In today’s NYTimes business section there is an article about a very unusual product and business decision made by America’s brand marketing giant, P&G. It seems that for several years they’ve had a product branded under their PUR water purification brand that is a powder that can purify water in the field. It has not been marketed in the US until now. Instead they attempted to sell it in third world countries. When it became obvious that it would not be profitable they did something incredibly unique and forward-thinking: They built a plant in Pakistan to make the product very cheaply. Then they distributed the packets for pennies. A local village market can sell them for a dime and make 5 cents. Each purifies 10 kilos of water. P&G formed a not for profit organization internally to help provide pure water for children globally. This was a big hit within the huge company.
Now they have arranged for US sales via a much smaller company called Reliance that sells into outdoor sports and survival markets including disaster recovery. This is where it gets interesting. They are not out to make a profit on US sales. All P&G proceeds from Reliance (an independent distributor) will be donated to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program, a not for profit agency.
While there are questions about charging US disaster victims more for this than 3rd world countries, overall it is a great concept. I would hope the major Pharma companies who won’t design drugs for poor markets will take a look at this model. The fact is that climate change and its affects are global- we’re all in this together.
Kudos to Proctor and Gamble.

The Toronto Star notices a footnote to the IPCC report that states that it did not take into account recent observations of the movement of fresh water in polar ice. Now a team led by James Hansen, NASA’s head of climate policy, says there is a strong indication that their could be a non-linear response to warming that could trigger precipitously high ocean levels in decades rather than centuries. This response, should it occur, would be beyond our ability to do anything about it. Similar events have taken place in very short periods many times over the past 400,000 years according to ice core samples.
The only way we have of possibly holding off this possibility is to hold total increases in temperature rise to 1 degree centigrade over the next 100 years- this will not happen in today’s political climate.

Tighten your seat belts- it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Eve Mosher is drawing a 70 mile long, 4″ wide chalk line around Manhattan that shows where the water would reach if it rose ten feet due to warming and stormier weather.

Thanks to Kottke