Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States, and the Race for Environmental Technology [Paperback]

Curtis Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1995

A crucial argument for today's environmentalists—startling proof that environmental regulation and environmental technologies are necessary for a strong economy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Twelve years of political and business leadership hostile to environmental protection has dissipated the U.S.'s once dominant position in a wide range of crucial technologies, according to this important study. Examining the technologies and policies of other nations, Moore, a lawyer and journalist, and Miller, director of the Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland, cite remarkable environmental and economic successes in Germany and Japan. While the U.S. has been unable to move technology from basic research to the marketplace, those two countries bridged that gap using technologies developed by U.S. taxpayer money. Moore and Miller delineate ways in which the U.S.'s declining share of global markets in cars, power-generating equipment and solar-cell production is related to our inferior environmental standards. They look at California's innovative policies and the failure of national policies, and tender their own recommendations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In eight chapters, Moore and Miller describe the U.S. indifference toward environmental technologies often developed with taxpayer funding through the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, or Department of Energy. They succinctly catalog these missed opportunities-breakthroughs in fuel cells, electric power generation, car design/efficiency-that could have an enormous environmental and economic impact. By contrast, Germany and Japan, the authors believe, have foreseen the environment and their economies as mutually dependent, not antagonistic, partners. Two concluding chapters provide recom- mendations for change. The discussion is lively, timely, and clear. Recommended for all collections.
Michael D. Cramer, Virginia Polytechnic & State Univ. Lib., Blacksburg
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (September 30, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807085316
• ISBN-13: 978-0807085318
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.5 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,741,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wake-up call for industry!, October 5, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States, and the Race for Environmental Technology (Paperback)

Authors Curtis Moore and Alan Miller provide a wake-up call for industrialists
who have yet to respond to the rise in the number of new markets for
environmental technologies. Geared to inspire and catalyze U.S. entrepreneurs,
the book offers insight to any business interested in the growing market.

Environmental technologies range from consumer to industrial products. The
authors write that: "Two of the largest markets are for machines which consume
the vast majority of the world's energy and generate most of its pollution as well:
motor vehicles and electric power plants."

Increasingly stringent vehicular emissions testing, such as in Mexico, create a
market for new products. Writing about Japan's investment in air quality
improvement in Mexico City, the authors conclude that altruism alone is not a
sufficient explanation. "The benefit to Japan is access to enormous markets for
pollution control equipment," the authors write, pointing to $246 million which
Japan budgeted in 1993 for its international energy programs.

The authors are well-regarded in the public policy arena. Moore served as
counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works.
Miller currently is the director of the Maryland-based Center for Global Change.

Numerous illustrations of successful business practices help guide the reader to
understanding the forces at work. AT &T, for example, foresaw the approaching
worldwide ban on CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and developed its own substitutes
for ozone-destroying chemicals.

Environmental protection can be beneficial to the economy. Nations which have
spearheaded their own environmental safeguards now have the technologies to sell
abroad. Green Gold provides the framework for understanding how countries
and businesses can work together to protect both the environment and the
economy.