EUGENE Coyle’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Keep saying NO!

  Charlie,

       I tdoes have to be either or.  As a very small number buy green tags, the chances of regulation are hurt.  Politicans will point to the small number and say "See, people really don't care about this."
       Buying green has failed, let's move on to what works.

  GeneOn Umbra on Green Tags posted 4 years, 8 months ago 10 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  NO! to Green Tags

  George,  People who "buy green" feel good about themselves, but it is a mistake for supporting clean air.
  What percent of IBM's power is bought green?  Very little.
    If voluntary purchasing will do the trick, why didn't catalytic converters on cars happen voluntarily?
      It is one thing to name poster children among the industrials, quite another to have any significant participation.  The industrials are looking for the cheapest power they can buy.
  And the people who do buy green begin to resent the rest, splitting the populous rather than uniting it.
     Let's be green citizens and demand that every customer buy green power.  Let's not depend on the good will of the affluent few who volunteer.

  Gene Coyle

  PS  There is a lot written on this issue -- and former advocates of green consumerism in the environmental community seem to have gone silent in the past few years.On Umbra on Green Tags posted 4 years, 8 months ago 10 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Say NO! to green tags

  Umbra, Your advice is usually excellent, but in advocating buying green tags you have made a serious mistake.
       We should NOT be green consumers, but should be green citizens.  We shouln't assuage guilt, as you are suggesting but rather demand that everyone buy green.  We can do that through legislation and regulation.
       Guilt ridden, or just good hearted, we make a mistake by buying green tags.  For that leaves the industrial customers to go on buying cheap dirty power.  Industrial customers buy one-third of all the elctricity, so we are missing that whole market by being green consumers rather than green citizens.
       Misguided environmental activists are leading the Grist community down the wrong road.  Demand that industrial customers buy green first.

  Gene CoyleOn Umbra on Green Tags posted 4 years, 8 months ago 10 Responses