To seriously reduce climate change, we need to seriously redefine “profitability.”
We need to drop “Climate Change.”
First things first. Words matter. They grease the wheels for action, for better and for worse. That’s why we should replace “climate change” with “climate crisis.” “Change” is far too passive and innocuous a term under the circumstances. Use what I call the “ACE” rule of messaging: Be accurate, concise and evocative.
We need to redefine “Profitability.”
Next, we need to drop the requirement that green technologies be “profitable” in the myopic financial sense of the word. Otherwise, we may never scale solutions to the climate crisis fast enough. Moving forward, the definition of profitability should be telescopically expanded; e.g., something along the lines of “the degree to which it preserves life on this planet.”
#KeynesOnSteroids
Where possible, i.e., in nations like the US that control their own currency, the government will need to pitch in by printing as much money as needed to get the job done (i.e. scaling up green tech). Ideally, we should be teaming up with China, who is already essentially doing this with its state-dominated economy.
Printing money, as most of you probably know, encourages inflation. But so what? How would the worst climate crisis compare with the worst inflationary crisis in terms of lives lost? No solution can ever be perfect. You have to weigh the trade-offs and make a choice.
Universal Health Care
Speaking of trade-offs, with the climate, pandemics and other crises threatening our health in the future, the US will have to wake up to the fact that universal health care is the most sensible option, warts and all. Again, governments will need to step in and print money as needed.
We need to redefine “Economics.”
Economics needs to be redefined as the study of “how we allocate limited resources to preserve life on this planet.” Or, to use the new definition of profitability from above, it seeks to answer the question “How do we achieve maximum profitability?” 🌎
