My theory of the day: Going green is the next World War II.
It looks to me like global warming will be the huge economic push that will get the whole economy moving at full steam again. (Pardon the pun.) As the oceans rise, as the land becomes parched, as cities flood, as the populace migrates, enormous opportunities will also open up for companies with enough awareness to see them.
As with World War II, we will have no choice but to deal with the problem. The government will spend money, and taxpayers will fund the expenditure. People will simply have to get truly creative to solve the problems a warmer climate will create.
I don’t know that what we now think of as “green” will be the main focus. I imagine it’ll be a part of it because there will certainly be a desire to slow the process down as much as possible. But being green tends to take vision and sacrifice, and lots of people are too self-involved or unconcerned or uneducated to be willing to participate.
In contrast, money is a great motivator. As is water lapping at your upstairs windows. I think lots of other new industries will emerge:
- New forms of mass transportation will have to be built to deal with relocation.
- New forms of housing will be needed — cheap, insulated, self-contained, probably modular housing systems.
- New forms of farming will be developed, with genetically engineered crops (whether we like it or not) that yield more nutrition with less irrigation.
- Massive new engineering challenges like bridges, pontoon-based structures and levees to protect people from the rising sea.
You get the idea.
People who are thinking ahead will be in a position to capitalize on all this while helping their country, and the world, enormously.
And, with luck, we’ll be part of those innovative solutions.
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AND, it will unite us in a common purpose.
Well, it’s already started… in Europe they won’t buy our meat, and we can’t figure out why… maybe we need to expand the consciousness around the hormone injected foods we consume, and maybe people would be healthier, it all ties together. The healthy food, the innovation. Quality of life.
Dear Josh,
I know stopping the environmental mess is of great importance. Still, the polluters will go on polluting. Some of them, developing countries like China who must progress as rapidly as they can will not stop polluting until they have all the means to do so without harming their growth. Poorer countries will go on polluting unless they get the help they need from richer countries; only then will they be able to combat the poverty responsible for their inability to stop fuming the atmosphere. But if most countries decided to disarm and turn their industrial-military production to better use there might be a chance of there being enough funds for a process of world struggle against pollution. For as long as countries continue, unincumbered by guilt and content with profit-making, to develop and sell new sophisticated weapons, the world will remain a mess and no amount of action against global warming will prevent more countries to engage in battle for territorial gain, supremacy in a given region or the world as a whole, and hypocritical ventures to restore some form of colonialism or another. Some of this will be done in the name of democracy or because there are too many hotbeds of terrorism left, or simply because mankind is prone to destroy itself and lacks the vision to do otherwise. In the meantime, the Artic and the Antartic will continue to melt, whole populations will be faced with natural catastrophes, and mad competition for markets will continue almost everywhere
I think you’re right. Pollution will continue unless there’s some enormous catastrophic shift, perhaps even beyond the horrors of what the photo I posted depicts.
That’s why I think humans will come up with solutions that will work on the symptoms: flooding, relocation, drought, and so on. We tend be a reactive species. Necessity is usually the mother of invention, not vision or enlightenment.
This is a scary picture, reminds me of the movie “Water World”…
You are so creative and smart! I think you should run for office – that would make the world a better place!!!
You’re making me blush, Pam. Thanks. I can’t even imagine the hell of having to schmooze, bullshit and compromise enough to get elected! But it sure would be great to figure out a way to make an actual difference in the world, I’m working on it…..