Giving climate change the business

VANCOUVER, B.C. — I believe it was radical climatologist Bob Dylan who first opined, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Listen to the global-warming debate; the conversation has taken a sharp turn.

Doubters and skeptics are left to share blogs and fill airtime on Fox News. Even the argument about the responsible party — humans vs. nature — accepts that the Earth is heating up with long-term consequences beyond melting ice caps and perspiring polar bears.

Political and entrepreneurial energy is moving beyond the rhetorical loop of "Is global warming real?" to ask the relevant survival-oriented questions: "What are we going to do about it, who will lead the way and who is going to pay?"

Actually, there is a fourth question I find especially appealing: "Hey, can't we make a buck out of this?"

A little crass maybe, but the essence of that budding, constructive sentiment powers the regional leadership conference sponsored by the Greater Seattle Area Chamber of Commerce. The official title is "The Business of Climate Change: A New Leadership Opportunity."

Let's face it, active engagement of the business community is basic to achieving and sustaining environmental benchmarks set by government.

Business and industry can reduce their costs through conservation, and the rest of us can benefit from their spun-off creativity and, hopefully, the savings. The plain fact is, environmentally beneficial business opportunities will not be inspired by a long list of finger-wagging Thou-Shalt-Nots.

Public policy leavened with incentives matters a lot. Silicon Valley investment guru John Doerr is featured in a video making the rounds about the need for a market-based system of mandates to cap and reduce greenhouse gases. Go green to make a pile of green.

Doerr, steeped in Wall Street cred, is a compelling voice for the urgency of the globe's climate problems and the scale of the business opportunities, which he imagines to be bigger than the Internet.

Doerr was a warm-up for me before the conference. The real deal is hearing from bankers, manufacturers, big-box retailers, high-tech companies and consultants with a sense of the opportunities for themselves, their customers and shareholders.

The shift is dramatic, and it nicely complements where Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, King County Executive Ron Sims, Gov. Christine Gregoire, the state Legislature and a supporting cast of environmental prodders have pointed us for years.

These policy innovators and regulatory risk-takers were here helping the business community understand the direction and commitment in public policy.

Nickels' ideas have been embraced by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and communities across the country. Sims directed the county to include greenhouse-gas emissions in environmental-impact reviews. This week, Seattle City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck proposed that the city similarly sharpen its reviews. The state has adopted clean-car standards, stronger appliance-efficiency standards, promoted the production and use of renewable fuels, and boosted the role of renewable energy sources by utilities.

This activity at various levels of Washington government is providing model legislation for progressive climate policy in other states. Indeed, there is a regional dynamic at work. Last month, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell pledged to introduce caps on greenhouse-gas emissions by spring. Government agencies must be carbon neutral by 2010 and regularly report their progress. Green construction and clean public transit will also get a boost.

The message for business, to be reinforced this morning in a scheduled speech by K.C. Golden, policy director of Climate Solutions, is the potential economic benefits of policy-based solutions and the movement of public policy.

Golden has been in the thick of the change and, as he noted in an earlier conversation, there has not been a lot of standing around with folded arms, waiting for something to happen.

Global warming is as real and close to home as stressed-out levees on King County waterways. Divining the right combination of market incentives and government mandates to make business and industry part of the solution is a highly desirable, practical goal.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com