Race to the Bottom

Thomas Friedman repeats a common theme in his NYT's op-ed article titled Arn't We Clever. We are losing the green-tech /manufacturing race to competitors in China and Europe thanks to inaction by our government. This will mean both an increasingly dire climate change situation and serious troubled down the road for the US economy.

These warnings resonate with many, environmentalists fear for the future of our world, while those in the pro-business camp worry about American's ability to compete in the 21^st century. There are compelling arguments behind both these positions, but they are grounded in false beliefs over what is needed to confront climate change and how it needs to be done.

The first major misconception is that we are in a race to “beat”the Chinese and Europeans in creating a clean-tech future. This view is often based off of a comparison of the challenges we face today to the space race we entered against Russia at the height of the Cold War.

Supporters of this idea point to our gargantuan effort to beat the Russians to the moon as a perfect example of government supported R&D and manufacturing coming together to literally send a man where no man had gone before. This is all fine and dandy, except that the scale at which our economy must be transformed is beyond anything the space race ever tackled; an effort that had a rather narrow, albeit impressive, goal

Additionally, the space race was a competition of political wills and technological prowess between the Soviet Union and the United States. As the two world powers of the day, each side was attempting to gain an advantage in missile technology and credit with non-aligned nations.

The geopolitical situation in the world today is much different. We live in a uni-polar world, although that is quickly changing, and the world has globalism. This means changes and instability somewhere in the world can send shock waves throughout the globe. Inaction in the US, the worlds largest market, will effect development and production of green-tech everywhere. If we try to compete on these issues we will end up in a race to the bottom as each nation on Earth undermines the other while our small window at curtailing the worst effects of climate change is still open.

So we shouldn't be racing anyone in the development of a 21^st century green economy. But should we really be focusing as much effort as we are on technology? The cornucopians would tell you that rapidly re-developing our economy is the only way out of our current situation. But this development will also carry it's own footprint.

What is instead needed is a change in lifestyles, a step back from our breakneck advancement which is sapping the Earth of it's carrying capacity. For this to work all the countries of the world must work together, collectively face up to our challenges and embrace a future of austerity and restraint. This is the only truly sustainable path we can take.