The Business of Climate Change

“The environment and the economy are really both two sides of the same coin. You cannot sustain the economy if you don’t take care of the environment because we know that the resources that we use whether it is oil, energy, land … all of these are the basis in which development happens.  And development is what we say generates a good economy and puts money in our pockets. If we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves.” {Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Environmentalist}


Following on from yesterday's comment that the private sector was in large measure responsible for global warming...

For the first time in its history Wall Street, the engine of the market economy, shut down on two consecutive trading days courtesy of 'super storm' Sandy.

In the wake of Sandy, a group of British Fund Managers indicated to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was time the Government took climate change seriously. 

So, is the private sector, the engine of economic growth, suddenly seeing the light?

Perhaps.

Jon Snow Channel4 TV news anchor describes in a blog his impressions following an invitation from a "big company to chair..a gathering to look at what they should be doing above and beyond their own core line of business."

The following are extracts from the blog that stood out for me:

"There was surprising consensus that we are living amid unprecedented global warming ... perhaps four per cent by the end of the century; perhaps six per cent soon after that.
  
In short, the evening became a debate about sustainability and the inability of the political classes to tackle it.

There was widespread recognition that this fight for survival could not rest on the state.

...there was agreement round the table that the corporate sector had to learn that the very ingredients they had contributed to this crisis must now be turned around and deployed to resolve it." 


Even if this sudden awareness and sense of urgency is based on enlightened self-interest, that works for me.


Jon Snow's blog: Last Chance Saloon to Save the Planet (28 November 2012) can be found at http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/                                     






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When a President Cried

Image
At a time of year when Christians around the world are commemorating the birth of the Divine Child, some parents in Newtown , Connecticut , USA are mourning the death of their children. There are probably hundreds of children around the world – in under developed countries, in conflict zones – who will die every day up to Christmas and beyond. But right now the focus has been on what one British newspaper described as a massacre of innocents. How horrendous to lose your child in such a manner. Schools should be one of the few places where you expect your children to be safe.   I worked with several of the paramedics who were first on the scene dealing with the carnage on the trains at various metro stations after the 2005 London bombings. Many, especially the younger ones, suffered severe post traumatic stress. Not trained for such horrors, those teachers immediately on the scene at that school in Connecticut will carry the scarring from that day for some time. ...
Read more

Personal Health: Reflections in a Global Mirror

Image
{Revised November 2022} This blogpost, first written in 2013, has been revisited in the light of an apparent 'awakening' to the urgency of an impending climate catastrophe.  Currently ( 6 to 18 November 2022)  our illustrious leaders are at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change' (COP27) being held in Egypt. Opening the Conference, António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN said we are on the “highway to climate hell”. That received some interesting responses, including mocking derision. (See [3] below.  We are still talking instead of doing.  When will we get to serious adaptation, upscaling infrastructure to mitigate the impact of climate change and save lives? We are told that as things stand right now, current climate policies will condemn the world to a disastrous 2.8-degree temperature rise by the end of the century. Our collective goal is to limit that rise to 1.5 degrees. Whilst we are getting there... Gree...
Read more

Tough Love in Winter

Image
Yesterday I talked about ‘Big Mama’s’ tough love (The Shape-shifter Reloaded). Today I wanted to share just a snapshot of such an experience, which began at a point when I had just arrived at the foothills of healing.   As the years went on – 5 of them to be precise – I understood that this process will continue for the rest of my life because temptation is with me everyday.   I have to be vigilant because I simply cannot afford to go back to the old ways. Whenever I do slip, I simply observe and acknowledge it; tomorrow is another day.                But that's not all. Mother Nature's healing also confers gifts as an expression of her gratitude, because when we heal ourselves, we also heal the earth; and when we heal the earth we heal others.  So watch out for Gifts of Healing, might be the title of a book I can feel emerging.        The big free...
Read more