f the government is going to put money into the automobile sector, it should break up GM and Chrysler as a condition of financial aid, and it should be even-handed in its treatment of start-up firms like Tesla, Miles, Fisker, and others. It would be terrible to kill the entrepreneurs who have taken great risks to bring new automotive technologies to market by pumping tax dollars into the behemoths that have done everything wrong for the last years.
Denis HayesI would love to see a fundamental re-thinking of whether we truly want to be the world's largest debtor nation, feeding an insatiable desire for mall-crawling with cheaply made crap from all over the world.
Denis HayesAn aggressive building performance standard for all new buildings, and a set of performance requirements to be met by all buildings before they can be sold (when upgrades can be included in the new mortgage). These should encompass heating and cooling, lighting, and plug loads. Coupled with new efficiency standards for appliances, lights, and furnaces, this should reduce the energy consumption of new buildings by 50 percent, more or less immediately, and go on from there.
Denis HayesBy the year 2000, such renewable energy sources could provide 40 percent of the global energy budget; by 2025, humanity could obtain 75 percent of its energy from solar resources.
Denis HayesBy 1975 - and continuing to today - all Americans came to believe that they had a "right" to a safe, clean, healthy environment. When I grew up, no one seriously criticized the steel mills and paper mills for the deadly stench they produced - that was the smell of prosperity. In the modern society, no one would tolerate such conditions in an American city.
Denis Hayes