Is Climate Change America's Lost Opportunity--and Can We Get It Back?

[BootinUp]

At the dawn of the 1980s, while disco faded, personal computers emerged, and something called the internet came into being, an invisible threat loomed. The ozone layer, Earth’s protective shield against harmful UV radiation, was vanishing.

Scientists sounded an alarm as a familiar dance began—one of denial, debate, and eventual, albeit hesitant, action from industry and the U.S. government.

This isn’t only a tale of the past; it’s a mirror of our present climate crisis, a corporate thriller that spans decades, in which those who once denied the problem can emerge as the heroes. The ozone case study offers a stark parallel to today’s climate change debate and an important lesson about business, sustainability, and American competitiveness on the global stage.

To get started, let’s go back forty years in time (you can crimp your hair if you’d like).

Continued
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbooksauthors/2024/10/09/is-climate-change-americas-lost-opportunity-and-can-we-get-it-back/

[2naSalit]

1. Yes and no.

[Think. Again.]

2. It's really kind of shocking...

....that the climate situation we've allowed ourselves to get in is being viewed as only a business opportunity that may have been lost, like waiting too long to buy a stock.

Can it really be true that there are successful business people who don't understand that if we let climate change go too far, there won't be any such thing as "business" anymore?

[SamKnause]

3. It is too late.

To many feedback loops have been activated.

Everything on this planet has been affected:

Insects (bees for pollination)

Soil (lack nutrients, worms, water erosion, wind erosion)

Water (drinking water shortages, water pollution, oceans adding salt to rivers, sink holes from draining aquifers)

Plants (growing zones are changing at a rapid pace and plants cannot adapt quick enough & there is a decline in rice and wheat)

Ocean (acidification, dead zones, coral bleaching, fish population decline, pollution)

Mammals (monkeys in Mexico and India dying from extreme heat, people dying because of high wet bulb temperatures)

Icebergs (sea level rise, the Albedo Effect)

National Disasters ( tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, blizzards, fires)

[BootinUp]

4. Too late for what?