Burner Trouble- global warming and climate change from a personal perspective

China’s human rights and environmental abuses seem to be accelerating as we approach August’s Summer Games in Beijing. If you are angry with their treatment of the Tibetans don’t boycott the games, boycott the sponsors who are seeking to build their brands on top of these issues. The presence of the Games is focusing the world’s attention to a greater degree on China which does not seem to understand how world opinion is reacting to their shut down of a free press, propaganda and the deaths of hundreds of Tibetans.

Update: Protesters worldwide are targeting the Olympic Torch Relay and focusing on sponsors.

Here’s a list of the top worldwide sponsors for the games:

The Coca-Cola Company

Atos Origin

The Eastman Kodak Company

GE

John Hancock

Johnson & Johnson

Lenovo

McDonald’s

Omega

Panasonic

Samsung

Visa

What, me worry?

And a few classic movies posters reconfigured…

Exxon Mobil once again sets the record for the highest corporate quarterly profits ever for any business in history, beating themselves. This is called profiteering because if they only raise prices in response to underlying costs then their profits should not rise. They are intentionally racking up the biggest gains they can because their scenarios undoubtedly show a fall off down the road.

OPEC announced that they will not increase production or artificially lower prices despite our President getting his hands and knees and piteously begging them to. Reason? See above.

The population of the planet will grow by 50% in the next 40 years and they are all going to expect better living conditions, as is their right. If you think oil prices are high now imagine when there are 3 billion more people using it.

Meanwhile, a new solar film plant, one of the largest solar manufacturing plants in the world, was opened by NanoSolar in California and they announced that their entire next 18 months of production are sold out. To whom, you may ask. The answer is the country of Germany which intends to have solar on every building in the country, regardless of current high costs. They intend to wean the entire country off of oil, coal and nuclear. Visionary yes, practical here? Nope, we can’t even set emissions standards in states where everyone wants them because the EPA chief overrules his own experts and forbids it.

In a world where senior executives make so much money, regardless of performance, there is no incentive whatsoever to take a long term perspective when building a business. I’d even argue that when a CEO has hundreds of millions in personal net worth, running the business is nothing more than a game. I often wonder if these people ever think of the world their grandchildren will inherit. Probably not because those grandchildren will be completely insulated from reality by their own inherited money.

Our politicians and leaders of society know these things- that is why they are going overboard trying to enrich themselves and their friends as soon as possible. This cannot mesh with the greater needs of the planet as a whole.

I hear derisive laughter from the sheiks and the boardrooms.

The title of this post is a subject that will dominate the news this year on climate change. For all intents and purposes the debate on the human causes of warming is over and irrelevant; the time for accelerated action, both personal and global, is here. This blog will no longer engage in arguments regarding the reality of climate change or its causes- the evidence is everywhere and its stature as a global catastrophe is equally evident. The energy put into arguing and denial campaigns needs to be redirected into useful actions designed to slow and eventually reverse the process.

National politics offers very little in the way of actions or financing of these efforts. Climate change is not a national issue, it is a global issue. Weather, flooding, droughts, fires, rising oceans, warming, water issues and cooling have no respect for for borders. The only border that contains this change is the thin atmosphere of our small planet and it encompasses all of us as humans equally. Money may buy individuals some reprieve but no matter how wealthy you are you cannot protect your grandchildren from a world that will little resemble the one we have enjoyed and abused.

Economics will be the driving factor in combating climate change. Savvy business managers and investors know that crisis always represents opportunity to grow and profit. The rising real cost of gas and home heating fuels is finally bringing energy innovation into the forefront as entrepreneurs and scientists see the opportunity to provide innovation as a solution and a means to grow rich. Market forces are already creating change that activists and politicians were helpless to accelerate.

While our President belatedly realizes the awful mess he has created with his short-sighted energy policies and goes begging to Middle Eastern Oil countries, the markets are adapting. The fact that a conservative President is so ignorant of market reality that he thinks the sheiks can simply change prices is appalling but offers obvious backing for the reality of markets as the drivers of change- prices are not up because of Arab greed, they are up because massive new sources of demand, principally India and China, have appeared.

The only solutions to escalating energy demand and growing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions are in technological innovation combined with market regulating systems like carbon credit trading. Both work because both represent opportunities for profit. It would be nice to believe in an altruistic business rationale that takes responsibility for long term consequences of decisions made today, however the profiteering of the oil companies in recent years and short-sighted lobbying against even mild CAFE standards by automakers are just two examples of why we cannot expect anything but growth and profit to really force change.

The fortunate conclusion of this idea is that markets can force change and speed to market often determines success. Those who solve the big problems in energy, sustainability, reduction and elimination of carbon, population issues and more will be the titans of the next century. I only hope it’s not too late and they are not too greedy in the short term like those who have gone before them.