So while looking through my notes at this very moment, I saw the graph you had up in your PowerPoint that had investments as the x-axis, and benefits on the y-axis. The smaller line was “optimizing the existing solution,” while the bigger line was “re-defining the problem.” Science has shown time and time again how we are digging ourselves into a deeper hole with every passing day if we do not put in lots of money into green engineering. Yet big companies (the ones who cause the most environmental issues, though we do our fair share as well) insist on just changing what they already have. You’ve already mentioned in class that it will take billions of dollars for a company to change up the system that they already have into a green-friendlier one. I understand that, but they’re going to do it anyways. Whether it’s right now or in a few years, they’re going to have go be green before it’s too late. So why waste money now? Why “optimize the existing solution” or “re-engineer the problem” when they can just “re-define the problem” from now and actually save money doing so?
The BP Commercial you showed in class reminds me of Mitt Romney. The commercial clumped together solar and wind energy with gas and oil, even though those two are completely different. Two of them are obviously cleaner and less risky than the other two. During the last debate, Romney was discussing how, unlike Obama, he would put money into green engineering but not take jobs away from coal miners. He was pretty much trying to make everyone happy, but it’s just unrealistic. It’s so contradictory to have both sources for energy. I understand that we don’t want to take away jobs from people right now, especially in this economy where the likelihood of them finding another one is quite slim, but isn’t this natural? What happened when the car was created? Horse carriage owners lost their jobs. What happened during the Industrial Revolution? Agricultural workers lost their jobs. This happens, and during these recent times and in the (hopefully) near future, we will begin to switch into more green energy jobs. We have to, or else the hole that’s already been dug will be so much deeper with no way out.
I just now decided to look up William McDonough and learn more about him. Using the very reliable Wikipedia source, I learned that Fast Company Magazine criticized him for “…unwilling to share cradle-to-cradle specifications with suppliers, though he continues to promote it.” I assume from this line and from the ones before it that McDonough seems like a man who is making groundbreaking achievements when it comes to green engineering, but he’s being too protective over the knowledge. He’s not sharing all of it with others, as if he’s a child and wants to have all of the credit, which I find quite pathetic. Also, he even wants credit for things he didn’t even achieve himself. Quite a lot of scientists, according to the article I was reading, don’t seem to like him, but have to deal with him because he’s now the face of cradle-to-cradle, he’s the face for environmental sustainability, even if he really didn’t do as much as people think he did. I find that quite sad, and feel disbelief over the fact that even environmental sustainability is being turned into a competitive business when it shouldn’t be. I feel like doing that to it will only halt the process even more.
Link to the article: http://www.fastcompany.com/1042475/green-guru-gone-wrong-william-mcdonough
