Integrated Man

Reality - The First Speed Bump on the Way to Green

I try not to go to the Connecticut State Legislature more than once a year.  When I do so, it is only because my frustration with the status quo exceeds my frustration in watching how we struggle to make progress through the legislative process.  Nor is Connecticut unique by any means. 

But there I was on February 27th, endeavoring to testify on Raised Bill 5600, Section 3, regarding a proposal to study the impacts of Climate Change on Connecticut; a bill similar, but inferior to, Bill 1432, Section 3 of last year which suffered death by calendar at the end of the legislative session.

Convergence

The New York Times’ editorial of Feb. 23^rd, “Before the Next Bridge Falls”, fell short of the mark. It focused on one issue, largely ignoring two other related issues and a fourth which encompasses all three.

We are facing a convergence of three paradigms, wrapped in a fourth. Infrastructure, climate change and constrained energy are proceeding along seemingly parallel lines, but will converge in time, and vary by place. How we deal with them will be a combination of our perception of their interrelationships, and a fourth paradigm, demographic-driven economics.

Inconvenient Truths, Asymmetric Response and Unintended Consequences

I have often thought that the most valuable contribution of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, was its title.  Although it spoke specifically to Climate Change and our unwillingness to face its multifaceted implications, there are many inconvenient truths in our lives, and our unwillingness to address them directly accounts for many of the problems we face. 

Take Iraq for example. 

Random Reflections on: Connecting the Economic Dots

We're all familiar with the exercise of 'connecting the dots' to find the picture.  Sometimes, when the 'picture' is dynamic and evolving, it is helpful to engage in a little constructive procrastination, letting the dots fill in a little more.  It makes connection much easier; sometime almost automatic.  Like with the economy.  Like now.  The dots are dropping in fast and furious, and the picture is looking rather dark. 

"Just give me the facts, Ma'am"

2008/01/04

Remember that line, delivered by the granite-faced Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet?  Probably not if you're under 50 years old, but it comes to mind whenever I listen to debates on energy or the environment or the economy or globalization or (you name it) these days.  The first challenge is not in assessing the information, but assessing the individual who is conveying it.

In the civic arena there is a spectrum of participants in the public discourse on critical issues. True Believers, a term popularized if not coined by the late longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer, embrace an issue as an absolute, unquestionable truth. Theirs is often an emotional attachment, often bordering on the irrational.  Advocates may embrace the same issue, but based on fact and logic and with sufficient detachment that they will modify or even end their commitment if presented with compelling countervailing fact or logic.  Their opposite number is the Skeptic, who does not accept the prevailing conclusion, but is open to persuasion to change based on compelling fact or logic . And finally, there is the Cynic; often confused with the Skeptic, but distinguished by being impervious to reason or logic and therefore the polar opposite of the True Believer.

Clim-Ergy - It's About Time

2007/12/09

Clim-Ergy:  The combined manifestation of two phenomena - Climate Change and Constrained Energy - into a unified paradigm of impacts, and requiring a unified human response. 

I just made up that definition.  But the term and its meaning have been fermenting in my mind for about nine months since I gave a presentation on Climate Change impacts to the Joint Environmental Committee of the Connecticut Legislature, and subsequently testified on behalf of a bill to study the impacts of Climate Change as they might pertain to Connecticut.   The bill got stalled to death by the end of the legislative session, but the experience of attempting to navigate the bizarre bazaar of the state Legislature (and I'm sure that Connecticut is by no means unusual, our specific quirks notwithstanding) was instructive of why we are, and will be for the foreseeable future, in 'deep twinkies' regarding progress on either Climate Change or Constrained Energy. 

The True Price of Energy

2007/12/01

What is the true price of oil?....or any form of energy for that matter?  What is the true price of anything?  And why should we care? 

Let's start with the easy question first.  Why should we care?  Because how prices are set for the resources and services we depend upon have a direct impact on our personal wealth and well being.  When we think the process is rational, even as the result is offensive, we may "suck it up and deal with it".  But when we think we're being "SCREWed"  (a technical acronymn for Subject to Cronic Rapacious Ethical Wrong-doing) we are then motivated to look for options,....if there are any.

The November 19th issue of the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Oil Officials See Limit  Looming on Production created a new and interesting context for the question of the true price of oil.  But first, a little background.

 

Climate Change and Adaptive Response: Connecting the Dots

2007/11/22

Happy Thanksgiving. 

We in the US have much to be thankful for, even recognizing the many challenges we face.  We have options and opportunities born of the wealth that we have not yet squandered, so we have abundant reason for expressing quiet gratitude for what we have and to renew a commitment to future prosperity of body, mind and spirit.

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Last week I had an unexpected opportunity to give a presentation to environmental managers and scientists at the Northeast Regional Coastal Zone Managers meeting convened in Providence, RI by NOAA.  I was there in place of Dr. Lynne Carter, a nationally and internationally recognized environmental scientist.  Lynne had been the intended speaker and was looking forward to discussing adaptation strategies for climate change, but was given an equally unexpected opportunity to testify before the US Senate along with other scientists on the need for the federal government to increase support for the systematic monitoring of climate change and the dissemination of information and tools to states and localities to facilitate their planning for adaptation. I was a somewhat unlikely  participant, being the only accountant in the room, and by no means a substitute for Lynne's scientific background, so I chose to take a different track to the same subject, but more on that in a minute.

It Is About Oil. Thank you, Mr. Greenspan

One of the unexpected gifts of Mr. Greenspan’s book and supporting promotional tour was his public acknowledgment that the Iraq war was in fact all about oil. While his  rationale for arriving at that conclusion seemed a bit flaky for one of his renowned analytic abilities, his acknowledgment of what many of us have believed to be true from the beginning gives substance to what has heretofore been accountable only to justifiable, but not verifiable, cynicism.

Driving to Extinction

While the world noted Al Gore's moment of recognition by the Nobel committee, two items in business news confirmed my suspicion that the business community is not advancing toward environmental and energy enlightenment nearly as much as environmentalists would like to believe.  A guest commentator on CNBC yesterday charged that corporate boards would be challenged to prove to shareholders that their green strategies generate a positive contribution to the bottom line. He maintains that such a criterion should be an acid test for their adoption, and he hopes to lead an assault on those corporations failing that acid test.

Meanwhile, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. opines that, if the UAW doesn't kill the Big Three, federal CAFE standards for auto mileage will. 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119197653926654186.html?mod=moj_columnists

These and other similar arguments retain a surprising amount of traction with business leaders and a gullible public.  They are subsets of the broader argument made by the Bush administration that the US must not adopt climate change strategies that will impair its economic performance. Surprisingly, environmentalists have remained impotent in challenging these arguments on their premises.

Let's start at the micro level in dissecting these arguments, and work our way up.