Callate said:
Honestly, I find myself increasingly cynical about this kind of thing. How many customers do you lose by increasing the price of a system $5 to remove all traces of lead from its components? $10 to remove all PVC? $20 to remove all the mercury? There are plenty of examples of people's willingness to poison themselves for slightly cheaper food, put themselves out of work for slightly cheaper consumer goods, destroy their local roads and schools rather than face the possibility of paying an extra $20 from their paycheck. If you can jump the hurdles of ignorance, indifference, and greed, you still need to get people to confront the reality of dangers that may seem many miles and decades away.
Worry not, I was not being idealistic; there was a realistic approach behind what I said.
If you're going to make your goods greener that does have costs, so naturally you have to turn up the price of your goods, but if they're essential to the person, it doesn't matter, they'll pay anyway. So, the first phase of economic preparation would be to garner a strong core of consumers, loyal ones if you will, rather than relying on the unpredictable casuals.
Secondly, the cartels that have done so much damage to the environment so far could be actually used for the opposite cause - if price rises across an industry are uniform by company agreement, and the change comes with inflation, then these changes can be masked as simply part of economic changes. The result: same sales, better product, more profit. In such a scenario, everybody wins to some degree.
Yes, with industries where loyalty and stable purchasing are impossible, you have to convince people that it's necessary to pay more for greener things to actually put such a plan into action. But, in educated societies at least, this isn't as hard as lazy people make it out to be. It is as simple as making a few minor changes in advertising, say by making a product's environmentally friendly process seem like a bonus; over twenty to thirty years, that would create an addiction to green products in the public much the same as they are currently addicted to Coca-Cola. The research on emotional responses to advertising, as it stands, allows for such changes. All this takes is for big industry to get off its' butt. And with governments moving post-Copenhagen through political need, industry will be similarly forced to move.
It'll happen, not because we want it to, but because it has to. Governments can only turn a deaf ear to their scientific advisers and avoid legislative change from treaties for so long, especially since the public is starting to understand what's happening to the environment. It was always apparent to political historians that when the young people of the 60's became old enough to be politicians, there was going to be a change. It's starting.
And really, it's not about stewardship of the planet to me. It's about seeing my daughter living a significantly reduced standard of life by the time she's my age. The planet has lost many species in the past, and will undoubtedly lose many more in the centuries to come. It can, and has, managed to sustain itself in the face of a lot of grief. But there's little question that we will run out of some of the resouces we now take for granted, and we're doing a terrible job of preparing for that. The rare elements that are required for some of our electronics. Petroleum. Water... Long before we make the planet uninhabitable by polution, we may simply waste ourselves into massive famine and technological regression.
And that's enough good cheer for one night, I think...
Well, there is never any one reason for being green. I can understand yours as much as any of the others.
The first climate change refugees from the Pacific have already been making trips to Australia as their island nations start to be swallowed. Even if you're one of the most senior members here, I'm betting that you'll see or hear about more than enough of the results of the climate shift.
Don't worry, the rich people will suddenly want to do something about climate change once Hawaii starts to go under. It'll be mostly too late, but you know. It'll help. How's that for cheer? Hah hah.
