Sleeping on Global Warming is Bad Business

My argument is simple: I think climate change is real. You don’t? That’s your business. But there are two other huge trends barreling down on us with energy implications that you simply can’t deny. And the way to renew America is for us to take the lead and invent the technologies to address these problems.

via Thomas Friedman – What They Really Believe – NYTimes.com.

The green energy issue is something I’m personally very interested in.  Why?  because it sparks that entrepreneurship / forward-thinking itch I get when I see a huge opportunity that’s not being fully harnessed.

Of course there are very real environmental implications of global warming:  Rising temperatures, sea levels, lower food supply, extreme weather conditions, the list goes on…

But the thing that always keeps me coming back to this issue (more than any other) is the business / economic implications of ignoring global warming.  All of the opponents of green energy policy are on the side of big bussiness.  Free market hawks, mostly republicans, who own or are paid by the highest levels of the corporate business world.

But it’s bad business not to invest in green technology now.  Why don’t they see that?

The biggest industry in the world today?  Oil-based energy.  The biggest (and even bigger) industry in the world tomorrow?  Green energy.  As any entrepreneur will tell you, you always have to be thinking one step ahead.  America is not doing that (yet) and it’s due largely to our bickering and childish political system.

We’ve blown it in the auto mobile industry.  Our financial “products” industry kind of, how should I say… crashed the world economy.  America needs to get back on it’s feet with something new.  That means taking the lead on green energy, and doing it now.