Out of every situation (bad ones included) come opportunities.  Judging by the RW's complete opposition to address global warming there is a great opportunity emerging...now is the perfect time to open up a mortuary.

OK gallows humor aside what needs to be done is not only to make combatting global warming less hostile to big business but somehow make it profitable.  How?  I don't know but to every question there is an answer...

It's interesting that the option of "coping" is brought up, because I suspect that is exactly how the developed world will react to the twin phenomenon of climate change and diminishing (fossil-based) energy resources. The industrialized world can and will develop technology and engineering to address rising temperatures and rising sea levels. Alternative energy sources will be found. So, the global warming problem will be "solved" without ever addressing the root causes, which are too daunting for people in power to even think about.

The developing world will not be able to cope with the effects of climate change, however. It has none of the resources of the industrialized world, and its populations are situated disproportionately in the areas that will most be affected by rising sea levels, temperature and tsunamis. As Hundt points out, every good and service in the global economy will be affected by climate change. Given that the West's prosperity and success in dealing with environmental problems has been accomplished via offshoring, when the bell tolls it will have disasterous consequences for those who are least equipped to handle them.

Technology transfer is one possibility in helping the poor "cope" with problems created by the rich. But past magnamity of behalf of states is not very very encouraging. Private charity, thus far, has been far more effective in assisting the have-nots of the world. But given the cost of "coping" with global warming, only states command the resources needed to make real technology transfer possible. The alternative is to simply ignore the problem and let the poor living around the equator drown while the industrial north deals with its own problems. Clearly, coping is no solution at all, and climate change is going to require a radical rethinking about the economic, political and social arrangements the world possesses.

The third -- coping -- is comparatively unexplored territory. For now, only this from me: every good and service in the global economy, from rice to routers, from sorghum to software, from corn to cars, will be made differently, distributed differently, branded differently, consumed differently because of the inevitable, rapid, and manifold changes in the global climate.

It's not just media mavens who need to catch up.  Warnings about unsustainable development stretch back at least a generation, and in the early years were pretty much dismissed by both left and right wings of the political bird.  The popular reception of F. E. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful was considerable.  It was, after all, a "best seller".  But the political reception was one big yawn.  Left and Right alike chortled at Jimmy Carter's cardigans and couldn't wait to abolish the 55 mph speed limit, introduced as a fuel conservation measure.

The good news is that the book is still around.  So is the F. E. Schumacher Society, dedicated to furthering some of the changes which will help us "cope".  Some of these changes will probably be good for us regardless of the reasons why they need introduction.  Once we rediscover what it means to be citizens of a neighborhood and to live as neighbors, we may find we actually  enjoy the new life, even if we don't enjoy the new heat.  I hope so.

Some other resources for those who like to educate themselves:

Global Warming is Real.  GlobalWarmingisReal.com is a clearing house of information and resources for the concerned citizen. If you are worried for the future of our planet and want to find out more about global warming, climate change, alternative energy, and sustainable human development, you are at the right place.

Global Warming:  Early Warning Signs  The map of early warning signs clearly illustrates the global nature of climate changes. In its 2001 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that "an increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system." 

Peak Oil:  Life after the Oil Crash.  Peak Oil is also called "Hubbert's Peak," named for the Shell geologist Dr. Marion King Hubbert. In 1956, Hubbert accurately predicted that US domestic oil production would peak in 1970. He also predicted global production would peak in 1995, which it would have had the politically created oil shocks of the 1970s not delayed the peak for about 10-15 years.

Global Voices Online  Mr. Hundt speaks to effects in the "developing world"  Global Voices Online is a great resource for finding out what bloggers all over are thinking about just about anything.  While waiting for verbal fireworks here, cruise over to find out what the rest of the world is talking about there. 

Clusty Com on Global Warning.  Google is fine if one wants to find the most popular sources.  But I like to use a clustering search engine from time to time, just to help me sort through the bazillions of responses.  Clusty is my current favorite.

I hope some of you find some of these useful, and if you bring some of the ideas from some of these places back into the discussion my time will have been well spent.

Mike

Having been an avid supporter of James Lovelocks "Gaia" Hypothesis which in general states that the Earth is one huge living organism and we are just a small part of it. He postulates that a couple billion years of life give the earth the wonderful capacity to right imbalances to the system if they fall outside a certain set of parameters. Simply put... this finite planet can only handle so many of one particular biological organism and before we are men....women...of a race...religion....political or economic "system"...We are BIOLOGICAL beings (with thanks to Pico Iyer for this definition). There appear to be far too many "biological units" in the form of Homo Sapians for the Earth to support. So the choice is simple. Population reduction followed by sustainible population limits on a planet wide scale. However... because our biology triumphs our rationality.... Even looking at the problem in this context we appear to be doomed to have "Nature" or the worst in us through war famine and disease correct this imblance (which in a way is Nature's finest defense... Our "natural capacity" for self destruction LOL :)). So in short... Either we develop policies to drop our population to sustainible levels, or we suffer (within the next couple of generations) a huge long and horrible population crash at our own hands.

I personally chose to have only one child and live a sustainible lifestyle.

What did you choose? Or have you even thought about how your actions contribute to the solution, or the problem as I have outlined it?

William Hazen

PS. Want a good idea of what some of the world experiances now, and what the immediate future may hold? Time to dust off and rewatch that old classic film made when I was a kid.... "Soylent Green" It's eerie how prescient that Movie is today.

"Every one has a plan...Until you hit them in the mouth." Mike Tyson

Which sector of "big Business" should it be profitable to? Perhaps the leather harness industry? Maybe the audio tape industry? How about the typewriter industry? If I haven't bludgeoned you enough to understand, what I am saying is that inevitably some sectors of our industry will suffer from any effort to slow global warming, but that isn't relevant. Because, there will be new sectors which will become major players in the economy as a result of the effort to slow global warming. The protectionism of business which seems to drive the Bush administrations head-in-the-sand policy, is almost entirely driven by their desire to continue the exhorbitant profits of the oil industry. That is not in our national interest.

Let's not pass over Reed's other policy choice, which is an inevitable path we will follow. I mean, we will find ways to cope with global warming, because we will have no other choices. Global warming operates on a very time delayed basis, and our past pollution of the atmosphere will bring about virtually all of the "evils" of global warming no matter what we do now. So, we really need to gear up for coping with it. For example, if our vast areas of farmland are to become unproductive, where will we get our food? If our coastlands become below sea level, what will we do about that? If Katrina size storms become annual events, how will we cope with that? There is where the opportunities for business lie.

Hoppy in Sacramento

The danger is that simply "coping" will involve more and more energy consumption (see the strain AC is putting on energy grids this summer), and hence more and more generation of greenhouse gases.

Things could get very bad much faster than people expected. Recent revelations that the glaciers in Greenland are melting much faster than expected. The melting of the permafrost in the Artic, under which is billions of tons of methane waiting to be liberated, a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Our children deserve better than what we are about to bequeath to them.

You're right. And until his second term Bush wouldn't even talk about effective CAFE standards. But one of the reasons reforms were attempted in the ‘70s (besides the general Earth Day- Green Peace movements) was that outrageous gas prices (like over $1.00/gallon!) and long gas lines woke people up. Oil prices will keep rising. And when a documentary, on global warming, starring Al Gore, packs houses and gets great reviews, all is not lost yet.

 The point is that not coping isn't an option.  And, coping will involve new industries and business opportunities.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Re: While it may be true that in some isolated parts of the globe the birth rate is falling

You need to become better informed. The birth rate is falling EVERYWHERE, not just in isolated parts of the world. For example, in Mexico the birth rate is now barely at replacement. The old forecasts of runaway piopulation growth are no longer valid! Absolute population growth will of course continue for a generation or two, but a decline will eventually set in across the globe, and in some places (e.g., Japan) it has already begun. And indeed, the fact that population growth is slowing and will reverse the soonest in the First World is the best news in the matter since it is these societies that have the highest resource usage and pollution rates. There's a success story in the making here; people really are getting the message that smaller families are better, both for themselves and for the environment, and the problems which our grandchildren will face are more likely to be about how a smaller working age generation will provide for a larger elderly population.

Indeed, finding an alternative to oil would be the key to returning the U.S. to its place as world superpower. Not only could we forget about the Middle East, but it would once again place us at the top of world industry just like during the Industrial Revolution.

Something to strive for...

Farmers in Africa are NOT part of the so-called First World, except for perhaps a few privileged ranchers in South Africa. "First World" is a term coined in the 1960s to describe the highly industrialized capitalistic countries of the world.

While it's true that methane only lasts about 25 years before breaking down, it's still 21 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. That's a lot of heating potential to put into the atmosphere all at once. And yeah, I know growth in methane levels has been slowing recently, no-one is quite sure why, though it may be related to deforestation. Just don't assume the trend line will continue.

Moving back to the Pliocene climate in the space of a couple of centuries is not conducive to an orderly transition.

Moreover looking at the fiasco in New Orleans provides no evidence that this country for example has the expertise, to say nothing of the resources, to cope. Perhaps we can get some Dutch engineers in this time to design the levees around Manhattan.

Of course countries like Bangladesh are toast, but what the heck, they're just wogs.

Pity about Venice though.

Unless the alternative energy source uses something other than carbon that has been stored in the earth for eons, it will not ease global warming at all.  If we used all bio-fuels, with the carbon for those fuels coming from the atmosphere only, that would be a big improvement.  In any case global warming is a global problem, not one of keeping the USA number one in the world. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

yes, and that those that do not cope, whether firms or societies, may not survive.

My view is that if you take a 5 to 10 year perspective, some aspects of this issue are
not that difficult to solve.

First, there is the framework of the Kyoto treaty.

Second, it may not be overoptimistic to assume that in the next 5-10 years there will be an Administration that will create and fund a federal program (like an energy "Manhattan Project")to develop real, economic energy solutions that will massively decrease fossil fuel usage and CO2 emissions in the decades ahead (in turn generating multiple profit opportunities)

Third, sooner or later governments will have to adopt policies (tax burdens or breaks, investment incentives, subsidies like what we saw in Brazil with Ethanol, or something else) to support decreased CO2 emissions and transition to alternative sources.

As an optimist I believe a solution will come in the next 5-10 years or so, for the next century.

One question that will really be difficult to solve is how we balance the interests of the BRIC countries (which will become increasingly important emitters and where regulation is often more lax and by passed), and the interest of the OPEC countries (whose economy will be affected by a shift to non fossil fuels and may change the market dynamics of oil to make alternatives economically unfeasible in the short term).

The innovation around more energy efficient hardware, new source of energy, and the economic incentives in the US and Europe are to a large extent simpler problems to solve.

Peter McL

The key issue for any policy on climate change is dealing with those that benefit and those that are less well off. There are two ways of doing this. Those that benefit compensate those that do not, or where the luxury of time is available, implementing changes gradually.

Overall, the cost to the economy from even the most radical measures is quite supportable. When you think, for example, how much real standards of living have risen over the past generation - how much of that increase would you be willing to give up to fix climate change? - 20%? 50%? If you gave up all the increase,you would still be as wealthy as you were in 1980. Do you remember yourself as being poor then, or in fact, being an average person, quite well off? So the really difficult issues are not what to do, but who pays and who benefits - the fundamental stuff that politics is set up to resolve. Does the state of politics in the US or elsewhere, for that matter, give cause for optimism on this front? Perhaps not.

Right now I'm planning to modify my window air conditioner to capture the condensed water that drips outside to trickle down the heat exchanger. This water is already very cold and water can carry a lot of heat so the unit will be 30 or 40 % more efficient. A better design would be to bring the city water in past the heat exchanger, with it sitting in a complete bath.

If I bought a new design unit, or paid someone to modify mine, and generally use less electricity, that sounds like an economic boost. I spend money on someone else and he earns more while I save power and come out ahead.

It seems to me that with a bit of encouragement combating climate change is not a cost but a benefit in many sectors. The right challenge, or the right response, drives not only evolution of animals but societies. We assume that a climate challenge was involved in the selection that drove humans ahead of chimps. We also assume the most recent Ice Age was a challenge that led to advances. Why should this one be different?

Selection does mean some lose, but it always acts, and lately it acts to reward the rich. Climate change should select for innovation, which is hard to find fault in.

The Southwest gets plenty hot and they burn huge amounts of electricity, but they also have huge amounts of free sunshine so there should be no problem cooling buildings without pumping carbon. The Northeast lacks sun but has readily available groundwater. This is both a cooling sink for air conditioning and a huge heat source in winter. Using groundwater to provide lots of heat at 50 degrees or so means it takes only a tiny amount of energy to get to 70 degrees. (Beats trying to find heat in the thin winter air.) Dumping heat in the summer by using cool groundwater beats the heck out of trying to dump it into thin 90 degree air.

New commercial buildings mostly use similar efficient designs but many older buidlings would benefit from refitting. And the vast majority of living spaces, whether separate houses or apartments, use inefficient designs. Replacing these is labor-intensive, so a tremendous amount of paid work awaits. The only obstacle to launching a wholesale retrofit is ponying up the cash, so the right incentives will release the creative energy of small business and manufacturers to both reduce carbon dramatically and save lots of money in the long run. Some refits will save money almost immediately.

As computing becomes cheaper houses can become smarter and apply energy where needed. Energy collection systems also benefit from smarts.

Accepting the challenge means a better life for most, not poverty. When solar units become ubiquitous they will find ready application in remote installations for water pumps in poor African communites and desalinization units for the desert countries. Local power means a poor community could connect to the Internet even without being on an electrical grid. It enables pumped irrigation and sanitary drinking water.

So even the poor countries stand to benefit, if the right technologies are emphasized.