the difference for a new car, any new car. And even if they could get a loan chances are they could not pay it off, (shades of the mortgage crisis debacle). That is a game they can’t afford to play.
Rather, they will buy, just as they do now, from Rent-A-Center auto equivalents, places like J. B. ByRrider, and “Friendly Bob’s Corner Car Lot,” where they will pay anywhere up to 26% interest (here in Ohio, more in other states, much more) for a loan on an old gas guzzler. They will pay to enter that crummy arrangement that most of us would not touch with a ten foot pole, because that is the only credit they can get. And they can't save enough to pay cash because they have to eat. And they can't afford not to have a car or a pickup because they have to get to work so they can work to eat. In other words, the benefits of the green technology revolution everybody is going to be raving about will, like so many other tech improvements, pass them by.
This country really needs to get a handle on where the poor, and even many members of the lower middle class, will come out as we move forward with each of our new, and admittedly necessary, green improvements. If not, the poor will end up where they have always ended up in our society: screwed.
Monte
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
America’s Coming Green Revolution: Who Loses?
DECEMBER 1, 2008 11:17AM
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