Politics and Economics of Carbon Strategies

Summer vacation done, my first post since June and back on the war path...

An esteemed professor from my Business School (Ross Michigan (Ann Arbor)) gave the Chicago alumni a nice presentation recently. Andrew J. Hoffman summarized his new book entitled Carbon Strategies. He made it clear that some companies are way ahead of the Bush administration on the issue of climate change.

And a good thing it is, for all concerned. From his summary I gather that the big Fortune 500 companies are all or mostly addressing the issue of carbon consumption. That they know some type of carbon tax is coming. The Bushies contribution is to delay, delay, delay the day that companies will have to face this. The F500 have plenty of money to face it, and products to protect (like Exxon, GE, etc.). The mid to small companies will follow the leaders in time. His book lays out strategies to deal with the issue for those who are not ahead of the curve. So it is not concerned with whether carbon is an issue, but how to address it and deal with it as a risk management issue - and when companies do we will all be better off.

As a country we'll need the national government, possibly following the lead of far ahead states, to address the overall issue of who and how much companies must pay to comply with carbon limits. It should be interesting to see how fast this all happens once we get a leader with a clue...