by Craig Williamson

Created on: March 04, 2009

With the economic crisis robbing everyone of their hard earned cash and causing many to panic, the temptation to ignore the environment is certainly there. But shouldn't we think about what caused this economic crisis? Was it not due to a lack of regulation in the financial sector? Just look at our northern neighbour, Canada. Canada has not had a single bank failure or bailout since the economic problems began. Also, their banks are profitable and one of them is actually expanding overseas as we speak. How did they do it? Well, for starters they have banking regulation. So, the point is, perhaps we need to dispense with the notion that regulation is always bad and simply admit that we went too far in de-regulation.

There is another looming crisis on our hands, and this one is far greater than the economic meltdown. And, that is the environmental crisis known as global warming. It's clear (if you don't think so, just look at the economy!) that without regulations the private sector cannot be trusted to do what is in the public interest. The private sector will just about always do what is good for them in the short term, without thinking of the long term consequences.

Now, when it comes to something as huge as global warming, what company is going to want to do anything to shoulder that burden, especially with the economy in the gutter. But, this is actually the best time to act on environmental regulation. With such massive investments going into infrastructure with the economic stimulus package, it only makes sense to use that money in a way that is going to lead to sustainable growth. That is, environmentally friendly growth that looks ahead over the next hundred years, rather than the next hundred days.

The politics of this country, regardless of whether or not we are in a blue state or a red state (Yes, Massachusetts does have something in common with Texas) is far too short sighted. We, as a country do not look far enough into the future. If we are going to rebuild this economy and prevent the next crisis, that of global warming, we have got to start doing a better job of governing ourselves. In order to do that, we have to start regulating what needs to be regulated to prevent the same sort of greed and shortsightedness from disrupting our lives again.

It's time to get tough on big business and force them to be more environmentally responsible. For failure to do so could in time destroy the eco-system of the whole planet. We cannot allow that to happen. We need to take action, and only tough new environmental regulations to combat global warming will do that.

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