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How About A $700 Billion Bailout for the Climate?

Written on 09/23 at 11:47 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Huffington Post environment in Ideas Blog

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.

There are a lot of similarities between the current financial crisis and the climate crisis, except for the urgency with which the two are being addressed.  On the one hand, the present state of the financial markets hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s; on the other, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in on pace to reach levels not seen in the last 500,000 years.  There is a near consensus among economists that something needs to be done to stabilize financial markets, with the only debate being about how best to do that.  Likewise, there is a near consensus among scientists that climate change is happening, is man-made and must be addressed, with the only debate centering around the cost of mitigation and adaptation, as well as the implication of various scenarios (e.g., how much sea level rise at a given CO2 level).

In response to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other storied financial institutions, both Democrats and Republicans have set aside their traditional core “beliefs” (not that it’s hard for them to set those beliefs aside), with Republicans temporarily forgetting about their hatred of government regulation, and the Democrats doing away with their dislike of giving a government official unlimited powers-in this case the Treasury Secretary (I know, they did the same with Bush after 9/11; I’ll get to that in a moment).  And despite the fact that there has recently been some opposition from both sides to the current proposal for a $700 billion bailout plan, in all likelihood the plan will pass, albeit with some minor changes.

An Exciting Update on the Micro-Credit Project!

Written on 09/19 at 02:13 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: brown micro credit in Ideas Blog

I have some exciting news regarding the micro-credit initiative I’ve been working on. For starters, I just found out that our team was awarded a $2,000 grant by the Clinton Global Initiative!  Student teams from around the country applied for grants for student-led initiatives, and only several dozen projects were chosen out of a large pool of applicants. Needless to say, we are very excited to have been chosen, and the $2,000 will be added to the $5,000 that we’ve already received from Brown for a pilot phase.

The Business Model Is Coming Together
Amazingly, that might not even be the most interesting news regarding the project.  During the last few weeks we have continued developing relationships with community partners, and we are now on the verge of conducting roughly 6 focus groups with potential borrowers to better understand their needs; their business ideas; barriers to implementation; what they are currently doing for loans (loan sharking?); etc.  Our business model is also beginning to take shape.  The project team, which now consists of four students and a faculty advisor, will be developing the business model during the Social Entrepreneurship class that we’re taking this semester.  We spent much of the summer wrestling with the question of whether or not the group lending model employed by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh can work in the United States; in my last post, I wrote about a possible solution to the limited success of micro-finance in the U.S. Since then, we have had some realizations and come across other models that have enabled us to start figuring out the nuts and bolts of how this micro-credit program will work.

An Epic Ride

Written on 09/15 at 12:04 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Cycling in Poetry & Musings Blog

Yesterday I headed out to do a 90 mile ride from Providence to Wellesley College and back with a group of 5 racers on the Brown cycling team.  When I woke up it was raining pretty hard, yet I received an email confirming that the ride was still on.  For a moment I hesitated: on the one hand, I knew that if I went out it would be a long, wet, cold slog, but on the other hand, I knew that if I stayed inside I would regret it.  Also, given my long-term goal of doing an ultra-endurance cycling race, I was keenly aware of the need to become accustomed to training in any and all conditions.  So at 7:50 AM I left my apartment and met up with the other riders.

At first, the roads were wet, but no rain was falling.  Within half an hour of our departure, however, the heavens opened up and we were all instantly soaked. Fortunately, I had a rain jacket with me which, though it kept me dry, is made of PVC and doesn’t breathe, so I was soon covered in sweat instead of rain.  It became clear that the rain wasn’t going to abate anytime soon, and I started fretting about hypothermia and other neurotic concerns.  The ride itself was fast--averaging well over 18 MPH over slightly rolling terrain on beautiful back roads.

A Conglomerate for Good

Written on 09/12 at 04:59 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Business environment in Ideas Blog

Conglomerates Abound
There is no shortage of conglomerates whose purpose is to maximize profit, at any cost, provided that no laws are broken (of course, we all know that laws are stretched and often broken).  In fact, publicly traded companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit; that is, they are required by law to do so.  What this means is that a company cannot focus on social or environmental goals unless working towards those goals somehow helps the bottom line.  As a result, the traditional approach taken by corporations with respect to social and environmental goals has been to 1)influence laws to their benefit, 2)avoid litigation, and 3)lower operating costs (e.g., by installing CFL light bulbs, cutting wages or benefits, or reducing packaging waste).

A consequence of this paradigm is that, at least in America, public policy is too often shaped by what benefits corporations rather than individuals; getting corporations to follow the law is time-consuming and expensive, since large companies have a fleet of high-powered attorneys at their beck and call; and only limited inroads have been made on fair trade, environmental sustainability, and other important issues. 

I Rebel

Written on 09/02 at 07:28 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: poetry in Poetry & Musings Blog

I Rebel

I rebel against the part of myself
That is a part of you; the unity that
Constrains me with rebellion.

I recoil from cigarette smoke, from windows.
I drop my leaves with a charred refusal:
I rebel against rebelling and negate myself.

I recede from owls, from lawnmowers.
I am the fallen blade, the morning that wouldn’t rise.
Who would manicure the invisible?

I excuse myself, excuse you, excuse the world.
I leave the table of chatter and curse the noise.
My thoughts irritate me: the horizon hurts.

Today calls me to tomorrow and I am nowhere to be found.
I was lost when the centuries were shipped, and sank.
I sleep with antiquities: jewels, wars, spices, crates, the dead.

Somehow I salvaged myself, or a part of myself,
The part that is you.  My eyes blink tears of recognition,
And sting like a bee’s final rejection of injustice.

Monday, May 19th, 2003

• William McDonough on Why “Being Less Bad is No Good”
• Change Starts Here
• Discovery Channel Bicycling Video

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• The Sanguine Sinews

• Meet My New Folding Bike! (Poetry & Musings)
• Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States (Ideas)
• Executive Summary of the Capital Good Fund Business Plan (Ideas)
• A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States? (Ideas)
• Photos of Some Upgrades to My Bikes! (Poetry & Musings)