jmckinley’s posterous

"What did this brave self-flagellation yield? To be sure, he got the attendees to collectively declare that they would never ever let the Earth's temperature rise two degrees centigrade from pre-industrial levels. This is supposedly a prelude to the real horse-trading over emissions cuts that will begin in a Copenhagen, Denmark, meeting this December.

But the depressing thing for climate warriors was that Obama could not get developing countries, without whose cooperation there is simply no way to avert climate change, to accept--even just in theory--the idea of binding emissions cuts. India's prime minister took the occasion to position his country as a major victim of a problem not of its making. "What we are witnessing today is the consequence [of] over two centuries of industrial activity and high-consumption lifestyles in the developed world," he lectured. "They have to bear this historical responsibility." And even before the summit began, China declared the West had "no right" to ask it to limit its economic growth."

I had the pleasure of listening to a Stanford University professor do his public pitch on the need for the US to actively drive CO2 emission reduction, and my takeaway from his speech was profound, but not what he intended.

The basic premise was that if we as a global community do not immediately change our ways, the global temperature of the earth will rise several degrees over the course of this century, with major portions of current tillable land becoming barren and arid by 2050.

Here was the issue: When I saw the relative forecasted contribution to the CO2 problem originating from China and India, countries who have opted opt in large part of emission controls, the relative impact of what the US could do with our own highly aggressive green program made little or no different (it was like the difference between a 3 degree increase and a 2.8 degree increase).

To me, that means if you believe in global warming as a phenomena, then we as the US need to start planning for life in this new, hotter climate. That means three needed infrastructure investments:

Cheap, scalable power
Massive desalination capacity
Distribution systems for water and power to our farmlands in the US.

Positioning the US to be the world's farmer over this century is a great strategic entitlement to leave our children and our childrens' children, but we need to start the infrastructure investments TODAY.

That is why I am so sad about the current use of our available global credit line - the amount of focused infrastructure investments with real sustaining benefit is measured in the low single digits percentage of the forecasted deficit increase. That needs to change, and someone needs to take up the mantle of leadership (be they Democrat or Republican).

Let's invest in change that matters - things that lead to a more vibrant US over the next 100 years. To me, it all starts with being able to feed 6+ billion people, and the US has unique geological and financial assets to position itself to play that role. It just takes focus and commitment.

Major props to Bill Wilson and his team at AOL for creating such a wonderful way to memorialize the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing. Hope kids are aware of this.

When 70% of the US GDP is driven by consumer purchases, do you think this 60% increase in consumer-supplied tax revenue over a 6 year period will have no effect on the current quite-optimistic growth assumptions for the US economy?