Green Business Awareness

Perhaps you missed the news, but it snowed (or iced) in July in Yonkers, New York.  After a colder than normal winter and a delayed start of summer; it is more than odd to hear of a snow or ice storm in July.  Nonetheless, on July 7th and 8th, the snow moving equipment was called out to clear away as much as 6 inches of a July ice storm.

As President Obama continued expanding the discussion on global warming at the G8 meting in Italy, confusing climatic signs leave many wondering about the realities that they are facing.  The stone wall of finality has some controversial cracks that leave open a question previous closed.  Is global warming anthropogenic (man created) or repeating earth cyclical?

Hard core global warming types argue that we are experiencing extremes as global warming runs its course.  The opposition find ground to believe that they cycle of global warming is self-correcting and now beginning it move back.  Who’s right?  The truth is that there is science on both sides of the debate.

Global warming has been happenings, and this affects the global climate.  Greenhouse gases are good for us since it keep us from a freeze and thaw like other non-atmosphere planets, but it out of balance will cause the dual effects of global warming or global cooling.  You may recall that concerns over volcanic ash could blot out the sun causing a global night that would freeze us in our beds.   This and other doomsday mal-predictions have left a fair amount of skepticism in the radically-based threats.

I guess the summation of these contradictions is that we really don’t know the cause and solution of global warming except by educated guesses.  When it starts and when it ends may not be ours predict.   As I observe the ones who are supposed to know, I detect a bold front and a nervous uncertainty on both sides of the debate.  Everyone wants to be right, or at least to convince everyone that they have the answers.  I’m am not so sure.

About the time I think I have resolved the matter, there is a snow storm in July, a blistering cold winter, and reports of global temperature decline.  It is frankly not only too big a question for me.  I think is is too big a question for any of us though we may postulate with our most learned scientists.  Privately, I hope that global warming has reached its azimuth, and the world will rotate back into a cycle that we all hope for.  Though I may enjoy the occasional doomsday movie, I do not want to live it.

Predictions often prove to be conjecture and hyperbole, and I for one hope that the global warming fear-mongers are wrong again this time.  I also hope that this near miss has taught us a little more about our stewardship of this earth so that we will live a life less wasteful and abusive.  Step up to the precipice and looking over the edge may be good medicine for us.  It is far too scary to anticipate toppling off the edge and falling to my horrible end.

So, it is my fondest wish that we have a reprieve from the pending judgment of human extinction from all the horrible deaths predicted by those who extrapolate the end of the world from newly-complied data.   I also pray that we will learn about the demands of our stewardship in a world that belongs to generations after us.

Ever since the Kyoto Protocol set the stage for global concern and governmental intervention, the worldwide concern for global warming is inextricably tied to the production of carbon dioxide .  It was also at the Kyoto meeting that the phrase “Cap and Trade” seemed to find its voice and the concept has continued to grow as more and more governments saw this as the primary means to address the global warming concerns.  Now, Cap and Trade programs seem to be a growing trend, but the wisdom of yet another governmental program raises unsettling questions.

Just to add another opinion to the global warming issue, the natural and environmental solution seems to be getting minimal attention in the global community, and I think it is because they have not figured out a way to tax the trees.  This is more than a sarcastic swipe at governmental intrusion, but an objection to the boorish ignorance of the best solution that we have in the global warming concern.  If carbon dioxide is the named culprit of global warming, and tree remove carbon dioxide and release wonderful oxygen, why in the name of good sense aren’t there governmental initiatives with the same aggressive drive for a “Natural Solution?”  The need for heavy-handed governmental intrusion with a Green Tax or Cap and Trade should not be the singular solution while better solutions get a mild level of friendly encouragement.

Global warming is becoming something more than an environmental concern.  It is possible that global warming could be hijacked and used as political leverage, taxing opportunities, and power-mongering that will not serve the true issue at hand.  This would not be the first time opportunists have seized on a popular theme for political advantage. The fact that the Cap and Trade program promises that it will drive up the cost of energy.  This means that someone will get rich and the people at the bottom will struggle all the more.  This is worse than unfortunate.  The CBO report of February 2008 on the concerning Cap and Trade reports a 60 billion dollar market of these CO2 trading instruments in a speculative market where “banks, brokers, funds, arbitrageurs, and private traders now participate in a market valued at $60 billion in 2007.”  Does it start to make sense now?  This is becoming a multi-billion dollar marketplace where the fat cats will get fatter and the rest will watch from outside of their foreclosed homes.

Returning to my key issue, I am very concerned that the reforestation effort is a sideline issue promoted by private efforts with government encouragement.  Trees provide an immense benefit in sweeping the air of particles, taking out carbon dioxide, and replenishing the oxygen.  They serve other purposes as well.  They slow the rain and hold the soil in place which has obvious benefits.  They are a true natural resource.  It therefore seems to be that the best solution is lighten up on cap and trade and increase the reforestation efforts.  No matter the public rhetoric, we are looking at a solution that seems to offer no good solution except to aggravate people who are already financially stressed with a cost-laden program where the wealthy and powerful are lining up for “The Next Big Money Grab.”  There is a need for Toto to pull back the curtain once again to reveal the wizards behind the curtain that are pulling the levers to fool us all with their magic and seeming power.

Well realistically, trees are not nearly so much fun as people.  Trees charge nothing to do what they do.  They work at their task without complaint and without a government or union to control their production.  They can’t vote, and they never complain no matter how badly we treat them.  No wonder they have so little political weight in D.C. or other political conclaves.  At the end of the day, we will find that we may have taken the wrong route to the global warming issue chosing to fight nature with policital clout and taxation rather than joining with nature to find the solutions already in hand.  But then government cannot control nature, and worse yet, they can’t tax the trees.