Procrastination... in blog form.

Tonight is going to be a loonnng night of essaying, but I thought a little pre-essay blogging would help to kick start my writing...

This is the last and most exciting essay... Essay IV (dun dun dunnnn). This is the essay where we finally get to address the geopolitical and economic aspects of global climate change. Since we're all business/econ/polysci folk back home we have been drooling over this essay since week one. The problem is that its such a broad topic that we all feel a bit overwhelmed. I've been looking at policy recommendations by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), as my specific topic is about the gap between the severity of the global climate change problem and what's being done.

On that note, one of the VP's of BP (British Petroleum, Beyond Petroleum, or as Dr. A says, Beyond Prayer) came to talk to us today about the company's innovation strategies. If any of you have seen 'Thank You for Smoking,' that's how this guy was. I swear that guy could sell ANYTHING. He was uber-charming, and somehow avoided answering all of the controversial questions we threw at him while making everyone laugh. A true politician. It was a VERY interesting presentation, especially because I was able to witness a smaller scale of a FUNDAMENTAL debate which needs to take place globally: green left-wing intellectual vs. oil exec. Perfect. To be fair, BP is doing a bit to invest in green energies, but this guy was saying it's just not cost effective for them to do so until oil prices hit around $120 a barrel. Makes you think...higher oil prices might be just what we need to make people STOP consuming at such high levels and to kick these giant companies in the butt to get them to start investing in greener energy sources. Something I didn't realize was that the 'big six' oil companies (Exxon, Shell, BP, etc..) only make up 13% of the global oil industry. Pretty much everything else comes from OPEC... The BP guy was saying how the new economic stimulus package which Bush so kindly gave to the American public has ended up in the hands of the Saudis (we spend money on their fuel)... that's 1.2 TRILLION (with a T, TRILLION) dollars.. Something is wrong here. Dr. Addison pointed out that we are brilliantly letting HUGE reserves in Canada sit, so that if and when things get politically heated up, we can access resources on our doorstep. With the cornbelt moving into Canada and Canada's access to the North West passage (soon to open b/c of melting ice), Ol' Canada may be the next super power.. anything is possible, huh?

So another overwhelming day... the more we dig into global climate issues, the more we realize how interdependent everything is.. and how its impossible to fix. As Dr. A says, its no longer a question of IF global climate change is happening, its a question of WHEN, WHERE, and by HOW MUCH. Hopefully the political lag wont be so long that it costs millions of lives and billions of dollars...

On that happy note, I'm off to write.

Love,
Emily