The news came last month that General Motors (GM) plans to scrap the Hummer H2 range of 4×4s, the civilian version of the famous US military vehicle. The Hummer H2 became popular as the biggest, some might say most obnoxious, 4×4 available even though it has notoriously bad cornering (in an episode of UK motor magazine show Top Gear the presenter had to do a 3-point turn to go around a corner in a rural village) and miles per gallon hovering somewhere around 8-12 (for comparison a new VW Golf does up to 52mpg).

GM announced in late February that they would be closing Hummer operations after a failed buyout with a Chinese company in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy. So whilst this is a victory for the planet - the fewer of these polluting dinosaurs (in more ways than one) that exist the better - it is anything but for the thousands of people employed in building and distributing the vehicles across the US.

So how better to make the best of this situation than to start to provide government subsidies to renewable energy companies who can provide jobs, and more importantly job security - whilst GM were crawling to the government for a $1.7bn bailout, solar panel company Hemlock Semiconductor Corp were planning a $3bn expansion.

So how about letting some of the fossil fuel dinosaurs die off and put the money into companies like Hemlock or wind turbine manufacturer Vestas to recruit and retrain people who lost their jobs in the recession and build a green future based on sustainable living and renewable energy.

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