Little Green People; The Next Generation; Environmental Science

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet.
by Botkin & Keller.
ISBN: 978-0-471-48816-3
This book describes many of the concepts behind the media headlines today, and it will continue doing so into the future. Whether they are reporting on climate change or genetic research or arctic drilling or mass extinctions or expanding industrial nations or carbon footprints or alternative energy sources, the media is utilizing environmental science concepts more and more every day to explain what is going on around us. It seems as though a fundamental understanding in the academic subjects of physics, chemistry, and biology have become prerequisites in order to understand current business and political news more fully. This book encourages its readers to think through environmental issues using sound reasoning and then to make intelligent decisions regarding the environment. It is becoming increasingly more apparent every year that Science, in general, is the key to both economics and politics.

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Knowledge about our collective effect upon the environment is causing society to question the status quo under which we live. For most of the latter half of the twentieth century, America enjoyed unfettered prosperity brought upon by technological innovation, but recently, there are two fundamental actions being conducted in business that are calling that prosperity into question. Today, how business and politics are conducted is a topic that is falling under the public's critical eye. Some of the smartest minds in the world are beginning to look at new ways of conducting business because the current system is causing ecosystems across the globe to enter into a state of distress.

This added stress upon the natural world, inevitably, causes environmental demands and concerns to rise to the forefront of political and economic agendas, and consequently, public marketing and advertising campaigns. Everything today seems 'green', 'environmental', 'clean', or 'eco-something'. The problems of being underfunded and overspent, though, are still upon us, and more businesses continue to compete for fewer markets. The environmental stress on the planet goes on, and in just a relatively short period of time, it has already made its way into global markets.

Our prosperity here in America has always come from the grandeur of our landscape and our innovative thinking. The public has always been able to find a better way to do nearly everything. In this case, it is energy development and basic product design that is being asked to evolve; both requiring immense start-up capital, as well as a countless number of new jobs.

Global consumers are beginning to collectively demand environmental sensitivity in the products that they buy; they do not want to contribute to the destruction of the natural world. In times of prosperity, people tend to be willing to pay more for products so as to live more responsibly. While financial bottom-lines and obligations to shareholders require businesses to pursue the most efficient method of production, environmental responsibilities are not necessarily part of executive round table discussions on a regular basis. This is changing, though.

Today, the public is beginning to demand that their energy come from renewable sources; this addresses the notion of a more responsible policy toward energy development. As for the basic design of products, lifecycle development software has already been developed; this kind of computer software helps product designers run manufacturing simulations and, then, cut down on resource use by being able to change feedstock models based upon economies of scale, all before any widgets are built. Awakening to Environmental Science issues will prepare tomorrow's workforce.

As more and more people enter the world of politics and economics over the coming century, and globalization links together more and more people, Science will continue to become an even more dominant presence guiding daily life. Science, for the Next Generation Investor, will enable society to bring about the first great industrial evolution. This evolution is one that is based upon the Industrial Revolution, but this more evolved process of change is done with a more forward-looking mindset. The evolution of today's infrastructure will have to be simulated more gracefully into the natural world than the current one in which we currently live; you know, the one we are currently living in, the one where we drill, extract, stew, and burn the majority of all of the contents on the planet earth. With a sound understanding of the scientific principles involved, humanity can learn to meet their growing population’s needs AND protect the living ecosystems that sustain life on earth.

Gauging from the impacts upon the environment, whether they come from geothermal sites, solar fields, oil or natural gas drilling, coal, or any other utility-scale energy development project, Science is playing a larger and larger role in all aspects related to business. A person with knowledge of the environment in different regions across the United States will ultimately benefit society as a whole. Each ecosystem is unique and has its dominant energy resource. Adjusting our energy policy to adapt to different ecosystems will ultimately decentralize America's energy infrastructure, taking power away from a centralized structure and putting power into the hands of local communities.

Superconducting material is the central component for retrofitting the entire U.S. electric transmission system. Digital metering and demand response will both play an additional role in creating the smart grid. In the emerging field of biofuels, chemical reactions play a key role in making waste to energy a viable resource. Solar energy and hydrogen fuel cells fuse together chemical reactions with electricity in the search for clean, cheap energy. Both solar and hydrogen researchers continue to study the photosynthetic process of plants in order to learn how the plant breaks the hydrogen molecule off of the water molecule and makes fuel in the process. All of these developments offer science and technology a significant role to play in business, and as the new Farm Bill and Climate Policy show, they also have a role to play in politics.

As responsible business practices slowly become more frequent across the world’s markets, the demand for science degrees will rise. Green building standards are already virtually mandated in architectural design; many of architecture's energy efficiency and alternative energy components have already attained competitive pricing in 15 year financing plans. Controlling emissions from manufacturing facilities is becoming a more pressing issue; funny that algae may be the solution to capturing CO2. Figuring out how to capture the waste heat and water from manufacturing facilities and turn them both into reusable material feedstock requires a knowledge of engineering, chemical, and in some cases, biological concepts. Running the turbines that generate electricity requires a knowledge of physics. The list of business applications for science is endless.

Over time, Americans are finding out that it is beneficial in the long term to incorporate environmental and social costs into the design of politics and business. Free health care now, not as many huge health insurance/pharmaceutical claims later. Higher energy prices now, cheaper clean energy later. This is where the environmental politician comes in.

Public policy is beginning to change regarding environmental issues. Debates in Congress and around executive roundtables would benefit greatly from sound scientific assessment and retrofitting their financial bottom lines. Politicians today are being asked to know more about the environment than ever before, and they are being asked to incorporate public policy that helps relieve some of the economic strain on the markets associated with energy issues.

The problem with high costs associated with product design is that once a resource is extracted and manufactured, figuring out the ecological impacts of the product over the course of its entire lifetime requires knowledge, not only of business structures, but also of the natural processes involved in decomposition and recycling; just look at the e-Waste problem in India and China. These days, product design also involves knowledge of the huge database of toxic chemicals that we put into almost all of our consumer goods. Obtaining all of this information before a product is manufactured raises costs, but in the coming years, the costs associated with neglecting environmental responsibility regarding the lifecycle of a product will far outweigh the initial investment.

A more environmentally educated workforce creates a more sustainable society. People who are conscious of their own consumption practices is what is needed for the future of business to sustain its own life. Economics relies, first and foremost, upon a plentiful supply of resources. Global population, in the 6 billion plus range, is currently putting enormous strain upon ecosystems across the globe. A citizenry that works toward sustainability can regenerate itself.

At present, current economic and political policies are killing off much of the natural world. While coal and oil and natural gas can be mined in a desert environment without clean air and water and food, many more life forms on earth will continue to go extinct if the current practices continue to be employed.

Until the ‘payoff policies’ of economics and politics are changed, more people will continue to suffer, and the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to widen. The gap can be shrunk by allowing a patchwork system made up of differing alternative energy technologies to develop. Then, as our domestic infrastructure is retrofitted, renewable energies can find their own specialty markets. Large scale anything is no good for the planet; our addiction to oil is not providing domestic stability.

With Science education as the base of a whole new workforce, we can build a new energy system and simultaneously retrofit America’s infrastructure, we can accommodate the coming spike in human population and provide decent healthcare for people in need, and we can pass laws that have sound scientific reasoning at their base.

If we ignore the problem and continue to look at the short term gains instead of the long term costs, we will only invite calamity upon humanity. Demand for limited resources is beginning its steep climb upward. Doing things now to accommodate for a more populated world will reduce costs later, and may, with the right investments, pay for an early retirement.

Regardless of which branch of science gives you that glimpse into the magical world of nature, an environmentally educated public will serve society well into the future. Whether it be astronomy, particle physics, chemistry, or life sciences, knowledge about the natural world gives society a chance to look 'behind the curtain' and come up with something that revolutionizes how it fundamentally interacts with itself and its surroundings.

Environmental Science courses generally are separated into three parts; the study of earth systems and its resources, the living world and all of its biodiversity, and the human impact upon the planet. Environmental Science does not necessarily delve into all of the technical aspects of physics, chemistry, and biology, and so, can be added onto virtually any degree major, including those in business and politics. What these kinds of courses do are to give the student here a broad knowledge base about how the natural world functions. People can then draw upon in their knowledge of living systems in their chosen respective professional fields.

In tomorrow’s ‘greentech’ economy, there is no doubt that science will continue to fuel business right on through the great green industrial evolution.

Little Green People; The Next Generation; Apocalyptic Science Fiction

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

The Environmental Endgame:
Mainstream Economics, Ecological Disaster, and Human Survival.
by Robert Nadeau.
ISBN: 0813538122
This book tries to warn society that, collectively, we are moving dangerously close to a certain, global, environmental catastrophe. By claiming apocalyptic doom as the result of inaction, the author of this book states that the first step society must take in order to evade a large-scale ecological disaster is to stop the distinction we are making between issues that are related to the environment and those related to consumerism; there is no dichotomous duel. The idea of treating the environment as a foreign, alien world, inhospitable to the lives we have become accustomed to, is what is causing its degradation. The author makes the case that without direct mediation on this topic, the apocalyptic vision of humanity, which many people are disseminating, will come to fruition.

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Ever since the apocalyptic vision of Saint John the Divine described in the book of Revelation was written, the story of the apocalypse has been drawn upon by political leaders, religious fanatics, and now environmentalists to invoke fear in the general public as a means of gaining support for their own visions of societal progress and control.

The beginning of the twenty-first century is no different in regards to different interest groups using the 'end of the world' scenario as a tool to push their own agendas forward. Whether or not doomsday happens is not necessarily important. The important fact, here, is that many of the signs written about in Revelation are happening today, fueling religious fanatics to begin prophecizing the return of their god to earth who will sort things out for all of humanity in general. This is irresponsible worship because it makes human beings powerless when it comes to controlling their own destiny.

Ever since science became part of almost every aspect of mainstream society, people of all walks of life have found it increasingly more difficult to believe in the fact that some supernatural power will flash in ‘to save the day'. Granted, entertainment and religion instill in us a desire to be saved, but ultimately, we are left to come up with our own scenarios for survival in order to remedy the serious societal trouble in which we have placed ourselves.

In the recent past, end-of-the-world scenarios proliferated surrounding Y2K in regards to computer equipment failures. Life, as we knew it, was supposed to come to an end; no more banking, stock market, home computers, or appliances. Even people’s cars were supposed to short out and stop functioning. Of course, this did not happen.

Today, we are well past Y2K and realize the silliness of the whole panic, as well as the media's role in creating that panic, but looming on our horizon are more serious questions. Is global warming and climate change for real? Are the past ten years of natural disasters a sign of the times and an indicator of what is to come? Will my family and my way of life survive the ‘day of reckoning’ when it comes to a town near me?

Globally, religious fanatics are currently in a heightened state of spiritual awareness, many believing that this time, now, is unique in its influence upon the end of their respective doctrinal fantasies. This is happening in many of the world’s most powerful religions, and it leaves the general public across the world open to change. With change comes opposition to change. This opposition can come in many forms, and unfortunately, the form it most often comes in is intolerance of some way, shape, or form.

Many people are using the doctrines and dogmas of their religions to grasp tightly on to what is familiar. They want change to happen in the world, but they want it to come in the form of the world changing to embrace their particular set of beliefs. They want the change to be familiar.

The dichotomous struggle between change and intolerance is what is fueling the apocalyptic assault in our printed news and on our airwaves. The thought goes somewhat like this: "Anyone outside of my group’s frame of reference is somehow deserving of the 'wrath of my god’." From an objective standpoint, this reasoning is preposterous because we are all acting from the same reference point, that is, human beings on earth.

Religions do not have a monopoly on the doomsday scenarios. Many environmentalists have also begun to invoke this end-of-the-world scenario as a prophecy that will come true if society does not adopt more sustainable methods. They also claim that more conflict and warfare over depleting fossil fuel reserves is inevitable in a world that is shaped by non-renewable energy sources. By invoking visions of the apocalypse, environmentalists hope that they will be able to push people into a more responsible lifestyle. What they are doing is fueling the fanaticism even further and, ultimately, driving a stake through the environmental movement's heart. When there is no room for hope, people will entrench themselves in their respective bunkers and try to survive the storm.

Apocalyptic scenarios aside, Environmentalists, unlike religious fanatics, have the natural world to back up their claims of an ailing planet. In truth, all the Environmentalists want is for the natural earth to be allowed a chance to sustain life; there is no ulterior motive or political agenda associated with the dying environmental movement. We now live in a world where entire ecosystems are failing and species of various sorts are going extinct at unprecedented rates. There is no "wrath of god" in these scenarios. For most all of these scenarios, there is the simple fact of cause and effect. Load the atmosphere with CO2, and the earth will get warmer. Overuse pesticides and other industrial chemicals, and more life on earth will die. Drill for oil and natural gas in geologically unstable regions of the world, and there will be more earthquakes. The impact site always seems, directly, on the opposite side of the globe.

Inherent to this responsible, more scientific reasoning that environmentalists tout as the basis for their economic belief system is the idea of balanced wealth. Environmentalists make the claim that the current economic world is set up to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. The statistics show that the majority of the wealth in the world is in the hands of a minority of the global population.

This is a formula for disaster because all natural systems, ultimately, have to reset themselves back to a state of equilibrium; the more lopsided these systems are, the more drastic the swing toward a balanced state becomes.

In most cases, those who are wealthy do not live in the environments where their money is being made. They are able to insulate themselves from the natural world and, therefore, are shielded from the effects of environmental degradation. For example, people in cities want more natural gas to power their lifestyles, but the wilderness along the western slope of the Rocky Mountains is being decimated in order to meet that demand. Just outside the perception of people living in urban centers is a disaster of dramatic magnitude.

Hundreds of species of plants and animals are going extinct every day across the globe as a result of our pursuit of concentrated wealth. America consumes over one-quarter of the world’s oil and is responsible for emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country in the world; it has done this for several decades in a row. (China just recently, in 2008, surpassed the U.S. in CO2 emissions for the number one slot.) America is able to continue with this irresponsible lifestyle solely because of the level of privilege that is inherent with living here. There are no genocides, wars, or tsunamis going on within our borders. Most all of America is insulated from the environmental tragedies of the rest of the world. Katrina was America's most recent window into what a large scale disaster looks like; how could something like that happen in America?

Long ago, some two and a half centuries, America embraced the idea of free markets; these kinds of markets allow buyers and sellers to stumble upon the rules of bargaining as ‘the game’ progresses. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with this kind of market; perhaps, some might argue, that it yields the best opportunity to adapt to changing conditions in real time.

There is a problem, though, that surfaces when 99% of the world’s wealth is being concentrated into 1% of the population. To use wind energy as an example of what the problems look like in these kinds of scenarios of privilege; consider NIMBYs, or Not-In-My-Back-Yarders. These kinds of people are all for renewable energy until it has to be put up in their own line of sight, then they are adamantly opposed to it. This kind of reaction is similar to the political muscle behind the building of new nuclear reactors in order to power America into the future. If nuclear reactors are really safe for domestic energy, then let’s see how close to wealthy neighborhoods they are built. Most likely, they will be built in other, less influential people's backyards, and the wealthy will continue to live without seeing them or being impacted by the toxic waste. The problems with these kinds of systems is that when the suffering always takes place somewhere else, it is easy to forget about it or write it off as a aberration. The wealthy get richer, the less privileged have to suffer more. The system must be defended at all costs, though.

This is what the wealthy nations in the world are doing. They are acting as though their actions do not play a role in the suffering of the less privileged people in the world. They are acting as though, somehow, their citizenry is entitled to this privilege, and under the current economic systems in place, anyone can join 'the club' and start ignoring the fundamental problems just as they do. Everyone was born with the same opportunity to be wealthy, right?...this is the thinking.

So, what happens when the disasters begin to strike in America’s back yard? Will there begin to develop a more responsible approach to our economic systems then? Will the distribution of wealth in the world disseminate out over a wider range of global regions, ethnicities, and citizenries? Will politics change to represent the needs of the people instead of representing only the needs of economics in general and its most wealthiest players?

There is so much room for growth in the future. Virtually every aspect of responsible living has only just begun. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where children and grandchildren across the world thrive; a world of developing technology and regenerating ecosystems; a world of scientific-based solutions to outdated business models; a world where responsibility outweighs greed?

There is no doomsday here in this book/blog. There are, however, opportunities and countless examples of human ingenuity. Some of these ideas presented here are already changing the world as we know it. Numerous people have decided to try to do something about the apocalypse that others so lazily declare is upon us. Some of us would like to survive the calamities ahead and inherit a world fresh; a world that is new and ready for sound human ingenuity to be woven in to the fabric of nature.

This strand of optimism simply seems like a better idea than just sitting around, watching the governments and religions of the world go to war against each other.

These ideas here serve the purpose of giving hope to succeeding generations. Have you ever tried to teach the apocalypse to a bunch of fourth graders? The logic of self-destruction does not make any sense to them. The current future being offered to young people across the world is so full of doom and gloom that it is easy to understand why so many young people today have skewed interests in politics, economics, or religion.

Young people respond to hope and optimism, and so, it is in this role that is thrust upon a new generation of thinkers that we are called upon to offer up a world vision that is not only inspiring, but also sustainable.

Little Green People; The Next Generation; Popularized Science Fiction Themes

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy;
Themes, Works, and Wonders.
by Gary Westfahl.
ISBN: 0-313-32950-8
This book will help you expand your knowledge of the Science Fiction and Fantasy mediums. This encyclopedia consists of two parts. The first part (I & II) looks at the most popular themes in Science Fiction and puts them into historical and cultural context. The second part (III) contains entries on a selected list of classic novels, films, and television series and analyzes them according to their historical and cultural relevance. Overall, the Greenwood Encyclopedia shows how the themes of Science Fiction have developed over time through a variety of different formats, including short stories, novels, films, television series, comics, and computer games.
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Following the 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico allegedly involving a spacecraft from another world, Americans interest in stories about aliens expanded exponentially. These stories over the ensuing decades ranged from the Twilight Zone to Star Trek to the X-Files to the cartoon Futurama based entirely upon a futuristic world in the year 3000. Over the decades, science fiction has moved from the sidelines of American culture to the mainstream of American entertainment.

As far as books go, the science fiction thread of aliens on earth has been around for a longer period of time than it has been in the movies. In Orson Wells’ "The War of the Worlds", written in 1898, the aliens and the humans are at opposition to each other in their goals, so much so that when Wells’ story was broadcast over the radio in 1938, people became hysterical thinking that the world was actually being invaded by space aliens from the planet Mars.

Other science fiction themes, like "1984" by George Orwell and "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton use conformity or cloning to help us imagine futuristic repercussions of the actions we take collectively as a society today.

Other stories like Dune, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter, all try to get us to imagine another world inhabited by human beings where the characters think in a fundamentally different way than we do in mainstream society. In fact, with most of these stories, the audience has to make the shift in their thinking prior to viewing the films or reading the books in order to appreciate more of the nuances inherent in the characters’ interactions.

While many of these futuristic worlds and aliens portrayed in the movies and on television and in books come in creative and different forms, a common symbol has surfaced over time and has come to represent all of the possible interpretations given to aliens in general. That symbol is the elongated oval alien head, usually green in some way, shape, or form. This image has gone mainstream across the world and has come to represent the reality of science fiction in today’s world.

Of course, this book/blog is not about aliens or literature or movies for that matter, rather, it is a collection of ideas and news bound together by digital bits and transmitted through electrical wires onto computer screens. Its intention is to allow the reader to begin to see the futuristic sustainable society on the horizon more clearly.

Those of us that are able to see this futuristic society before it comes 'to a reality near you' have an opportunity to capitalize financially on our vision. We are not writing science fiction here. We are living in a world of science nonfiction, that is, science, innovation, and business have intertwined in such a way as to make some of the fictitious worlds of the past a reality today. Not only is it exciting to be a consumer in today’s world, but it is also exciting to be an investor. We have an opportunity to make money while we help bring a vision of the future to its fruition.

It only seems natural, then, that this futuristic society, powered by renewable and sustainable sources, is being brought into the mainstream by little green people of a different sort. Of course, I am speaking about the environmental movement. This movement has changed shapes and forms over the years, but one thing has remained constant; the color green has always stood for life.

While the ‘Environmentalist’ label has lost some of its luster over the years, the movement has not died. Contrary to the diagnosis by many people in the mainstream American consumerist society, people with environmental principles have not died; they have simply branched out into other fields like business, journalism, and politics.

They are beginning to tip the world in a new, more sustainable direction. They are beginning to capitalize on the global shift of public opinion, and they are organizing to influence public policy and, ultimately, are influencing the way we conduct business.

It is exciting to think about the state of the world in 2100 and its inhabitants after 100 years of environmental policy. It is even more exciting to be able to be a part of contributing to the formation of a more sustainable way of life. The best part, though, is that we can transition into this futuristic world, AND, with diligent analysis, we can generate wealth in our families.

Just as Orson Wells’ book has reverberated out over the past 100 years and influenced our lives in subtle, as well as tangible ways, so too will our actions today resound over the course of the next century. We have the opportunity today to be the little green people that take over the earth and change it to suit our own needs. There is no need for an alien invasion; the Next Generation Investor is already here and is infiltrating the business world. This truly is an exciting time to interact in all arenas of thought and discussions.

Next Generation Investing_NGI; Foreward, Statement of Purpose

Changing the World Through Investment
June2008

When Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations in 1776, he could only imagine the place to which his theories in economics would steer society. America was just beginning its shift from a colony of Great Britain to the new United States, still yet to be explored or defined. Smith's economic principles seem to echo this sentiment of expansion; the idea of consuming the country’s resources to accommodate the accumulation of wealth in the growing nation was a realistic and logical option.

The expansive wilderness seemed limitless in its abundance in relation to the resources it had to offer. Consumption seemed like a fine economic model to build the next two centuries worth of wealth upon. Growing populations, though, have shown the people of this country and even the planet as a whole, that the earth is a place of finite resources; Adam Smith's fundamental principles seem to be killing the very ecosystems that we depend upon for survival. Upon our collective realization of this simple fact, we are faced with different scenarios based on our choices.

Here at the beginning of the twenty-first century, depending on your proclivity, we are standing at crossroads or on a precipice. Either way, there are choices to be made and questions to answer. Where will all of this wealth that the United States has developed over the course of the twentieth century end up at the end of the twenty-first century? Will oil set the agenda for the economy, politics, your daily routine, and the weather over the course of the next century, or will money gradually shift into renewable energy and sustainable economics? Will we choose this shift on our own timeframe based on an evolved sense of ethics and responsibility, or will global climatic shifts hasten the hour of reckoning and spiral investors further into buying and selling tailspins.

If the current collaborative communities today are any indication of the overall readiness of the American consumer to get on board and pay to play in a more environmentally friendly world, then it is only a matter of time before renewable energy and sustainable living go mainstream.

It only makes sense to preserve the basics on earth, clean water and air, and to do this using sustainable systems that generate wealth for a broader cross-section of the global population.

The desire to preserve basic life-supporting ecosystems on the planet over the next century, will cause educated and professional people to simply make the decision to switch their energy service providers; that is, if renewable energy sources can provide enough energy to power their daily lives with no interruptions in convenience. If this is the case, then switching to renewable power sources becomes a sound investment over the long-term. If alternative energy sources can enter the market conveniently, then the money will ultimately follow, if for nothing more than to remove the grey cloud that follows the burning of fossil fuels in terms of poor public image and dirty, half-dead, fat cats.

Who are these people making these world changing decisions? Some are already walking among us. They begin with a new generation of investor who believe in the optimistic scenario of the events still left to play themselves out over the course of the next one-hundred years or so. They are the next generations after them and those still to come. They will be handed the reigns of an economic carriage in dire need of restructuring on a global scale. They will be given an infrastructure that needs to be retrofitted and streamlined for efficiency. They are you and I.

Today’s CEOs are beginning to make the switch to greener ways, realizing the profitability of portraying a better, more caring public image, although, most of their actions would be described by future environmental economic enthusiasts as mere baby-steps. Some corporations capitalize on the environmental movement in marketing campaigns only, but raising awareness is an important first 'baby step'.

These 'baby step' corporations pursue the bare minimum of standards so that they can put the name environmentally friendly in big letters surrounding their products. This practice steals some of the thunder from the environmental movement, but it gets people thinking about the choices before them. Is global warming real? Will climate change cause us to alter our comfortable lifestyles? None of the answers to these two questions really matter to the Next Generation Investor. To this person, sustainability and responsibility are ethical and moral obligations, not economic choices. Sometimes, it is the media that exploits the public’s fears about global warming and tries to animate doomsday scenarios in order to fulfill some people’s desire to see an apocalyptic future unfold because this is good for business. No apocalypse is good for life; we all lose under these types of scenarios.

Whether it is fear-mongering or it will happen, the simple truth of Al Gore’s "Inconvenient Truth" is that, one day, all of us here will be gone, and it simply feels like the better choice to leave this world when we go with clean air, water, and sustainable systems for the future generations than it does to follow down that pessimistic road shrouded in grey clouds and concentrated wealth.

This idea of concentrated wealth is something that pure capitalism opposes. Monopolies prevent competition, and today’s monopolies are no different than those of days past. Today’s monopolies are not a single company like in America’s early industrial years. They come in the form of an industry. Oil has become this type of monopoly. In terms of alternatives to fossil fuels, there are not many. Alternative energy, as of 2008, makes up less than 3% of America's energy matrix, and yet, it falls under attack in the mainstream media anytime it starts to make any type of headway.

So much of the world’s collective wealth is in the hands of the oil industry; not to mention the political influence that goes along with that. In the past, it was the other corporations that cried foul and asked the government to intervene, but today it is the citizens who are organizing to ask the government to intervene. They want the government to stop subsidizing the oil industry and to begin subsidizing alternative energy. For now, no one is listening to the public's cry for help. It is only a matter of time, though, before politicians will have to listen to the groundswell of public opinion expressed in public forums.

The simple fact of the matter is that the consumer and general public, in their respective societal roles, have a voice and can organize around ideas and practices like never before. No more need for the slow process handed down to from Guttenburg in the form of the printing press. Today’s and tomorrow’s technology allows us to share ideas or take action more quickly and in larger numbers. This happens through the internet, email, cell phone, texting devices, portable video. These devices take the place of the town hall meeting in Adam Smith’s day and have the ability to accommodate more of the public than even the largest lecture hall in colonial America.

This new open source immediate communication allows people to do more than simply speak to politicians and corporations with their wallets. Rather, they can organize, share different strategies, and collectively require changes in political or economic policy much more quickly. It has also been demonstrated that collaborative design yields higher efficiencies of design and the use of more sustainable practices.

Adam Smith was describing a world before all of this; a world before America’s industrialization; a world before America was the dominant world power, and most significantly, a world before the swelling global population, human influenced climatic shifts, and the consumptive habits of the wealthiest, as well as those of developing nations depleted the world’s basic resources; those resources being clean land, water, and air. He was describing a world in which technology had not yet captivated us, made America the leader in globalization, and brought all of the world’s creatures seemingly in the wrong direction in terms of survival.

Why take aim at the field of Economics in general, you say, the source of America’s rise into the position of global military domination and source of unparalleled economic prosperity? The simple matter of fact here is that economics is the most powerful force on the planet that we humans have. Collectively, we can influence the natural systems of the planet positively or negatively. Any real change that will affect the planet in ways that can counter the last century’s unfettered pollution practices will have to come from inside the field of economics. Globalization has made it so that nearly every person on the planet is affected by consumer products and world markets at some point during every single day. Economics is the cause of many of the environment’s woes, but it also can, after retrofitting it for the twenty-first century, become the environment’s greatest ally.

Over the coming century, the very foundation of the global market system will barely be recognized in its future state compared to its status today. Of course, I am speaking about the market’s dependence on oil. A brief lesson in history can inform us about what happened when we switched over to crude oil in the nineteenth century. The amount of wealth generated and the technology boom has brought us to the level of prosperity that we enjoy today.

The shift of financial wealth, once again, can create economic prosperity for a new generation of Americans. The money, this time, will have to move from the oil industry as the resource runs dry into more environmentally sensitive industries, and this trend has already been put into motion. Other regions of the world have already mainstreamed alternative energy, and America is lagging behind with many of its citizens begging our government to catch up.

While there are many examples pointing to the alternative energy 'bubble', or its coming failure, there are many resources you may reference in order to cite reasons why the mainstreaming of alternative energy sources will be able sustain itself as an industry this time around. The fact that many countries in the European Union are all but committed to sources like solar, wind, ethanol, or wave generation does not speak lightly about the money involved and the sustainability of the movement where government support is shown through more than lip service.

For an investor, though, the ensuing book that will accompany this blog, accepts the assertion that much like Europe, American wealth will flow into the alternative energy sector over time, and those who seek out the opportunity to capture some of that wealth will be rewarded financially. While profiting monetarily is one of the aims of this blog/book, the other aim is to help contribute to a better lifestyle for all living creatures on earth.

The blossoming new generations of investor are beginning to demand that their investments not only grow in value, but they also want to invest in corporations that they see as advocates of their belief systems. This new aspect of investor personality can be seen in all forms of media; it is even beginning to spread into boardrooms in the form of Green MBAs. Many major universities are now beginning to incorporate environmental principles into their MBA programs.

This blog provides information contrary to the notion that bigger, faster, and more numerous widgets and gadgets are better suited to provide wealth for the citizens of a nation over time. Rather, this essay assumes that the qualities of efficiency, effectiveness, and environmental sensitivity are more beneficial words to associate with widgets and gadgets today and in the future. Consumers are beginning to demand it. The auto industry speaks to this, broadly, through the growing demand of hybrid or electric vehicles. Smart grids try to capitalize on this same notion.

For nearly 232 years, the ideas that Adam Smith put forth have guided us to the current precipice or to the crossroads that we now stand upon or at, depending how one looks at it, as we look out over the valley of the twenty-first century before us. The path of economic policy that the United States has followed for the past century has ultimately resulted in a significant depletion of natural resources on the planet, and in some cases, it has led us down a path where our economic practices have started to threaten many life forms here on earth. The most recent statistic is that somewhere in the range of 200 species go extinct every year.

Who knows what the future will bring; natural disasters, shifting global power structures, world wars, peace and prosperity, new technologies, the elimination of dire poverty.

One thing at the end of the twenty-first century, though, is perfectly clear; our great-grandchildren will be living in a cleaner world with more sustainable systems supporting their daily routines IF the common sense ideas proposed in this book/blog play themselves over the coming decades. If not, it is this author's opinion that we are doomed to the same fate of every other living creature on earth, and that is, a planet that is so polluted with ecosystems so out of whack that life as we know it will have trouble continuing to go forward.

Common sense says that humans will adapt to their changing conditions before it is too late; this author believes that we are beginning to make the changes necessary to improve the quality of life for our grandchildren and beyond. This trend of environmental responsibility will only continue to expand over the course of the next century. Therefore, those individuals who invest early in environmental economic principles are the ones who will fare the best in terms of sustaining wealth over the coming years.

This world-view is already beginning to take shape in some of today’s renewable markets. It is long past time for these ideas to come to fruition.

The world-view that Adam Smith presented in his economic theories does not accurately describe the world that we presently live in; there are some ideas that he theorizes that cannot sustain themselves throughout the twenty-first century. Some of these include his ideas around consumption, maximizing production, societal principles of justice when it comes to doing business, the optimistic ‘invisible hand’ of the market, and the idea of limitless resources. These are serious concerns that need to be addressed with concrete business plans by every corporation that hopes to sustain itself through the twenty-first century. The ones that make the adjustments will be the ones still around in 100 years.

It is essential for all investors to adjust their investment strategies to account for the shift of wealth that is coming; those that account for this shift in their investment strategies will not only grow their money, but also they will be able to do this by investing in a more sustainable future. Without any adjustments, current investors stand to lose all of the financial ground they have gained over the course of their entire lifetime and will, most probably, stand naked and poor with only a polluted planet to hand over to their grandchildren.

This idea of looking beyond their own lives connects people to a movement much larger than themselves; one that inspires hope in the generations yet unborn. It is a hope in a future fulkl of life and opportunity rather than one that spirals down to the bottomless pits of war. There will be wars abroad that will inevitably have to be fought over oil, but we will also have to fight battles domestically over environmental regulations as we deplete our own natural resources like coal, natural gas, and timber.

The idea of reversing these environmentally destructive economic practices and of being part of a movement that has so much potential to not only build the sustainable future that we all dream of but also build and sustain wealth over the long-term is inspiring. A plethora of literature will soon be flooding the market (of which this is a part), and to the astute reader, it all makes sense.

The generation that was named after the algebraic symbol for the unknown variable is becoming this new breed of investor; this is a chance to define a generation and a movement over the course of a lifetime and because this vision is sustainable, it will last past their lives and on into the future generations. We are the next generation.

This is not a blog/book that is trying to convince you of anything or postulate an argument of any sort. Arguments involve a sense of ‘right and wrong’, and this essay merely analyzes current data and extrapolates trends for the coming century. It attempts to look at generating and sustaining wealth long after we are all gone from this earth. It is, quite simply, a user’s manual for investing in industries that have the potential to be able not only to sustain wealth, but also sustain the health of the planet starting today and well into the future. So, it is with this purpose of setting out to change the world through investment that we embark upon our mission.