Green endeavors lose some of their luster when the economy is in a tailspin. Or at least, they should. Perhaps to counteract that truth, President Obama promises to “create millions of new jobs” via his green agenda. I can’t wait to see him pull that off.

Meanwhile, the hard economic realities of environmentalist pursuits continue to be felt. Regarding the recent ruling in the Tennessee Valley Authority pollution case (more on that here), this AP story makes an obvious but important observation:

The nation’s largest public utility, already paying out $1 million a day to clean up a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee, said Tuesday expenses could rise even more if it has to meet a federal judge’s accelerated deadline for reducing smokestack pollutants blowing into North Carolina …

… In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, TVA said Tuesday that complying with Thornburg’s order could force the agency to “take additional measures not currently planned or scheduled” to reduce smokestack emissions.

TVA already has ordered more than $1 billion of pollution controls for three of these plants by 2013. The judge’s order would complete that work sooner, and require additional measures TVA isn’t currently contemplating.

“Advancing the construction schedule or taking additional actions could increase TVA’s expenses or cause TVA to change the way it operates these facilities,” TVA Chief Financial Officer Kim Greene wrote in the SEC filing.

The point being, there are severe, and often disastrous, consequences to “green” goals – consequences that we seldom take into consideration until they impact us directly in the form of lost jobs or rising energy costs. By then it’s often too late.