{"id":2255,"date":"2011-03-29T12:58:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/its-an-opportunity-john-s-quarterman.html"},"modified":"2011-03-29T12:58:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:58:09","slug":"its-an-opportunity-john-s-quarterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/its-an-opportunity-john-s-quarterman.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman"},"content":{"rendered":"“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession\ngreener than ever, if we choose wisely.”\n

\nHere is my response to\n\nJames R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities.<\/a> -jsq\n

\n\nIt’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently\nsearching for our next meal to help those who need jobs,\nand thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime.\nLike a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession\ngreener than ever, if we choose wisely.\n

\nSwitchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago,\nbut there is still no market for it.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nMeanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming,\nand\n\ncontinued to boom right through the recession.<\/a>\n

\nNot just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously\nrestrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides\nfor healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton.\n\n<\/a>\nThat’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets\nin growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local\nbanks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge\npesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.\n

\nSimilarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago,\nbut with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants\njust across the state line, having never built any such plant ever,\nthe biomass boom never happened.\n

\nMeanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state\nthat\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\nGeorgia’s forests are worth far more ($37 billion a year)\nin their ecological benefits (clean air, clean water, less floods)\nthan the entire traditional timber industry ($28 billion a year).<\/a>\n

\nPlus there are new opportunities in carbon trading, reforestation,\nhunting, fishing, and ecotourism.\n

\nMeanwhile,\n\nsolar is the fastest growing industry worldwide, bar none.<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n

\nEven though Georgia lost the second Suniva plant to Saginaw, Michigan,\nwe gained the MAGE SOLAR plant in Dublin.\n

\nCome to Lowndes High\n\nthis afternoon at 4PM to hear about MAGE SOLAR.<\/a>\n

\nRight here in the Azalea City Mayor Fretti helped break ground for\nthe Wiregrass Solar plant only a couple of months ago. Then Hannah Solar\ndemonstrated that\n\nyou can install a 350 kilowatt solar plant in a week.<\/a>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nCol. Ricketts told the Industrial Authority months ago that that\nsolar plant could be expanded in two directions. Let’s do that,\nand have a multi-megawatt solar plant right here in Lowndes County!\n

\nSpeaking of Lowndes County, farmers could put solar on their barn\nand house roofs, reducing their electrical bills. They could even\ndedicate a few acres to solar panels, making a profit selling back\nto the grid, without any need to build new power lines.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAt least three companies right here in Lowndes County install solar\nelectricity and hot water. They could install a lot of MAGE and Suniva\npanels throughout south Georgia. The big impediment is the up front\ncost, even after state and federal tax rebates. Here’s an opportunity\nfor local banks to get into the act by financing that.\nMary Gooding says the Industrial Authority is about industry.\nWell, it’s not just about that, but here’s an industry that\nValdosta and Lowndes County could lead for south Georgia.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSimilarly, private prisons may sound like a good idea when pitched\nby slick Nashville salesmen. But according to\n\na study of counties\nin New York state that have private prisons versus those that don’t,<\/a>\nthe counties with the prisons did no better on unemployment than\nthose that do, during economic good times, downturns, and recoveries.\n

\nPrivate prisons don’t add jobs: the people who work there don’t\nlike to live next to them, and prisoners are the lowest-paid\npossible labor, competing with local labor, and often with\nskilled labor.\n

\nPlus\n\nat least three national churches<\/a> say locking people up for private\nprofit (from our tax money) is a bad idea that should be abandoned.\n

\n\nTexas realized several years ago<\/a> that it couldn’t afford to keep\nlocking up more people, and turned to half-way houses, education,\nand rehabilitation. There’s a local industry we could grow!\n\n<\/a>\nWhat happened to\n\nCHANCE?<\/a> Did it ever get funded? If not,\n\nwhy not fund that with our tax dollars,<\/a> instead of a private prison?\n

\nMeanwhile, what is booming right here in Lowndes County is education.\nWiregrass Tech is\n\nthe fastest growing technical college of its size\nin the country.<\/a>\nVSU continues to boom, and I hear Dr. Schloss wants\nto turn it into a research university.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBut students and professors and researchers aren’t going to want to\ncome to a place that is known for polluting biomass and private prisons.\nYou may have noticed some of them demonstrating outside City Hall\nrecently, along with people from the neighborhoods surrounding\nthe proposed biomass site, in among the largest and most likely\nthe most diverse demonstrations ever seen in this county.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nMyrna Ballard and the Chamber of Commerce want to attract\n\nknowledge-based jobs.<\/a> Well, the creative people we need to\nattract and educate right here for such jobs aren’t going to\nwant to live in a place known for polluting industry and\nprivate prisons.\n

\nLet’s stop trying to import failed industries. Let’s show\nsome leadership and grow real industries:\n