The Trends editors have said a lot of things about climate change and
alternative energy over the past few years, and we’ve essentially been right:
In
2004, we forecasted that “green positions” would be co-opted by big business.
In effect, the fringe positions of Greenpeace and others would be modified and
used by big companies as a way to market themselves and make more money.
Companies like Enron had previously positioned themselves behind climate
change, and since then, everybody from BP to Wal-Mart to Toyota has run tons of
commercials about “just how green they are.”
We
also said that encouraging farmers to grow corn to make ethanol was a big
mistake and that government mandates would do nothing to make us more
independent of OPEC oil. Moreover, this strategy would do little or nothing to
reduce carbon emissions. We also predicted that this would lead to food
shortages for the world’s poorest people, as well as higher prices for
everyone.
In
the June 2007 Trends, we forecasted that the public would demand
smart, rigorously cost-justified solutions that deliver positive expected net
present value. A year later, in its June 2008 issue, Scientific American1 reached the same conclusion. The game
has now changed from doing anything in a panic, to doing only what’s justified
in a carefully methodical manner.
In
the past, we have highlighted the differences between smart-tech and
dumb-tech. “Dumb-tech” is the term we use to describe knee-jerk myopic
policies that governments tend to adopt when choosing among technical
solutions. Soviet-style central planning epitomizes this sort of stupidity.
On
the other hand, “smart-tech” is the term we use to describe market-based
solutions that are selected through the competition for resources. Smart-tech solutions
don’t just make people “feel good about themselves.” They make sense
economically.
Examples
of smart-tech are:
- Purdue University’s new
aluminum-gallium-indium alloy that enables safe, low-cost production,
transport, and use of hydrogen fuel.
- Cellulose-based ethanol production, which
may soon combine carefully selected microorganisms with crops that grow...
