The Triple Bottom Line Blog

Because I worked with Jimmy Carter on three of his books (a decade or more ago), I am on the Carter Center's mailing list for periodic reports about the ex-president's overseas travels. They tend to be a little more interesting than my family slide shows from Disney World, since they deal with things like peace negotiations, monitoring elections, and trying to wipe out infectious diseases in Africa. I guess everyone has a different idea of fun.

The latest report I received is from a trip to the Arctic that Jimmy and Rosalynn took in July aboard the Endeavor, a National Geographic ship operated by Lindblad Explorations. The passenger list was rather unusual. Carter writes:

Participants included Madeleine Albright, Tom Daschle, Chevy Chase, Larry Brilliant and Larry Page from Google, CEO of National Geographic John Fahey, Director of the Centers for Disease Control Julie Gerberding, CEO of Monsanto Hugh Grant, CEO of DuPont Chad Holliday, CEO of Aspen Institute Walter Isaacson, Governor of Colorado Bill Ritter, eBay CEO Meg Whitman, and President of Lindblad Explorations Sven Lindblad.

If you're like me, you don't know most of these people personally, but the list certainly includes some folks I think of as "good guys" and some as "not so good." (I recently saw an advance copy of a film about the industrialization of agriculture that depicts the behavior of Monsanto in the most dire terms imaginable--more on this as the movie gets closer to its release.) Of course, President Carter brought Yasir Arafat and Menachem Begin to the same conference table, so I guess he is used to being in the same room with people whose goals and motives are (to the say the least) divergent.

The entire trip focused on environmental issues. Carter spoke "regarding my experience as president dealing with an inherited energy crisis (reduced oil imports from 8.6 million barrels/day to 4.3 million/day--it's now 15!)." That much-maligned malaise speech about the need to address environmental challenges isn't looking so silly now, is it? A couple of other notable points from his report, with my comments:

The leaders of Google, Monsanto, DuPont, Aspen, CDC, Alliance of Automobile manufacturers, eBay, German CEOs of huge wind-power companies, NGOs, etc. reported on current plans and progress.

(That must have been interesting. Obviously a cruise like this would be no place to launch a fierce debate or even to ask harsh questions, but it certainly seems as though the organizations represented have one or two differences of opinion and practice when it comes to sustainability.)

Biggest international interest now is how to extract more from Arctic region (fishing, minerals, transport, military) and not how minimize global damage. U.S. has refused to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty while Russia and other Arctic nations are making claims and taking action.

(Am I crazy or does this sound like a very big problem that is not getting anything like the attention it deserves from the mainstream media?)

Overall, the U.S. (and therefore the world) can act only if the next president can inspire the public and work harmoniously with a bi-partisan Congress, business, labor, science, environmentalists, educators, news media, etc.

(While undoubtedly true, this strikes me as a fairly depressing statement, since it will take a lot more than "inspiration" to get this motley group of self-interested players to work together harmoniously.)

All in all, I'm afraid the environmental crises we are facing are going to have to get worse before we have much chance of making them better.

Labels: Arctic, Climate and Carbon, Jimmy Carter, Monsanto, Role of Government