I finished reading a book last night that I thought you might be interested in. It's called Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. While I don't usually recommend book, I'm putting this one up because he goes a lot further than looking at the problems and trying to second guess the solutions.
A few of his points (in no particular order) are:
* When advanced first world countries refuse to adopt technological change (in this case to reduce global warming) they are effectively trying to compete with 'lowest common denominator' countries. ie they are competing on standard technologies where the only competition is the cheapest labour (and they can't compete). Countries which adopt green policies and force technological change will be the first cabs off the rank with the technology and this will provide a technological advantage over the rest of the world. Countries which block these policies will end up importing these technologies from other countries and paying a high price for it.
* Resource rich countries enable governments to become lazy. They don't need to keep raising their taxes and in doing so the governments reduce their accountability (they don't need to justify what they are spending their money on to the public). He was specifically talking about oil rich countries but I could see the parallels with other resource rich countries (like Australia).
* Trying to save the environment based on an argument that nature is good will never work. There has to be a reason it will affect the bottom line. For this reason, many environmental groups are spending large resources on something that is doomed to fail.
* Don't wait for governments to engage in huge "Space Race" projects. The action needs to come from below - develop examples that work, use venture capitalists and miltinationals to promote technologies that work. Government is needed to provide the same certainty in renewables as it does with oil. ie a consistent policy which companies can provide long term investments for - a three year program delivering a heap of money is not going to be nearly as effective as a policy which guarantees conditions for a long term. In fact, the three year project could end up doing more harm than good.
* Its not good enaough to change your light bulbs to compact fluorescent and feel good about yourself. You need to change governments to feel good about yourself.
Many other points in the book. A quick Google will find many reviews on the book, here's one from wired.com.
In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman Calls for a Green Energy Revolution
Thomas Friedman is about to dive into the green-tech fray. In his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the multi-Pulitzer-winning journalist says everyone needs to accept that oil will never be cheap again and that wasteful, polluting technologies cannot be tolerated. The last big innovation in energy production, he observes, was nuclear power half a century ago; since then the field has stagnated. "Do you know any industry in this country whose last major breakthrough was in 1955?" Friedman asks. According to the book, US pet food companies spent more on R&D last year than US utilities did. "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone," he says. Likewise, the climate-destroying fossil-fuel age will end only if we invent our way out of it.
But he's not suggesting a new Manhattan Project. "Twelve guys and gals going off to Los Alamos won't solve this problem," Friedman says. "We need 100,000 people in 100,000 garages trying 100,000 things — in the hope that five of them break through."
Our current efforts are not only inadequate, they're hopelessly haphazard and piecemeal. Friedman argues it'll take a coordinated, top-to-bottom approach, from the White House to corporations to consumers. "Without a systems approach, what do you end up with?" he asks. "Corn ethanol in Iowa."
The New York Times columnist, who keeps up a punishing travel schedule, is just back from the Middle East and London. "If you don't go, you don't know," he says. Such wanderings provided the material for his 2005 best seller, The World Is Flat. Now he has added two new terms to his diagnosis of global ills: the intertwined problems of climate change and population growth — "too many carbon copies," as he puts it.
In this new world, governments and companies that take the lead will find themselves with the single most valuable competitive advantage of our time.
To illustrate, Friedman tells the story of a Marine Corps general in Iraq who requested solar panels to power his bases. Asked why, he explained that he wanted to win his region by "out-greening al Qaeda." Instead of trucking in gas from Kuwait at $20 a gallon — money that fuels oppressive petro-dictatorships — in convoys that are vulnerable to roadside bombs, why not beat the insurgents by taking away their targets and their funding?
Coming out months before the presidential election, Crowded is sure to bigfoot its way into the campaign. "McCain and Obama come from the right side of this debate," Friedman says. "They have the right instincts, but neither is quite there yet. They haven't yet thought it through fully." The battle over "green," he believes, will define the early 21st century just as the battle over "red" (Communism) defined the last half of the 20th.
Something to mull over.
Cheers,
John