Real Value

I'm working on a short but intense contract doing marketing materials - a software company serving the investment community. Here we are very aware of the meltdown due to the sub prime crisis continues that is now affecting prime mortgage markets, and is shaking down the entire US and global economy. "The reality is that most financial institutions – banks, commercial banks, pension funds, hedge funds – have barely started to recognize the lower “fair value” of their impaired securities." [more from Nouriel Roubini's Blog]

The underlying problem is complex, but at the heart of it we can see a deep Green issue: it is a crisis that is caused by an ethical crisis in lending, and a crisis about what is fair, what is real value.

The Green economy is with us already. Called Green for lack of a better word, it is a free enterprise economy that more apt to look at what is fair, what is the actual value of things. It looks to how value is created and sustained. It offers rewards for true wealth creation, and adds new check on how wealth is unfairly siphoned off. Hence the idea of a carbon tax.

Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries. Four out of five people indicated they were prepared to change their lifestyle - even in the US and China, the world's two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.See BBC Story