Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

When Wall Street speaks, lots of people listen.  A conference of the Investor Network on Climate Risk was held in Chicago a week ago, and it appears that at least some in the US business community are beginning to realize the disaster that looms before them because of climate change.

The consensus of Wagner and others addressing the conference of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) was that institutional investors are still too near-sighted to factor climate change into their investment decisions.

Right.  And one of the structural problems deeply embedded in our capitalist system is that corporations look to short-term gain, under pressure from stockholders, and the climate change risks simply cannot be addressed within that kind of short-sighted, quick-profit, economic system where profits to share-holders is the absolute priority.

It begs this question: are we ready yet to change, fundamentally, the way economics works so that we can address our ecological crisis?

Some made note of the significance of the political change in Congress with this last election:

Democrats have told President George W. Bush that mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions will be a priority when they take control of Congress next year.

This is good news, though Bush is likely to veto any truly effective policy switch.  But the Democrats would serve us well by making this a high priority, highly visible issue.  This would help mobilize people in this country to pressure for action, and to make this a top priority in the 2008 elections.