OP-ED: "Climate Change Opportunity: Business is just waiting for Congress to set the rules of the game," by Fred Krupp, Wall Street Journal, 8 April 2008, p. A20.
Krupp, prez of Enviro Defense Fund (solid org), has book out (Earth: the Sequel), which I scanned at airport bookstore but did not buy (seemed rehashy), despite my coveting the clever title.
I may have to reconsider on the basis of this op-ed.
"Solving" global warming is its own myth, even if the trend is not. We may slow a bit but we won't stop, and nothing, neither good nor bad, will happen as fast as assumed. The Earth's own correcting mechanisms are poorly understood.
What isn't poorly understood is the reality of adding a 2 billion-strong global middle class in the next generation. All the energy and transport and food and infrastructure needed for that is a huge biz and tech opportunity (more to Krupp's optimistic tone here), so I don't care about warming debates per se, I worry more about the associated fear-mongering on future "resource wars" and where some very specious logic on that score will take us.
Biz reality that pierces both goofy bubbles (any "crash" gov programs or pimping the Leviathan anew) is that we, the world, really haven't gone after huge energy inefficiencies in our economy and that will be major focus of coming years. The corporate responsibility song will be about global warming, but it will be a purely bottom-line--as in, this is how we beat back competition (especially sloppy Chinese) globally and institute the new wave of global platform and network leanness. Plus it fits with selling to the bottom of the pyramid.
As Dan Hare likes to say: "Go man go!" (I prefer "Go dog go!" for literary reasons).
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Comments (3)
"we, the world, really haven't gone after huge energy inefficiencies in our economy and that will be major focus of coming years."
Of course "we" haven't. We haven't HAD to do it. Now that the demand growth is outpacing the supply growth, something HAS to be done.
Also, what people forget is that energy production from fossil fuels has been relatively cheap, compared to other forms of energy production, so that was a deterrent for companies to enter the alternative energy market. Now that fossil fuels costs are rising, the overall costs are more closely matched. That allows companies to come into the market. I think that through the normal, relentless drive for more efficiency, cleaner energy technologies will emerge.
Posted by Matt R.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 25, 2008 3:59 PM
Oil is the life blood of the global economy because it is plentiful and cheap. Nothing else comes close or is likely to for the foreseeable future. $200 or $300 a barrel might make wind or solar competitive.
Congress has already legislated the rules set - we can't drill or refine or build nuclear plants in our territories. Environmental whackos save the snails (and the mosquitoes by banning DDT while millions die of malaria over decades past and future, jeez).
Oh yeah, pollution is bad.
Posted by VoteWithTroops | April 25, 2008 10:16 PM
This is scary stuff. "Under a cap-and-trade regime ..." Cap and trade is, effectively, a tax on energy so costs go up on energy which is the best way to send this economy into a tail spin.
"A bioengineer ... is redesigning viruses ..." and "... re-engineered yeast ... ". So there will be no unforseen consequences of this, right?
" ... working to make biodiesel from the algae that feed on the carbon dioxide ... is optimistic that, at commercial scale, he will cut capital costs enough to beat oil at $60 per barrel." If this is true why is private investment not already funding this? Why doesn't the free market race to this money maker? Why is government needed to tax carbon output?
More government is not the answer to anything, it is our worst nightmare. Check the Social Security Trust Fund for proof. Besides those same 600,000 year old ice cores that man made global warming alarmists cite show that CO2 levels rise AFTER temperatures rise, over and over again, not BEFORE.
Green house gases, like from volcanoes, cool our atmosphere. Check the Year Without A Summer from the Discovery Channel here
http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/earth/year_without_summer/intro/index.shtml
"During the summer of 1816, unexpected climate changes left countries in the Northern Hemisphere suffering from devastating famine and epidemic outbreaks. These weather patterns were the result of the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia, on 10th April 1815."
More government is our worst nightmare. This whole issue is a Tax and Spend Scam (check the Social Security Trust Fund for proof). How will we control Solar Activity, Volucanism or Oceanic Evaporation (water is the most volumous green house gas)? Oh yeah, pollution is bad.
Posted by VoteWithTroops | April 27, 2008 6:56 AM