Some very important points made here
IBM think-tank calls on businesses to save the world while making money Thu Mar 23, 2006
SAN
FRANCISCO (AFP) - While Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley executives have the cash to pay for trendy
earth-friendly lifestyles, ordinary people don't, a US think-tank warned.
The onus was on businesses worldwide to
lead a "green" revolution by sharing technology and costs before authoritarian governments slapped them and citizens
with life-altering regulations, according to panel members.
"Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think the green
consumer will be the answer," Patrick Atkins, director of energy innovation at Alcoa aluminum company, said during a
Global Innovation Outlook forum led by IBM Corporation.
"People need to reach a tipping point at which it clearly
effects their lives, and then they will address the problem and galvanize the innovation of the world."
Executives
from major firms such as Halliburton and Intuit packed an auditorium in the San Francisco Museum of Art, where
academics and technology veterans brainstormed solutions to pollution and transportation woes.
"Business has a key
role to play," said Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
"Here we
are. It is up to us to create a sustainable path in the world. If we don't, I don't like where we are
going."
When Stigson asked how many people in the room believed in the "green consumer," a person willing to pay
more for eco-sensitive products such as electric cars or organic produce, only one hand was raised.
"You can't
tell poor, struggling people to just pay more," Hugh Aldridge of the Cambridge-MIT Institute warned. "If you price
things out of reach for people you don't have stability, you have rebellion."
If business doesn't step in to fix
the quality-of-life ills in major urban areas, heavy-handed governments will, predicted Aldridge.
Technology being
"seriously discussed" in England would remotely redirect cars and stop them to lessen traffic congestion, Aldridge
said.
"Governments are thinking in authoritarian ways to deal with these problems because they don't think market
forces will do it," Aldridge said. "That, to me, is a huge danger and we need to come up with innovation to stop
it."
It would be misguided to expect business alone to solve environmental problems, but shifting costs to the
wallets of consumers was a doomed strategy and waiting for government regulation foolish, pundits said.
IBM will
create a databank of "eco-patents" that will be free to legitimate users of the technology, said Nicholas Donofrio,
vice president of Innovation and Technology at the company.
'The oil clock is ticking," panelist Lee Schipper of
the World Resources Institute said, gesturing as if holding up a watch. "The greenhouse clock is ticking. And, we
can't even clarify the problems."
People should not expect technology to be a panacea, Lee said.
"There is always
a fool smart enough to violate a foolproof system," he quipped.
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting
scientists into silence.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220
"To
understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp
some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press
and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature
has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30%
over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public
fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the
small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually
demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are
trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't
happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.
If the
models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you
have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model
runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a
casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer
world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is
that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and
calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity,
not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming."