by kevin, on September 11th, 2009
Image courtesy of NASA
While special interest groups representing big energy, coal, and oil industries continue their campaign of deception against climate change legislation (example here), the rest of the developed and developing world is moving toward sustainability. They are not waiting for us to weigh in on the issue. They are moving forward without the United States. Persistent arguments and dithering will likely create enormous competitive disadvantage regardless of whether climate change is real. I’ll say that again – in global economic terms, it does not matter whether you believe the planet is warming, the rest of the world is preparing for a greener economy that doesn’t include us. In an increasingly flat world with global market interconnectedness and interdependence, standing on the sidelines to debate the issue puts this nation behind the proverbial eight ball. It’s time for decisive action and clear leadership.
Imagine how different the world may be if a vocal minority in this country stopped the space race of the 1960s? How would things be changed had they claimed going to the moon would destroy the economy, was the work of plotting radicals and communists, that it was impossible, that the science wasn’t sound, that they didn’t believe it, that it was a hoax, and therefore not worthy of a unified national effort? Where would we be now? The entire information and computer ages were born out of that endeavor. The United States not only put a man on the moon first, it created a virtually insurmountable technology gap between it and the rest of the world. This country was the primary benefactor in an unprecedented technological pay day. Armstrong’s words that it was a giant leap for mankind could not have been more correct. It would have been difficult from the perspective of the 1950s to imagine the full magnitude of the effort, the amount of new technology necessary, nor how much the U.S. would gain as a result.
The same is true today with a growing sustainability market. No one can really know what additional benefit will come out of it. We cannot calculate the effort necessary in relation to the potential benefit, nor should be we trying to. But do we want to sit idle while others advance? Throughout U.S. history, every major national undertaking has led to significant gain, not the economic devastation often predicted. If necessity is the mother of invention, there’s never been a better time for that to be true. We don’t need absolute unequivocal proof of anthropogenic climate change to direct our actions. We can already witness numerous other looming environmental problems that demand our best minds and best effort. Today’s global population already includes more than two billion starving and malnourished. That number is likely to swell as dwindling fresh water supply strains food production. Global peak oil has already been reached, and it’s unlikely that any future major fields will be found before the current reserves reach dangerously low levels. Inexpensive natural resources have been extracted to the brink of exhaustion. Most of the easily fished regions of the world’s oceans have been harvested beyond capacity and are on the verge of collapse. I could go on an on. The number of observable and quantifiable environmental issues are enough to say that the science of climate change is irrelevant.
A key part of virtually every business model currently operating in this country is the desire to remove every possible expense from the balance sheet. It’s not a complicated economic calculation, it’s simple math. Greater profitability can be realized with reduced costs. It’s not the only way to higher profit margins, but it’s a pretty good start. So what happens when companies and countries around the world begin implementing new technologies that spring from their sustainable initiatives? What happens when new energy technologies reduce the operating costs of global competitors?
Consider as example the efforts currently under way in China (see example here, here, here, and here) to move their electrical production to cleaner sources less dependent on fossil fuels. A recent estimate suggests they may be able to cover a significant portion of their energy needs through solar, based on today’s level of technology, by 2030. It’s unlikely, but let’s use that as a hypothetical. What if China is able to accomplish that? It would mean that companies operating there would eventually realize incredible competitive advantage as their energy costs approach zero. It’ll take a while to do that, but what if they do and we don’t? They will drastically reduce, or essentially eliminate, a huge line item on any business balance sheet. If they get there first, they win, regardless of whether global warming is real. China is a totalitarian government, they could decide this is what they want tomorrow, and off they would go.
Although environmentalism has been around for more than a century, let’s imagine it as if we were at the beginning of a sustainability race that requires the kind of national commitment and effort the space race took to win. Let’s not be a loser in a such a race. It would be bad for our country in the short term, and bad for future generations in the long run. This is not a question of valuing nature over people. It’s really a question of serving the needs of current populations without diminishing the opportunities of future ones. What critics of environmentalism often fail to see is that our economy and future will not be ruined by what they call a great hoax. Rather, it can only be ruined by maintaining the status quo – an industrial age model that is unsustainable by any measure. We need a sustainability race on a national level. What do you think?
China, the biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, offered last week to lower its CO2 output relative to the size of its economy while the U.S., the second-worst polluter, pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 2020. Scientists have said, based on forecasts of rising sea levels Glaciers and ice sheets are melting in Antarctica and Greenland and ocean water occupies more volume the warmer it is. – Nikki