The Republican Rejection of a Green Future

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The election’s polarization aroundclimate, energy and the environment isn’t about the costs orrelative importance of shifting to renewable power, protectingpublic lands or cleaning up air and water. It’s about thestruggle between America’s economic past and its future.

Mitt Romney and the Republican Party have doubled down on afading finance- and commodity-dominated economic order. It isone where innovation in research and development finds nodomestic markets because incumbent interests hold on to outmodedcapital stocks instead of modernizing them, and where innovativemanufacturing is sacrificed to other sectors of the economy. AsRomney said, inaccurately, in the first debate, lashing out atPresident Barack Obama: “You provided $90 billion in breaks tothe green-energy world. Now, I like green energy as well, butthat’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives.”