I attended Al Gore's presentation to the Economic Club of Chicago last week, thanks to a list minute invitation from my friend, Dan Hess. I've been watching the dialog over Global Warming for a while now, and I'm certainly not active politically or socially about it, but I do try to do my part with conserving energy at home and purchasing carbon offsets.
I understand that the science behind this issue is complex and far beyond my ability to independently evaluate the data. I can only look at what others have researched and I understand that there are many qualified scientists on both sides of the issue.
I am a supporter of taking action against global warming for several reasons, but there is one particular reason that hasn't gotten much play lately but I think is worth noting. My view on this is an artifact of my place in the economic ecosystem of funding and operating startup companies. That reason is that a tremendous amount of scientific innovation on alternative energy is being performed, with the venture capital industry providing lots of capital to scientific and business innovators focused on this problem. I see it every day in the PE Week daily email on new deals.
This allocation of financial and human capital will create significant value to eventually everyone on the planet, regardless of whether or not global warming is due to human factors or not. It reminds me of how the Internet was initially created by the U.S. Dept of Defense as a way to dynamically re-route critical information flow in the event of a nuclear attack. Thankfully, the nuclear attack never came. But the Internet flourishes and has added significantly to the "upward march of humanity".
Therefore, I'm supportive of raising the drumbeat on global warming and what we can do about it, and of government support for R&D on it.
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