May 09, 2005
Clean Technology on the March
General Motors and Ford are in deep trouble. Their bonds were relegated to junk status Friday. Sales of their big-profit SUVs are plummeting while environmentally-conscious consumers are increasingly turning to higher mileage cars produced – you guessed it – in Japan.
Things have gotten so bad that GM chief executive Rick Wagoner will soon travel to Toyota’s headquarters to “collaborate” on hybrid technology. As a practical matter, this means borrowing technology from the Japanese. A grateful quarter million Americans who still depend on GM and Ford for jobs will be glad to hear the Toyota CEO has agreed the Americans need “breathing room.”
I’m curious why the hard pressed U.S. car makers didn’t rip a page from the drug manufacturers’ playbook. If they had, they would double the price of their cars and run full page ads in the nation’s newspapers claiming that without high prices, Americans will never see the 70-miles-per-gallon vehicles that might put a dent in the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to global warming.
Smart companies see which way the wind is blowing. General Electric this morning ran a four-page supplement in the New York Times touting its wind technology. GE is one of the world’s largest builders of wind turbines for electricity production.
The company hopes to double its “clean technology” sales to $20 billion by 2010. The company plans to reduce its energy emissions by 1 percent over the next seven years and has committed itself to complying with a global cap on greenhouse gases – the Kyoto protocol that the Bush administration refuses to sign.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the recent drift of U.S. political events is wildly out of whack with the rest of the world. Major corporations are realigning their own futures to coexist with our shrinking world.
This is a harbinger of political shifts to come. No matter how much one wishes this country were more democratic, the sad fact is that change only occurs in the U.S. when a substantial portion of the business community signs onto those changes. The day is rapidly approaching when responsible business leaders will recognize that a White House beholden to the most troglodyte elements of their class – the oil conglomerates – is too great a liability to carry on the books.
When that day comes, it will be amazing how quickly the “power” of that small fraction of the body politic known as the religious right will fade – first from the media and then from our consciousness.