WHILE THE BIG ENVIRO GROUPS SLEEP: Capitalism Trumps Climate

The big enviro groups’ bankruptcy as effective activists was seen in full technicolor during the BP Gulf of Mexico tragedy.  These groups totally failed to alert the public about such issues (which continue as before), have remained largely mute in the face of Obama’s de facto capitulation to business interests, and have practically woven their practices into the fabric of the corporate world, often retaining CEOs who in  pay and policy are indistinguishable from their regular commercial counterparts. —Eds.

By Lorna Salzman

How many of you actually think that there are sincere and meaningful efforts being made to mitigate climate change? If your answer is yes, then what proof do you offer? What groups, individuals, policies or legislation do you think are making a difference or will in the near future? Why do you think so?

enviros alongside, to accomplish several things:

•keep existing federal subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil and nuclear industry.

This is by default our present national energy policy and no one, including 350.org/1Sky, has proposed anything different: no one in government, no one in industry, and no one in the top echelons of the environmental community, even though one of them, Gus Speth, knows full well what needs to be done.

None of this should be surprising, at least to those who have been paying attention or who have not bought hook, line and sinker the empty words of people like Bill McKibben, who is good at whipping crowds into a green frenzy but incapable of telling them what they should do. There is NO ENERGY AGENDA of any merit being pushed ANYWHERE, and anyone who thinks it is only the Republicans to blame is inhaling from the Big Bong. There is bipartisan and universal agreement that the first order of business is Business and the earth be damned. 350.org even sent out shameless mailings to business to curry favor with them and suck them in to believing that nothing drastic or costly need be done and that only a few nips and tucks at the margins were needed.

But it is leading us over the cliff.

FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX PRESENTS

THE CLIMATE CAPITALISM TELEFORUM—A LIVE, NATIONAL, INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION OF CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Hardcover • 400 pp. • $27.95

ISBN 978-0-8090-3473-4

▪ Read a preview excerpt from Climate Capitalism (PDF)

CLIMATE CAPITALISM

CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

“A must-read for entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts, and corporations interested in capitalizing on the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of our lifetime: solving climate change.” —Jigar Shah, founder, SunEdison, and CEO, Carbon War Room

Whether you believe in climate change or not, it doesn’t matter. If your goal is profitability, you’ll act as if you do. As CLIMATE CAPITALISM shows, climate-protection efforts have failed because we have ignored the most powerful tool for unleashing the low-energy future: the business case. In their book, L. Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism Solutions and coauthor of Natural Capitalism, and Boyd Cohen, CEO of CO2IMPACT, draw on case studies of international corporations, small businesses, NGOs, and municipalities to demonstrate that efficiency and renewable energy equal the path to greater profitability and enhanced economic prosperity. Through addressing business opportunities across a range of sectors, including energy, buildings, transportation, and agriculture technologies, Lovins and Cohen powerfully address the future of capitalism in a carbon-constrained world and prove that climate change policy will promote, not hinder, the growth of our global economy.

Corporate executives, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and concerned citizens will all find CLIMATE CAPITALISM a feisty, opportunity-rich read—one that offers a compelling road map for a new energy economy.

“A highly persuasive demonstration of how profitable economic choices can take us a long way toward dealing with climate disruption, the misguided aspects of our agriculture, oil’s strategically catastrophic monopoly over transportation, the poverty of the bottom billion, and much else. Creative and deftly crafted.”—Jim Woolsey, Former Director of CIA, Booz Allen Hamilton

“One of the fastest growing areas in business schools today is entrepreneurship, and more specifically social entrepreneurship . . . . Climate Capitalism provides both direction and inspiration for these students who do not accept the artificial tradeoff between doing well and doing good.”—R. Bruce Hutton, dean emeritus, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

“Nobody does a better job of laying out the business case for pursuing a cleaner, more profitable form of capitalism than Hunter Lovins.”—Andrew Winston, founder, Winston Eco-Strategies and author of Green Recovery

systems?

LORNA SALZMAN has been an American environmental activist, writer, lecturer and organizer since the mid-1960s and was a candidate for the 2004 presidentialnomination of the Green Party (GPUS).  She is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and in 2000 she received the international Earth Day Award from the Earth Society Foundation for her committed environmental work. Salzman is a graduate of Cornell University.^[1]

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