By Brian Kuehl, Harvard Loeb Fellow and Partner, The Clark Group, LLC
“We must raise our sights all along the production line. Let no man say
it cannot be done. It must be done – and we have undertaken to do it.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Address to Congress, January 6, 1942
In 1942, faced with the newly realized threat of World War II, the U.S.
economy turned on a dime. Virtually overnight, U.S. businesses moved
from producing cars to producing planes. Cosmetic factories began
producing munitions. Roosevelt’s War Production Board rationed
gasoline, heating oil, rubber, metals, and plastics. Nationwide,
communities organized drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, rags,
paper and cooking fat.
The American public had been reluctant to engage in the war overseas.
Nearly a year-and-a-half had passed since the start of the Nazi
blitzkrieg in Europe and over a year since the Japanese invasion of
Indo-China. The American public was still reeling from the expense of
World War I and the Great Depression and was loath to take on the cost
and risk of entering a new war that might never reach American shores.
Of course, that all changed on December 7, 1941. And though America
had resisted engagement in the conflict, once the threat was clear we
turned our full attention and economic muscle to one overriding
national goal: victory.
Today, America is facing a challenge of a different sort. One that we
have been slow to face, believing perhaps that our involvement may not
be necessary or that the cost will be too great. But once again, it is
becoming clear that this threat cannot be avoided and must be
confronted head-on. And once again, the American economy is being
called upon to undertake a dramatic transformation to assure victory.
Three days ago, the world’s leading network of climate scientists
concluded for the first time that climate change is “unequivocal” and
is “very likely” caused by human activities including the burning of
fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report
found that the temperature of the oceans has increased, that mountain
glaciers and snow cover have declined in both hemispheres, and that
widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps have already contributed
to sea level rise.
This grim news follows the release last October of the Stern Report,
prepared by the former Chief Economist to the World Bank, which
concluded that climate change could impact the global economy on the
scale of the Great Depression or the First and Second World Wars,
causing environmental damage that could cost between 5 to 20 percent of the world’s annual gross domestic product.
And while climate change has become the most widely discussed
example of unsustainability, it is only one example. From the depletion
of ocean fisheries, to the loss of the rainforests, to drawdown of
fresh-water aquifers, many significant regional and global
environmental challenges have gained greater public recognition in
recent years.
Threats that for decades have seemed to most Americans as too distant
or as too costly to confront are suddenly looming very large in the
nation’s consciousness.
This shift in awareness can be readily seen in the responses of major American companies. From Wal-Mart’s sustainability
initiative, to Home Depot’s embrace of FSC lumber, to GE’s
Ecomagination, to the coalition of major U.S. businesses that last
month called for caps on carbon dioxide emissions, a green wave is
clearly moving through U.S. business.
The Turning the Ship dialogue seeks to explore this on-going market
shift — what are the causes, drivers and magnitude of this
wave? And the Turning the Ship dialogue seeks also to
ascertain whether there are market or policy barriers that
are preventing additional businesses from participating in this
transformation.
The online dialogue will explore the market forces that are already
driving change and the tools that companies are using to become more
sustainable. For the next five weeks, this blog will host short
articles by some of the world’s leading thinkers on a series of topics
relating to the environmental transformation of the U.S. economy.
Following completion of this online dialogue, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Loeb Fellowship, and The Clark Group will
convene a one-day roundtable on March 13, 2007 to explore whether there are market or policy options that can accelerate this environmental
transformation in light of today’s pressing environmental challenges.
The roundtable discussion will be convened at the Genzyme Center, a
platinum-rated green building in Cambridge, MA. The discussion will be
for invited guests, with a public presentation hosted afterward at the
Graduate School of Design.
Complete details on the Turning the Ship dialogue can be found at
www.TurningtheShip.com
I encourage you to comment on the articles that will be posted in the
coming days and weeks. Add your own examples of exciting developments that you have seen and note market or policy barriers that you believe should be addressed – I look forward to hearing from you online!
Let me close in the same way that I started – with a quote from President
Roosevelt’s January 6, 1942 address to Congress:
“Lost ground can always be regained – lost time, never. Speed will
save lives; speed will save this nation which is in peril; speed will save
our freedom and civilization – and slowness has never been an American
characteristic.”
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Brian Kuehl is a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Partner in The Clark Group
February 5th, 2007 at 8:10 am Have you considered producing podcasts along the essays and recording the roundtable? EcoTalk would be a logical partner for such podcasts. Ph
February 5th, 2007 at 10:31 am The time is right for this conference. The role of government policy setting must be in the mix. Science, technology and finance won’t turn the ship without a public policy framework.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:51 pm I couldn’t agree more with Brian Kuehl’s article. Al Gore made similiar compelling statements in the documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth.” The United States has tackled many difficult problems in the past. We must deal now with the problem of global climate change before we suffer the severe environmental and economic consequences that will result if this problem is not addressed.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:04 pm Two new studies have just been released which shows over 50% of our energy and half of our greenhouse gas emissions can be met by energy efficiency and renewable energy: “Tackling Climate Change in the US” by www.ases.org and “Energy (r)evolution” by www.greenpeace.org with analysis by DLA (germany’s NASA). The world has the capacity to cost-effeectively repalce fossil fuels and nuclear power and can do so over the next 40 - 50 years. - Scott Sklar, President of The Stella Group, Ltd. (solarsklar@aol.com)
February 12th, 2007 at 8:31 am Brian et al: I want to thank you and the sponsors of this new blog for initiating such a necessary discussion forum. This is encouraging on several fronts… First, in its potential for a more ‘open’ look at the business experience of learning and acting upon the need for increasingly sustainable behavior, Second, by enabling the kinds of resources and links that will shed more light on the rapidly increasing degree of commitment and activity in this arena–as exemplified by the informative piece on the ICLEI, Third, by expanding awareness among a growing public, who are increasingly asking: what can be done, and what can we do? I look forward to following the discussion. Thanks again. Larry Grob www.theunlikelyactivist.com