Remember the first (Bill) Clinton presidential campaign and its motto: “It’s the Economy, Stupid?” It was meant to remind everyone that people really cared most about the economy . That concern would elect Bill Clinton.

Nowadays, people are concerned about being “green.” But, as Kermit the Frog, tells us: It is not easy being green.

Many, if not most of us, still care about “the economy.” (Well, really not “the” economy, but “our” economy. Our job, Our family’s prospects for economic security. Which is really different from “the economy” – which I can’t see, small, touch, taste or feel, and which frankly does not exist! . But more about that later

When I was a kid, my mother used to remind us to turn off the lights, yelling, “We don’t got stock in Con Ed.” (For non-New Yorkers, Con Ed was the electric company in New York. My mother, not being a stock holder (of anything) reminded her children that turning off the lights was our economic duty. My mom was not trying to be “green.” She was teaching us our class position.

Many of us today, want to be “green.” We want to turn off the lights – even if we DO have “stock in Con Ed.” -- because we want to avert global warming, etc.

So, now it is both the economy AND the environment, although for most of us, we know which is going to hurt us first. And that is “the economy.” Which is why it is not easy being green.