It started with Sean Donahue of Dell who video interviewed me on the environment. Sean is part of Dell's "Green Team" and he asked me what I personally do to help the environment. I think I gave an answer that sounded pretty good, but in retrospect, I wasn't sufficiently transparent.
I don't do enough, for the environment, not nearly enough.
From time to time I look at environmental issues: Zero carbon emissions, global warming, the atrophy of rain forests and so on. You all know them. Most of you believe there is a clear and present danger. Most of fear that danger is also imminent.
But the problems seem so big and complex. It is hard to believe that those recycle bins make a difference, or that a car that burns less fossil fuel at the sacrifice of style will save very much; or that downloading fewer PowerPoint stacks really matter and so on. But they do. A great many mountains have been leveled one shovelful at a time.
Since my conversation back at SXSW, I have not taken any shovelfuls out of the mountain, not even a teaspoon full. I've started reading about a dozen environmental blogs. I'm particularly fond of Chris Baskind's LighterFootstep because it is filled with so many useful tips on teaspoons we can all take out of the mountain.
The other thing is I've started tossing out little missives in Twitter, a tool I often use to work on and shape new thoughts. You get quick feedback and it let's me find out just how far omne can take a point, before other people will push back. I often use testier language there than I use here. One such recent example was in a discussion of the waste involved with phone books that seem to be endlessly dumped on my doorstep, I took some license by characterizing entire forests being taken down by buzzsaws.
Several people took issue with me,which was understandable. But it was the third time in as many days that I was called a policial name: "pinko," "left-winger," and "liberal liar, are the three. Now it happens that I am a fairly moderate Democrat. Any leftism in my heart is offset by my absolute belief in free markets. While I advocate human rights, I believe there is no freedom without economic freedom.
Unless you think that the world can be saved through microinvesting by social entrepreneurs, I think that business interests--including profits--need to be part of the formula. I think, like Dell a company founded by a bedrock Republican, many companies are now coming to understand that what is good for the planet is good for business.
Or maybe I'm just a wide-eyed optimist.
But if companies save money by not wasting paper if they fly fewer employees who now meet and collaborate online; if they realize that if it turns out Global Warming, as the data strongly suggests, is a reality, then it will be bad for business to lose most of the world's coastal cities. If the companies that approach Green most aggressively will be perceived more favorably, I think that is good on a great many levels.
I think preserving emerging and the planet and the people and other living things who dwell there is a bi-partisan issue. Other than a few OPEC participants I can think of no country, or segment of society who should no share in concerns over the rapidly deteriorating situation.
But I find it most curious that my first verbal forays in the Green conversation has led so rapidly into political name calling.
