Green Education Starts at School
A bill has just been passed by the United States House of Representatives for a 6.5 billion dollar school renovation. The money will go towards making schools greener. The targeted schools are ones in the south east which were destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These schools haven’t been properly rebuilt yet and so this money will go to rebuild them to be more efficient and better for the environment. The rest of the money will go to other school renovations across the country. These will be schools that are in desperate need of repair.
This is just one small step that our country is making in the fight against global warming, but there is always controversy. The people opposed to the bill worry about the action the federal government is now taking in education. In this case, the opposition believes that the federal government should only step in to ensure that students are getting fair educations and that disabled students are getting appropriate care. They believe it is the responsibility of the state to fund school renovations and things of that nature, and not the federal government’s.
The people who voted against the bill were worried about this new role the government was playing and they were also worried about the high upfront costs of these renovations. These costs will be off-set in very little time though. It is claimed that with such improved efficiency these schools will save 100,000 dollars a year. In just ten years a school will save a million dollars. I know from experience that schools can last for many years. The high school I graduated from was built in the early 1900’s. That means it has been around for almost a hundred years. This renovation can pay for itself.
Other benefits come as well. Jobs are created due to the construction that will be taking place. There will be a smaller impact on the environment. But most importantly, children will be able to learn and experience the significance of living green and making a difference for the environment as well as the economy. All I can say is that it’s nice to see our money going to benefit our country and not being shipped overseas.
For further reading on this follow the link to the CNN article where I received my information: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/14/green.schools/. As always we welcome your comments and thoughts, and we hope we can generate a little interest for cleaning up the planet and as Dennis would say “making some money doing it.”