Solving Climate Change, National Debt & Sparking Innovation Today

Tonight I discussed the future of our world with two good friends. The first, a mechanical engineer with his Masters from Stanford and years of experience in startups here in Silicon Valley. The second, another ME preparing to enter into the Presidio Sustainable MBA Sustainable Management program here in SF, formerly a lead designer at a wind power startup in the Bay Area. We stayed up talking about the future until 2am... on a work night mind you and after several hours of surfing in Santa Cruz. We were tired and well aware that we'd pay in full the next day, but the topic is so urgently important and timely that we just couldn't stop. I came away with a few thoughts worth sharing, I hope you find them interesting and add your own voice to the conversation below. Much of this comes straight from Thomas Friedman, his lectures and his book Hot Flat and Crowded.

To begin, I am not always the most optimistic about our future, as a species. I often share the analogy of a petri dish and bacteria growth. The bacteria eat up the limited resources as the population mindlessly explodes (our planet in this case with oil as the catalyst for rapid growth) and eventually the bacteria die off in vast numbers, finally stabilizing at a much lower equilibrium. I call out our ever increasing national debt (in the United States) and our reliance on reputation and weapons to enable devastating short sighted decision making. It can be depressing to say the least.

Tonight I came away with some hope and real solutions that could get us on the right track. Ideas that seem realistic and plausible, ideas that require sacrifice but offer long term answers. With each passing day that cars are over utilized, lights are left on and research dollars are redirected or miss-invested we lose life. We lose hope. We lose confidence in ourselves and retreat to mediocrity and denial.

The solution I found most interesting goes something like this: a one dollar tax on gasoline. The US government would take the money from this carbon tax and reinvest it in domestic research and development for clean, sustainable alternatives. In much the same way that cigarette tax dollars are reinvested in cancer research and medical infrastructure used to care for harmed users, a gasoline tax would go towards funding solutions and support for our harmed ecosystem. The first benefit of this solution is that it could be done today. Just as President George W. Bush used a national crisis to enact the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama could leverage the BP Oil Spill to enact an oil tax. It might not be pretty, it's not perfect and there would certainly be consequences in several forms, but strategically it's plausible.

Some of my own initial thoughts regarding an oil tax include not wanting to be taxed, not trusting the government to spend money wisely or efficiently and general concern about economic conditions worsening with the increased price of transportation in a country where nobody* lives walking distance to anything. What I believe to be the truth however is that we are in dire need of a proactive solution and with current government research dollars allocated to clean tech research at 1/10th of what Microsoft invested in R&D last year... we're failing at this. Gas will definitely get more expensive on it's own someday soon anyway but we need to begin working on a soft transition in order to avoid a hard and painful one later.

It is simply not humane to pass this burden on to future generations and write off the extinction of plants and animals so we can buy Blue Ray DVD's and iPhones in the short run. The added benefit of starting early and being strong in this race is owning the IP to license technology and sell it off to other nations going forward. The prize goes to the winner and it is left up to us as a nation and world to either evolve or die. In the US this might mean transitioning into a farming nation that exports wheat to China in exchange for solar technology or alternatively, stepping up and becoming the technology leader ourselves. China is certainly taking the situation seriously, and they are in the lead in terms of deployment and supporting legislation for solar, wind and electric vehicles today.

Whether you believe in the power of governments to direct money, fund programs and make a difference at all, the oil tax has one other distinct payoff. It is a signal to the private sector that it will be worth while to invest more of their own money and interest into building clean technology solutions. Oil has a tricky way of increasing and decreasing in price with such timing and accuracy that it hypnotizes consumers into following short term payoff cycles the same way a mindless bacteria would choose to divide and continue eating, even on the brink of food shortage in a petri dish. Oil companies are smart, car companies are smart and while they are doing their best to maximize profits we are de-emphasizing the environmental impacts that are now mere decades away. Hybrids are great and I believe consumers are speaking loudly when they make a purchase but a feeling of too little too late is hard to shake. What's more frightening, recently in the US when car companies failed to maximize profits we continued to boost them, unnaturally, in the name of American jobs! It's akin to purchasing a new bra for an attractive women with breast cancer and hoping the look will somehow fix the problem... we all know the solutions to cancer are painful but it saves the life of the patient in the end. Ultimately, the sooner it is treated the less has to be lopped off.

Bacteria can't think, cancer cells can't think (and ultimately they kill their host... and themselves) but people can. We can do something about this if we so choose. Business is designed to follow consumer demand and investments aren't made in uncertain markets. With an oil tax levied, certainty would be increased and new solutions would be born. Just as we were able to put a man on the moon (without computers) when we set our minds to it, we can also find sustainable ways of living... if we so choose. How long will we remain complacent as the planet is raped and the cancer spreads? As our pride is stripped and self worth is lost? As bribes are given and executives retire on sustainable farms far removed from the cities.

Cars take years to design and build, and a signal from the government that oil will never again drop to $2 a gallon would send a strong message. Companies would compete with renewed vigor and creativity to develop solutions and alternatives to gasoline. Investors would reallocate resources and students would shift their focus and masters thesis topics. It's already happening but not fast enough. We're holding progress back and we're shooting ourselves in the foot. Consumers would adjust overnight as well and less gasoline would be burned in America. People could still get to work, to the store, to visit their friends, but they would just carpool more, buses would be filled with passengers for a change. In much the same way that the TRUTH campaign warns against smoking we would be acknowledging the harmful effects of oil with such a tax. It's not healthy, consumers are being lied to, businesses are profiting at the expense of... everyone and everything alive on planet earth.

Even if monies from an oil tax were used in a cleanup effort or new safety regulations, instead of R&D, many of the same innovation benefits described above would be still be achieved through the private sector. I see this as a first step and strategic move to get us going and keep us focused.

This is just one of many ideas to help mankind course adjust to a happier future healthier future. We have the technology today in place to reduce pollution at levels as high as 20% if we just acknowledge the problem more absolutely. Offices can allow their employees to telecommute more often and encourage employees not to wear long sleeve shirts and pants to the office so the AC isn't required at such unnecessarily high and wasteful levels. Busses could be cleaned up and improved so high class citizens wouldn't be so put off by the filth and loud noise they are associated with today. We can just be more patient with each other as a society. Sharing ideas like this one is what sets us apart from bacteria. Would you support an oil tax? Do you have any ideas about alternative solutions for climate change, national debt and ways to spark innovation?