Business Plans & Climate Change; Not Mutually Exclusive!

While the business world incorporates climate change and associated risks into their business plans, government remains stagnated on ideological foxholes. I have been focusing this blog on climate change in December because our New York winter may be the warmest on record and 2011 appears to show us a 1 degree warming, thus not much real action can be seen in the federal government, a priority if we are to lock in a 2 degree temperature change by 2020. While Kyoto adherents attempt to develop post-Kyoto plans, many U.S. cities and states are planning and rushing to impose their own regulations. We must be aware that climate change is as unpredictable as working with beakers in a laboratory, the results may surprise you. In the experiment we might call Earth's atmosphere, we will certainly be part of the geochemical experiment.

Sometime government takes the lead and change occurs, other times, the business community takes the lead and change occurs. It is becoming more evident to companies that recognizing the risks associated with climate change now may serve them in planning business services and locations, but the regulatory climate due to carbon emissions and trading carbon on open markets may cause serious bottom line capital issues for companies.  Billions of dollars are at risk to these companies via severe weather, service or parts suppliers being slowed or taken out of the market by what some scientists predict is a century of serve, more intense and destructive weather.  "Risk of climate change is real. It's here. It's affecting our business today," says John Coomber, CEO of insurer Swiss Re. Insurance companies like Swiss RE or Let's be very clear, this is not a new marriage between environmentalism and business, it comes down to cold hard bottom line finance. This should not leave environmentalists feeling defeated, but excited at the opportunity to reach goals, have wins and form partnerships with business.

General Electric formed a new Ecomagination division in 2011 and have really attempted to incorporate sustainability, green practice, and innovation to begin what will transform the climate change movement if all players find avenues to work together. This may also improve the bottom line of their companies if for example; their company can reduce energy costs or carbon output. This is a win win for the company and I would predict consumers and the markets will respond to these efforts. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported that DuPont committed to cutting its gas emissions by 40% by the year 2000 from its 1990 levels. By 2000 the company had met its original target and set an even more ambitious one -- a 65% reduction by 2010. But the gains have been so dramatic that DuPont has already hit that goal too. It also uses 7% less energy than it did in 1990, despite producing 30% more goods. That has saved $2 billion. DuPont was ahead of the curve when they began implementing these programs in 1994.

Why so many people are climate skeptics I have no idea? This mistrust of scientists and engineers is probably rooted in educational and economic inequities or possibly egotistical arrogance or greed. It is hard to believe it is about the science and is probably about ideologues and communication. Who doesn’t want clean air, less severe storms, and a loss of the world we know to something different, less beautiful. No matter how small or large the change, the risks are too great in my opinion. "Forget the science debate," says Cinergy Corp., CEO James E. Rogers, who was at the meeting. "The regulations will change someday. And if we're not ready, we're in trouble." So if you can’t support climate change legislation support it based on your own self-interest? If you cannot do that, support it based on that it is good for business. Evan national retailers like Target have begun implementing green habits as can be seen at the following Target efficiency & operations website;http://hereforgood.target.com/environment/efficient-operations. These are doors opened to environmental ideas that are and can be rooted in true fiscal discipline and bottom line economics.

Thanks for reading and following and see you in the field!

*Special thanks to http://www.generationim.com for the graphic supplied for this blog post.

10 Warmest Years on Record!

The science is undeniable, yet climate skeptics sell fear recklessly. On this warm January day after a warm January week this New Year, four of the world's leading climate research centres agree that the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998 in Table below (NOAA 2011, NASA 2011, UK-MetOffice 2011, JMA 2011). The data presented below was posted at http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=53 and this is very important research and data on climate change.

 

The Environmental Movement's Death Bell Sounds: Which Direction Forward?

The new year is fresh with hope for renewal and starting over and I hope a new environmental movement finds its foothold in coming years. When I first read the controversial paper calling for the death of modern environmentalism to make way for a movement better able to handle the dramatic, global problems facing the world I bristled. On Tuesday May 3, 2005 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus discuessed their article "The Death of Environmentalism". At first, I thought they were out of touch with on the ground conditions in places like Portland Oregon, San Franscico, California, and New York, New York, but years later this prescient paper has born out as truth.

The article was released at the October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and sparked many discussions amongst environmentalists working in this community. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus went on to start the non profit Breakthrough Institute and the full paper can be found at http://thebreakthrough.org/PDF/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf. It is a much needed read for anyone wanting to start building a movement of change to shift the discussions and efforts we currently take in the environmental movement.

I have been involved in the environmental movement for over 15 years and by education am a geologist and environmental engineer. I have worked on Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanups and water supply issues my entire career. This blog was started to highlight and discuss foundational changes occurring in New York City and required for the environmental movement to create value to the public and have impact on our communities.

Some might ask why discuss this paper now?

In light of the recent setbacks over the last 5 or more years, the death knell of larger scale environmental progress, like funding superfund cleanups and the brown agenda, failure of the science and technology educational systems to produce scientists and engineers, or the recent collapse of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate conference in Durban, South Africa, it has become clear the public has not bought into the current environmental movements goals and objectives. The James Inhofe Press Office video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmtjh7yCrw4) of the nescient views of Senator from Oklahoma describing the "complete collapse of the global warming movement and the failure of the the Kyoto process" adds to the fire of this calamity and his glee at its demise is unsettling. As this is quite unesttling, he is essentially right that the the global warming movement is ineffective, but the reasons he assigns to them are fundamentally incorrect and unsubstanitated. The Durban failure and the inaction since the Copenhagen Agreement on climate change tell the story of the environmental movements minor impacts.

The results of the Durban conference plan was to plan other efforts and to generate more ambition for climate change intiatives in 2012. The outcomes included a decision by parties to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon as possible, and no later than 2015. The established dates miss the overal Kyoto goal of limiting global temperature increases to 2 degress Celsius by 2020, which is unfeasable under any solutions proposed or to be proposed in the next 8 years since no real inclusive starting point has been set and no binding agreements obtained for global particpation reached. The full details and reports could be found at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change here http://unfccc.int/2860.php. The Tucson Citizen review of the conference ends with a question wondering "what the carbon footprint for that conference was?", they are unfortunately not to far off, and the conference leave larger structural questions.

While the reasons for failures are rooted in the economic conditions of recession and political stagnation and not the data of the science that show clear undisputable evidence anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases. This can be seen in the historic maximum of 30.6 metric tons recorded by International Energy Agency in 2010, mostly due to developing countries reliance on using coal for energy and production and increased extreme weather events throught the United States and the World. This can also be seen in the data generted by 4 of the larger climate study centers who all reported the last 10 years are the warmest years on record as reported by the

United Nations Environment Programme Global Resource Information Database - Sioux Falls http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=53.

All hope is not lost and this is because committed environmentalists currently working in the field to re-ivigorate the environmental movement locally and by taking an integarated systems approach. These organizations, people, policies, programs, and politicians committed to rebuilding this movement and an multi-discipline integrated systems approach to problem solving will be the focus of this blog. While the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, I believe the innovators in this community, along with the truth that the environmental movement posesses in the hard data, I feel hopeful that a new movement will emerge and answer the questions about which way forward from here? Big environmental groups are already beginning to respond to this with major shifts at the top of organizations and restructuring for a new environmental movement. The environmental movement accomplished much in recent times and this new green movement will have to pick up from their forebearers in the movement at the end of the road with their tools to build a new road, a new movement.

That answers for the business restructuring, the political party wanting to regain power in Washington or the State Houses, or implementation of  policy ideas is to work locally and take an inclusive integrated systems approach in my opnion and this is where the environmental movement will reinvent itself; in the streets, churches, our homes and jobs if it is to have any impact on the world we live and rely on.

Thanks for reading and following and see you in the field!