The Crisis Comes Ashore

Why the oil spill could change everything.

The continuing undersea gusher of oil 50 miles off the shores of Louisiana is not the only source of dangerous uncontrolled pollution spewing into the environment. Worldwide, the amount of man-made CO2 being spilled every three seconds into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet equals the highest current estimate of the amount of oil spilling from the Macondo well every day. Indeed, the average American coal-fired power generating plant gushes more than three times as much global-warming pollution into the atmosphere each day—and there are over 1,400 of them.

Continued in The New Republic http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-crisis-comes-ashore

Time is up for short-term thinking in capitalism

Why do investors and business leaders continue to focus on the short-term and ignore the fact that businesses that think long-term end up more competitive and profitable? Behavioural economists believe they have the answer: our brains are hard-wired to think short-term because evolution has rewarded serial short-term successes such as avoiding predators and other dangers that faced our ancestors. Their survival ensured our existence – but predisposed us to the same kind of short-term thinking. As a result, even though our world is very different from theirs, long-term decision-making remains the exception, not the rule.

The global financial crisis had its origins in short-term, unsustainable strategies and actions. Before the crisis and since, we (and others) have called for a more long-term and responsible form of capitalism – what we call “sustainable capitalism”. Yet despite our collective best efforts, one year on, the capital markets seem to be reverting to business as usual.

Winston Churchill said: “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” So what is now required? How do we change? In order to start developing sustainable capitalism, we need to reconsider the basic building blocks of commerce and markets: accounting, disclosure, incentives, regulation and responsibility.

Ver completo en Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b1067b2-dacd-11de-933d-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1