Energy efficiency can accelerate economic growth

Both political candidates claim that America needs to accelerate economic growth. This is accepted as a worthy goal by Paul Krugman, who notes that “some people I respect believe that trying to get …[the growth rate] back up should be a big goal of policy.” But Dr. Krugman then asks HOW we can do it:

“After all, what do we actually know how to do when it comes to economic policy?”

He is unable to identify specific answers in the article because he is looking at the problem from 40,000 feet. If you start with your feet on the ground, however, you can see several big opportunities. One great way to accelerate economic growth is to reduce energy bills for households and businesses through a large-scale program to make our existing homes and buildings more efficient. This will employ hundreds of thousands of people, some who are working on our buildings and some with jobs created by pumping money into the economy that otherwise would have been wasted.

Read the full story. (NRDC)