I have to write a bit politically from now on.  Til October 19th, anyway.  I know it is irritating. Sorry.  But, here’s the dilemma – for evil to be done good men only have to do nothing.  I have to do what I can to get rid of Stephen Harper and the mindset he represents.  I humbly request that you consider the points raised in this blog and, if you can’t vote Green, please make a point of voting to get rid of Harper.  I am not asking you to vote my way, just don’t vote the old way.  It is time we all united to rid ourselves of this bigoted fool who is an embarassment to our country.

If the economy is important to you, vote Green. If waste, destruction and debt are more to your liking, vote Conservative or Liberal. It may seem counter-intuitive to you and it is absolutely contradicting the myth spread by the old-time parties but the facts are clear; the new economy is going Green and the old economics of the established parties are elitist and have created nothing but decay and indebtedness for the average citizen. In fact, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have managed the worst economic growth since the depression era at a record setting low of 1.77%.

Canada is hugely in debt. We owe 1.2 trillion dollars or 66% of our gross domestic output. And that does not include the provincial debt which raises the figures considerably. It is generally regarded that 80% is the point-of-no-return. We are too close to national bankruptcy. Given that we are one of the richest, most resource-full nations on the planet and, outrageously, with the fewest people, how is it possible that even a mediocre or slightly corrupt manager could run the country so deeply into the red?

But they did.  Sorta like they did in Alberta.

The Canadian Establishment got rich, the Canadian population became indebted and our economy is mired in a 19th century robber-baron mindset with our ill-informed economic hopes pinned on the almost non-existent jobs of the expiring Sunset industries. We grow wheat, sell trees, coal and oil. We even sell water but only for a pittance. We used to sell fish but we killed them all. We even sold our national railroad to Bill Gates. Face it: our old way of doing business does not work.

But here’s the real shock: only 4% of the population is employed in those sectors. That means that the rich are getting rich off our nation’s resources and hiring only a few citizens to help them do it. And there is no trickle down.  You are simply being robbed.

Most Canadians already know that we have been largely mismanaged in so many ways for far too long a time. What they want to know is what to do about it.  And they may not know that the newly emerging Green economy looms promising on our horizon if we make changes to our thinking and vote differently. We can and we will – if we keep the old Duffy/duffers away from the controls – be prospering in a land of abundance.

Sounds like a hippy, eh?

But Elon Musk is no hippy and he is prospering. He got his start in the cauldron of capitalism with the innovation of PayPal.  And he is now as Green as Kermit. See Solar City. See Tesla Motors.

Capitalism is NOT the problem. Capitalism motivates, initiates, energizes and promotes our ideas. It feeds off the natural inventiveness of the human animal. But, like a dog, it can be used for good or trained and directed towards aggression and doing harm. Our old leaders bred for Dobermans and Rotweilers and more than a few emerged as Pitt Bulls. Their dogs protected the elite and did harm to passersby. And they still are.

Green Natural Capitalism, on the other hand, works with nature, cooperates with others and, like Google says, ‘does no evil.’ Think Standard Poodle. Or Portugese Water Dog. Natural Capitalism is harnessing the positive and limiting the negative. Natural Capitalism is a good dog.

Natural Capitalism is also a book authored by Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken. Read it.

Synopsis: Ray Anderson saw the Green difference. He was a manufacturer of carpets. Then he took some trash to the dump and saw that his product was occupying a large part of it.  Ray re-worked his company to one that leases carpet and recycles all of the old carpet into new. In the process, Interface Corporation grew ten-fold. And the dump stopped seeing carpet.

“But we are just ordinary people with huge mortgages. We can’t do that!”

Yes, you can. Alan Hammond took the concept of local farmers selling direct to customers and gave us Granville Island Public market. Regular Canadians are doing it all the time.

Granville Island Brewery. Interior wineries. Small, boutique hotels. Virtually all your local service and hospitality industries. Builders, teachers, millwrights. Healthcare. They are all (95%) local. That is economy.  That is community. And that is sustainable.

In other words, your dentist keeps your teeth in order, your local grocer increasingly tries to go local, your neighbor replaces roofs and the kid next door did your lawn last week. What did Kinder Morgan do for you lately? Enbridge? Exxon?

The truth is that all of them (even Exxon) have contributed to the modern marketplace but some do more for you than others. Some are doing better for the planet and your children’s future than others, as well. Put your support where it counts.

Reject the global corporate mindset. It is not hard to do. Do we need a natural gas plant that sells our resources to a Malaysian petro-giant? Do you think your price of natural gas will be lower? Are you going to work at the plant? Do you think the shareholders of the company reaping the profits are your neighbours?

Vote differently and be part of a local, sustainable and green business. That’s where the future is.