Anything you can do…

First there was our Prime Minister, promising that NZ would “aim

Pet food or power?

This week’s Economist has an excellent special report on business and climate change. The leader discussing the issue reminds me just how incisive the magazine can be:

There’s scope for new investment. In 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, America’s power-generation business, arguably the world’s biggest single polluter, spent a rather smaller proportion of its revenues on R&D than did America’s pet-food business.

Required reading (thanks for the tip, Mike).

Tempest in a low-carbon wineglass

News of the Times Online’s “low carbon diet

Greenland: ice, water and diamonds

More news of melting ice from the top of the world. According to Marc Tedesco, lead author of a paper in the May 29 issue of the American Geophysical Union’s Eos:

“The sensors detected that snowmelt occurred more than 10 days longer than the average over certain areas of Greenland in 2006

NZ business leaders sceptical about climate science

NZ’s business leaders remain to be convinced about the accuracy of climate science, according to the New Zealand Herald’s coverage of its own Mood of the Boardroom survey:

The country’s top chief executives don’t think climate-change science is accurate and believe the Government is overstating the risk to New Zealand. But they’re ready to prepare for a carbon-constrained economy.

The situation is no better in small to medium enterprises (SMEs):

At least seven out of 10 SME heads (72 per cent) are yet to be convinced of the science of climate change, but 79 per cent say New Zealand should prepare for a carbon-constrained global economy. Sixty-eight per cent identify a risk to the national brand or exports if New Zealand doesn’t move to reduce carbon emissions.

I suppose that’s a relief: they’re willing to do the right thing anyway. I hope they will find the time to read Hot Topic (due out early August). It’s always better to do the right thing for the right reason.

Further down the page, Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable is given room to prove just how much of a dinosaur he is when it comes to climate change:

“Carbon neutrality is completely unobtainable for the foreseeable future, even if we closed all our agricultural sector, banned all cars and other forms of transport and stopped economic growth. What then should New Zealand do about the Kyoto Protocol? We are not going to meet our commitments by a country mile. Do we ignore the protocol or do we honestly withdraw from it?