In the Balance: Energy, Economy and Environment
In the Balance: Energy, Economy and Environment Part of The Chevron California Innovation Series Raj Atluru, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Ralph Cavanagh, Energy Co-director, Natural Resources Defense Council Cathy Reheis-Boyd, President, Western States Petroleum Association Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers and Technology Association Virgil Welch, Special Assistant to the Chairman, California Air Resources Board Greg Dalton, Climate One - Moderator The low-carbon economy is California\u2019s future. But this panel of energy experts convened by Climate One disagrees on how fast that transition will take, and how it will impact the economy. Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and Cathy Reheis-Boyd, President, Western States Petroleum Association, repeatedly stress that California could be more business friendly, and that green jobs alone won\u2019t pull the state out of recession. \u201cWe all see a clean energy future,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cThe question is: When do we get there? How fast do we get there? And at what cost?\u201d \u201cWe cannot lose sight of the fact that we are not in a good state in California,\u201d says Reheis-Boyd. \u201cI can tell you my members are making some very difficult choices about where to invest their next dollar.\u201d We have to get the rules right, the remaining panel members say, but they see no trade-off between environmental and economic good. \u201cI think the energy history of California over the last 30 years is how to do both well,\u201d says Ralph Cavanagh, Energy co-director, Natural Resources Defense Council. \u201cNobody is satisfied with 12.4% unemployment, but I don\u2019t think the answer is doing less of what we already know we do better than anyone else. I think it\u2019s speeding up.\u201d For Virgil Welch, Special Assistant to the Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, it\u2019s also about maintaining California\u2019s global competitiveness. \u201cThe policies that we as a state are working on are not just what we need to do for our energy and environmental needs, but they\u2019re critical to driving us towards where the global economy is heading, which is clean energy.\u201d As long as California\u2019s maintains its forward-thinking policy framework, green innovators will call the state home, says, Raj Atluru, Managing Director at the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. \u201cCalifornia has succeeded over the last century because of its innovation. We\u2019ve innovated in entertainment, flight, defense, communications, PCs, the Internet. Our bet, at our firm, is that the next wave of innovation is going to be the green jobs economy. \u201d This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 12, 2010\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices