Here’s what happened.

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Selling “green” to businesses is a harder proposition.  The warm fuzzy feeling you get when you pick up a carton of soy milk can quickly dissolve when the staff accountant shows a graph of the yearly cost differential between your eco-friendly purchase and the cheaper conventional option.  Most times, being green doesn’t hurt when pitching a service to a business, but you better have a convincing business case to back it up.

In the IT world, energy-saving options and virtual servers are par for the course.  Tech Networks of Boston pioneered these technologies years ago, but they’re not particularly green – they’re just more efficient than the alternative.  It’s not hard to sell 4 virtual servers – you just pitch a project with 75% lower hardware costs.  These things make good business sense to the client, but in 2010, they are no longer the cutting edge of “green”.

So how does one convince potential business customers that supporting a socially responsible business is a winning value proposition?  I wish I had a simple answer – it depends on the client’s culture, their values and their management.  Someone struggling to green their own organization may have a sympathetic  ear, but in any case, you’re going to need to convince the customer that a green option is the best option for their business.

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Plans originally called for it to be removed, but due to miscommunications between government departments and the construction contractor, it was not cleared for removal.  We are hoping that crews can work around it for the remainder of the project and that it can continue to thrive.

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Unfortunately, the problem of power consolidation did not end with the institution of representative government. Over the centuries that followed, economic power has eclipsed and usurped the power of the government. Now there is a new elite class whose power base is not accountable. In essence, the tendency of power to consolidate its wielders and increase its reach adapted to the constraints imposed by the Founding Fathers.

Today, as then, we need a revolution that undermines the power of the unaccountable economic elites and replaces it with a democratic system that empowers all people. There are a number of problems that make our situation more complicated than the one faced in 1776:

• Ecological problems and resource constraints are now becoming increasingly pressing issues.
• The world’s majority urban population can organize more easily, but they are reliant on distant food production. Additionally, the successful revolutions of the 20th century have all relied on significant peasant support.
• Our political system provides scapegoats and tools for marginal changes that prevent revolutionary movements from becoming widespread.
• Overwhelming military and police power make violent resistance a practical impossibility.

Romantic notions held over from the stories of the American Revolution emphasize battling a distant oppressor. Today we are bound to a system that provides everything we rely on – right down to our food and water. The problem with American politics is that movements are usually driven by who we oppose, rather than what we want to build. Our new revolution is not about throwing off the chains of oppression – we are caught in a system that is at once our oppressor and provider.

The solutions to our contemporary problems are not destructive, but creative. We, the people, must build our own base of power. Our declaration of independence will only be ratified when we can feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.

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A New York Times article has more news on the talks, including Japan’s attempts to use aid money to buy support from poorer nations.  From the article:

The talks were plagued by feelings of mistrust, after reports in The Sunday Times of London that Japan had been using offers of aid to effectively buy the support of poor nations’ fisheries officials. The newspaper executed a sting operation in which officials of several nations were caught discussing on hidden cameras the price of their support.

Americans who watch the show Whale Wars are familiar with Japan’s attempts to exploit loopholes in the international ban in order to secure a supply of whale meat for the nation’s seafood delicacies.  Because of this, precious and unique species are being threatened with extinction.

What we lose in the discussion about population maintenance and catch quotas is that humans are continuing to butcher the largest mammals on the planet to satisfy our taste buds.  There is no blubber shortage, and we are not left in the dark because our whale oil lamps are running out of fuel.

It is a matter of taste, pure and simple.

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Until yesterday, there was a huge willow tree on Columbia Road between the road and the beach.  There was nothing like it from Castle Island to UMass.  It shaded and cooled us, and it was a haven for birds.  It gave me a jolt of pleasure every morning I ran by it. I marveled at its gracefully twisting trunk and deeply veined bark and at the grace of its boughs festooned with thousands of strands of willow leaves.

Every living thing has its time to die.  This hundred year-old tree met its end through a lightening bolt yesterday afternoon.  While it is sad to lose such a magnificent tree, what turns this event into a tragedy is to know that there will never be a tree that large on Columbia Road again.   The average tree planted today in Boston lives seven to ten years, according to the City of Boston Parks Department.  Part of the reason the trees aren’t growing is that pollution from car exhaust and other sources creates ground-level ozone, a pollutant that damages the DNA of trees and causes cancer and asthma in humans.

Some studies have shown that tree growth is reduced by 30-50% in high-ozone years.  Even outside urban areas, scientists estimate that ozone pollution has reduced tree trowth in northern and temperate mid-latitudes by 7% already, and we are headed to a 17% reduction by 2100.  But a scientist is not needed to see that we are losing our trees here in Boston, including our hundred year-old heritage trees.  In the future, our children may not see trees the way we do today.   For them, a tree will be a spindly, stick-like plant about twenty feet high.  When you tell them that there used to be huge trees that you couldn’t put your arms around, they will smile politely and nod, just as we nodded when our great-grandfathers told us about the herds of buffalo so large that they extended as far as the eye could see.

Six trees are slated for removal in Andrew Square

Although we can’t do anything about the dead willow, there is a tree less than a mile away that we can save if we all work together.  It is the largest tree in Andrew Square.  This tree has provided shade, cooling, and cleaner air to thousands of passersby over the decades.  It is now slated for removal as part of the Andrew Square renewal project.  While the project does provide for planting new trees, these trees will simply join the ranks of the hundreds of others that the city has planted that wither, die back, and then die over the next few years.  I am not aware of any money provided for maintenance and no money provided for replacement if the trees die.

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I’m afraid that Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum, also felt like burying his head under the pillow, as the oil leak crisis continues to escalate out of control, with 4.2 million gallons of oil already spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

As for me, after three weeks of waking up at night with anxiety attacks about this blow to our environment, I am ready to hammer Mr. Hayward (and President Obama) with some of the questions I ask as when I manage a crisis in my own business, where we are responsible for keeping our customers’ servers up and running 24/7:

Mr. Hayward: 

How many people should develop solutions for stopping the leak?  Are other oil companies jumping in to help BP, producing solutions in parallel?

How do we know that all available technologies are being brought to bear, regardless of whether they are proprietary, and all experts in this field have been consulted, regardless of their location or employer?

Is cost a limiting factor in the efforts to stop the leak?  Are there solutions, such as using tankers to siphon oil-contaminated water from the spill area for treatment, that are currently not being implemented because of cost?

Is BP working with all possible speed on the relief well?  Why only one relief well? 

What happens if BP’s efforts to drill another well suffer a setback?  Would another company be able to drill a second one, and potentially faster?

President Obama

Who is representing the interests of the public in this matter?  Who is verifying BP’s statements? 

What else is flowing out of the well besides oil?  Are gasses such as SO₃ flowing out of the well, contributing to ocean acidification?

Why can’t the government get involved in the efforts to stop the flow?  Isn’t this a matter of national security?

Are there solutions available to the government, such as oil dispersal at a low depth with submarines, that are not being implemented? 

As concerned citizens, we must not continue to let this crisis unfold.  Instead of finger-pointing, we need an all-out effort to resolve this problem.  Please contact Mr. Tony Hayward’s office at BP and the White House.

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These stories come on the heels of a deadly coal mine accident and highlight the contrasting visions of America’s energy future. Opponents of Cape Wind (including the late Senator Kennedy) claim that the view of the 130 proposed windmills could harm tourism and that the project might have unforeseen environmental impacts. Meanwhile, West Virginia and Louisiana struggle with environmental impacts that they know all too well.

Opponents of renewable energy point out that it is not yet as cost effective as other more conventional sources. Where these calculations fall short is in accounting for lasting damage to ecosystems caused by disasters like the recent oil spill. It has been more than twenty years since the Exxon Valdez breached its hull off the coast of Alaska, and fishing there has still not recovered. Unfortunately, modern economics does not yet have an accepted method for valuing ecosystem services (instead we assign value to the impact on industries that rely on those ecosystems). Until we reach an agreement on how to account for our dwindling natural wealth, we are likely to go on treating it as if it has no value.

The opposition to Cape Wind goes beyond not-in-my-back-yard sentiment. There are legitimate concerns about ecological impacts of the project and cultural objections from Native Americans. For them, an unobstructed view of the sunrise is one more part of their culture threatened by our exploitation of natural resources. Still, if given a choice between looking at windmills, looking at a barren mountaintop removal site, or looking at the inferno of an oil slick set ablaze to keep it off their shores, I think I know what most Cape Cod residents would pick.

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