The Next Bubble

In this modern era of globalization we hear so much about “Climate Change” and green technologies, inevitably it is about the facts that we live on an ever smaller and more urbanized planet tethered together by instant communication and borderless monetary environments. Goods and services flowing between opportunities and exploits and driven by desires and needs create a paradigm of decisions that have increasingly had adverse consequences on our planet’s environment, our human condition and the sustainable interaction of man, the planet and technologies and biotechnology innovations. We as humans fail to look at our problems in the current state as opportunities but rather we tend to see such problems as obstacles to detour our pursuit of health, wealth and happiness.

Lately our focus on global issues has at least moved from the mode of denial, which was the mantra for much of the last 40 years… to one of hyper awareness but still no real strategy to correct and address the biggest global issues. We are still acting to individually to address such problems and not more collectively.

Much of the recent banter about “Green Technologies” is being driven by this crazy concept of corporate citizenship and good stewardship, which is just absurd. It is being driven by the beginning phase of the next irrational exuberance bubble of economic opportunity for investors… anything green will create green backs in your wallet. So now Wall Street has made going green mainstream. That is not all bad from each bubble we get huge leaps in innovation and there are in fact huge economic winners and as is always the case huge losers when the bubble bursts and those still invested get caught with the windfalls of their investment follies.

In this case “The Next Bubble of Green Technologies” will allow us to properly focus on addressing some of the greatest threats to humanity on the planet today.

In fact the green innovation race will be a huge economic success. It will also create such major paradigm shifts in our economics of renewable energy and alternatives to fossil fuels that it will profoundly change the energy strategies of the planet. This systemic change will affect everything we know.

In a book written by J.F. Rischard, called “High Noon” the author created a list of the top 20 global issues that need to be addressed at the planetary level in the 21^st century. They are in three distinct hierarchal tiers of importance.  They are as follows;

• 1^st Tier (Most important)
  Global Warming “Carbon Emissions”
  Biodiversity and ecosystem losses
  Fisheries depletion
  Deforestation
  Water Deficits
  Maritime Safety and Pollution
      
      
• 2^nd Tier
  Human Poverty
  Terrorism and conflict prevention
  Educational attainment for the masses
  Infectious disease elimination and treatments
  Natural disaster prevention and mitigation
  Digital Divide Connectivity for all
      
      
• 3^rd Tier
  Economics of Paying for our Strategies (global taxation)
  Biotechnology parameters for adaptation and experimentation
  Global financial networks (flow of commerce funds)
  Trade and competition rules
  Illegal drugs
  Intellectual property rights including E-commerce
  International labor rules and basic preservation of human rights
  Immigration rules (migration for economic opportunities)

As you can see by this list many of them have a very low perceived economic boon on the surface so investment into solving them will be more difficult. Yet the cost of not solving them is a huge direct and indirect drain on the governmental resources of our planet. Innovation will run the gambit on creating solutions to address this list. Top among this innovation race will be energy since it has the most profound impact on the economic opportunities.

Economic Developers are prone to be reactionary and not very far-sighted when it comes to addressing huge issues within their communities. Part of this is the nature of the industry to constantly hire many of their new recruits from local ranks and not based on their actual professional expertise.

Economic developers have to be the leading catalysts within their respective communities to find new innovative companies and assist in funding their growth and stabilization of new emerging industries. Economic developers must lead the wave of innovation investments into core companies that are based upon sound fundamentals of business and that at their core have the potential to impact this list of Global Economic Opportunities. The ability to muster such investments will create a list of world class cities that will benefit from this next “Green Bubble.”

Economic Developers themselves must become better equipped to understand and respond to the investment environment that will thrive in these next ten years around this Green Technology Race.