Advancing a Green Country...

In today's op-ed column by Tom Friedman in the New York Times, he discusses the contrasting leadership of President George Bush and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore. Within this article, regarding conservatives, Friedman states, "They can’t see what is staring us in the face — that in pushing American companies to become greener, we are pushing them to become more productive, more innovative, more efficient and more competitive" and "In pushing our companies to go green we are spurring them to take the lead in the next great global industry — clean power."

Under the guise of protecting their constituents, legislation raising emissions and efficiency standards for automobiles in the United States has been unable to gain a foothold due to the opposition of numerous representatives and Senators, as well as President Bush, with support from the nation's big domestic automakers, as well as representatives from the current leading innovator in the field of clean automobiles, Toyota. In doing so, the belief is that the government is protecting the interests of domestic automakers (never mind the prurient interests of the oil companies). Instead, they are failing these automakers by not pushing them to become "more productive, more innovative, more efficient, and more competitive". This has resulted in the continuing failures of the domestic automobile industry, falling well behind foreign corporations who have aggressively taken on the challenge of developing lower emissions, higher efficiency and alternative power vehicles, resulting in the ascendancy of Toyota as the #1 automobile maker in the US.

This serves as a microcosm of the greater issues that Friedman cites in his piece. Until the leaders in government raise the standards for domestic companies, they will continue to fall behind their international competition and see declines in their future profitability and prosperity, damaging the citizens who comprise their workforces in the present and the future.