12 October 2007

Global Climate Change: Can Gore-UN Panel Nobel Prize Tip New Green Economy?



Arguably, no one has done more over the past few years to elevate the issue of global climate change than Al Gore. Except perhaps the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now Mr. Gore and the UN panel are sharing the Nobel Peace Prize. Does this mean climate change, the issue, has reached the big time?

A larger question on my mind is: Will this recognition help us get our act together to do something about it?

Let's hope that someday the winner of the Nobel in Economics is the person who figures out how to address climate change action by transforming the global economy into something sustainable, profitable, and green.

A new green economy.

We need to make this moment the tipping point to turn green into gold.

4 comments:

Mike D. said...

Maybe more people will watch Al Gore's film and begin to take more action. The more people who start voting with thir money, the sooner a green economy will develop.

Justin said...

Capitalism isn't going to be able to bring us any closer to a sustainable and environmentally friendly economy. It is wonderful when individuals make more green choices. However, an economic system that requires infinite expansion to survive will by definition fail to be sustainable, regardless of the good intentions of a few. Whether by crisis or reason,society will need to be restructured, localized and Greened.

Perhaps it is from living in Texas, where we just narrowly avoided having 8 dirty-coal power plants erected in a 20 mile radius (which will stave it off for maybe 3 years at most, before a new private contractor picks up the bid, and uses his "property rights" to damage the health of hundreds of thousands in our community), but I am adamantly skeptical of the capacity of the economy we live in to bring anything but wealth to a few (who live outside the smog radius), and lung cancer and minimum wages to the rest.

C.H. said...

I don't think that global warming is something human beings have the power to stop. The climate change debate has reach hysterical levels and its important for people to remember that theres another side to it.

BethLBeth said...

Affable Atheist,

I think that our capitalist economy might actually benefit from becoming environmentally friendly if we team up large plants and factories that are emitting pollutants into the environment with smaller companies that specialize in alternative technology innovation and alternative power generation. Smaller companies would benefit more, but in the long-run we would eventually meet at equilibrium.