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Frankly, I’m getting tired of having to write about the global climate situation from the perspective of economic expediency. It feels like I’m beating a dying - if not dead - horse. I can imagine those who agree with me responding with, “Yeah, we know that, how about moving on?” while those who disagree will read the first few sentences (if they can get beyond the title) and then moving along to other things in silent - or not-so-silent - disgust. Yet, since I get a lot of my inspiration from the news of the day, it feels as though climate change and our (lack of) response to it has become too important a topic to leave alone. We’re getting more information almost daily and, for the most part, the news is not good.

Our Chief Executive just toured Iowa City and reported that, “The good news is that the people in Iowa are tough-minded people.” That’s the good news? He reassured them that they’ll “come back better.” Like the City of New Orleans, perhaps? When natural disasters wreak havoc, there’s not really any such thing as ‘good news’ - at least not for the people affected.

I want to ask one modest question. I want to know what it’s going to cost in clean-up, repairs, alternative housing and assistance, and lost income and revenue from these floods? I keep going back in my mind to the vitriol that poured out of the members of the US Chamber of Commerce in their weekly newsletter and commentary when the subject of global climate change came up. It seems, according to most of these irate members, that scientists and environmentalists are deliberately trying to wreak the US economy. They want to stop - ore even reverse - the human causes of global warming. Of course we know that all of this talk is merely the liberals’ way of ruining everything. . . . Or do we?

On the other side of the page from the Commander-in-Chief’s comments on the good news in Iowa, there’s an article about an 162-page study that was just published by NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: another hotbed of liberalism) in which we learn that the Southwestern US is likely to face even more intense droughts, while more frequent heavy downpours will affect other parts of the country (like Iowa). To quote the report, extreme weather events “are among the most serious challenges to society in coping with a changing climate.” Of course, the report also had the bad taste to link these climatic changes to human activities, particularly the release of greenhouse gasses.

Pardon me for asking, but doesn’t the fact that 1.2 million acres of corn are under water (to say nothing of the soybean crop), which represents almost 10% of the yield of the entire state of Iowa, have any economic impact? Isn’t agribusiness also significant in the nation’s commercial interests? So why are so many people focusing on the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while not saying anything about the cost to the economy of the natural disasters that this activity is generating? The connection seems perfectly clear, yet, even if it isn’t perfectly clear, isn’t it worth the risk to take proactive measures just in case the connection is there?

As a citizen and as a business man, I’m both apalled and astounded at the depth of our nation’s denial. When will our NIMBY (’Not In My Back Yard’) attitudes change, when the flood waters or sand dunes are lapping at our back doors? When we can no longer afford to put food on our tables? When the number of bicycles overtake the number of cars on our highways? Or, perhaps, it’ll be when we’re all out of business because nobody can afford our goods and services. We seem to be a nation led by ouzelum birds: those are fabulous birds that fly backwards and thus do not know where they’re going, but like to know where they’ve been.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
ProActivation Coaching
Website: http://www.ProActivation.com
E-Mail: info@ProActivation.com

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Copyright 2008 H. Les Brown