What is the future of green innovation, jobs
and the green economy?

I attended a Clean Tech attorney conference in the San Francisco Bay Area, and several European attorneys mentioned that Wind Power provided energy for thousands of years. However, it is now called 'Clean Tech'. They also stated that biofuels are becoming less popular for investors because of increasing food prices and the ever-growing food riots around the world.

Let's examine the analogy of food production and technology. Thousands of years ago, food production was organic and sustainable. However, with some newer food production methods, fertilizers, herbicides, and genetically modified foods are contaminating land, soil, and streams and affecting biodiversity and increasing Climate Change emissions. Animal agriculture is another culprit. The United Nations Climate Change Report has determined that animal agriculture causes more greenhouse gases than transportation in addition to soil and water contamination.

The American Dietetic Association's journal article "Food and Nutrition Professionals Can Implement Practices to Conserve Natural Resources and Support Ecological Sustainability". states that “meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands” dieticians “can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs.”

Seventy percent of the grain grown and fifty percent of the water
consumed in the U.S are used by the meat industry. More than 260 million acres of U.S
forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock.

There is a diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, and
more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed
animals so that people can eat meat. Is the diversion of crops to our
cars and to produce meat a moral issue?

So, how do our current food production practices affect our Health?

In addition to Diabetes, meat protein is also shown to increase Cancer and Heart Disease rates.

We have also heard about the thousands of children poisoned by melamine in China, and some of us in the United States experienced the loss of a family pet due to melamine pet food contamination originating in China.

As a United States and World Citizen, we need to Take a Stand and revolutionize our food production systems worldwide to ensure they are sustainable, safe, and healthy both in the short term and long term and also revolutionize our eating habits to a more plant-based diet. We have the technology, the knowledge, and the determination to improve our lives. If we can change a lightbulb, we can eat one less meat-based meal a day. I like the saying "Run it like you own it"; let's take charge and make our lives and our planet a better place....starting TODAY.

Our worldwide financial methodologies also need revision. On financial statements, expenses are simple and straighforward today. However, what are the short and long term expenses on the Environment. How does the production of a laptop that I'm typing on right now incorporate environmental costs like pollution produced when a touchpad or capacitor is made, for example. How about the environmental costs of the soy latte I'm drinking right now? Normally those environmental costs are not accounted for, and those need to be built into the worldwide financial methodologies and equations.

Now, back to the original question: What is the future of green innovation, jobs
and the green economy? As Wind Power was an old technology but innovated to what we use today and now called 'Clean Tech', we need to characterize our food production methodologies into 'Clean Tech' as well by using innovation to produce natural (no nanotech, biotech, genetically modified items), plant-based, healthy foods and provide societal education on sustainable farming and eating practices. Through more investment in this new Clean Technology agricultural category, jobs and innovation will increase, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease rates will decrease, governments will reduce their expenditures on treating the 3 previous diseases, and we will have cleaner air and water. The economy will flourish...as will the Planet and the Future Generations of humans and all living things.

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