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Our Pan Geo Global Capital Appreciation Portfolio unlevered total rate of return is 72.3% from inception on November 15, 2000 to August 30, 2010 (average annual rate of return is 5.7%). Over this time, it has outperformed its global hybrid benchmark by 79.1%.

Our Pan Geo 100% American Strength Growth Portfolio unlevered total rate of return is 101.9% from inception on July 15, 2002 to August 30, 2010 (average annual rate of return is 9.0%). Over this time, it has outperformed its hybrid benchmark by 61.0%.

Welcome to our Investigations0 page, a continuation of  Investigations page. If you seek investment advice or further information about Pan Geo Investment Inc. and its services, please click on the links below to view other pages of this website or click on Welcome, OrderAdvice or InvestorDataBlock pages.

Check the marquee banners above and refer to the Performance  Page for information about the success of our investment advisory services to date and to view the first part of our 183 country Pan Geo Investment Global Table©. This table also contains direct links to stock market exchanges of these countries, so web surfing investors and interested parties can easily visit them by clicking on the links provided. The 100 countries not currently in our Pan Geo Global Index are shown in the Table portion on our Also Eligible  Page.

Our current expose of what we call Dusty, Sandy Brown Afflicted Countries™ is shown at the bottom of Investigations1 web page along with our Eco-Flags©™ and explanations of ecological risks and various pollution problems. We also show our Sky Blue, Forest Green Eco-Touring Countries™ there. Murky, Hazy Crimson Red Sunset Countries™ and Smoky Gray Day, Carbon Black Night Countries™ comprise the lower part of Pan Geo Investment Eco-Flags Table©™. They are shown on  Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 web pages respectively. 

We believe the controlling variables, the situation that should concern us all the utmost, is captured by the 2029, 2039 and 2049 "headlights" shown to the left in our Eco-Flags Table. Our comprehensive concept we call ecological survivability forms the basis of our assessments and rank ordering. The current headlight values shown for a jurisdiction reflect, in our judgment, the overall health and wellness of ecosystems, including all lifeforms there, anticipated for the timeframe indicated.

Eco-Flag©™ "tail-lights" are shown on the right-hand-side of our four Eco-Tables. Tail-lights include: "1900s" column lights that reflect the historical situation of the 19th and 20th centuries; "2010" column colored-boxes that encapsulate the current situation ecologically plus aspirations and intentions; and "2019" column values that may depend on the nature of the binding laws that govern legal actions in a country. Often, despite their importance to our very existence, environmental and energy laws are slow to be updated. Therefore, in the absence of particular information, intentions and data we look for, we sometimes insert the 2019 lights color by default based on current legal measures to deal with pollution, clean energy and global warming. As a first approximation, the existing ecological state of a country or countries may be assumed to have arisen due to historical laws, rules and regulations so that is reflected in our Eco-Table.

There is a 24-color scheme in our Global and Eco-Flags Tables at this website. The particular color reflects the relative health, harmony and sustainability of ecosystems. The range of colors includes in order: dark blue, blue, dark green, green, light green, green-gold, yellow, cream, peanut butter brown, tan, brown, ox-blood brown, light orange, cadmium or flat red, light pink, pink, crimson, indigo purple, mauve, gray, charcoal gray, lead black and black. So what quadrant is your country in now - green, brown, red or gray? Keep visiting us here for answers. On a best efforts basis, the color of status lights in these tables change with time as we become aware of relevant events, information and legal changes affecting a particular jurisdiction.

Toll Scroll™ form Green Earth Memoranda & Solution ("GEMS")

On this web page and on Investigations, Investigations1, Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 pages, Pan Geo Investment Inc. presents the latest iteration of our investigation and Eco Table with Eco Flags and Memoranda. It was first published December 9, 2007.

May 26, 2010 -  Pan Geo Investment Inc. is now offering our Green Earth Memoranda and Solution ("GEMS")™ in the format of a Toll Scroll™. This format of Memoranda covers what is presented in our essays and Eco-Tables on the six Investigations web pages of this website. You do not have to register to gain access. On an honour system, if you utilize this GEMS investigation service by scrolling further down the page beyond this Toll Scroll paragraph to utilize the content there in whole or in part (excluding any web page navigation aids, advertisements and footnotes to the web page which may be viewed without charge), the following schedule of fees applies: To read this current PanGeoInvestment.com ("our")  Investigations page content beyond the introductory paragraphs above and this Toll Scroll paragraph, cost is US $9.94; to use the content of this page beyond the initial paragraphs (displayed with a larger font size), cost is US $9.95; to utilize our Investigations1 page content beyond the lead-in paragraphs (having a larger font size), cost is US $9.96; to read our Investigations2 page content beyond the beginning paragraphs (with a larger font size), cost is US $9.97; to use our Investigations3 page content beyond the Toll Scroll paragraph, cost is US $9.98; to utilize our Investigations4 page content beyond the introductory paragraphs (having a larger font size), cost is US $9.99. For GEMS on all six Investigations web pages, cost is US $49.94. Please remit payment using the PayPal™ Buy Now button below where credit cards may be used, or send payment directly to us at the following address: Pan Geo Investment Inc., 688, Unit 4 - 350 S.E. Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V5X 2S5 Canada. We very much appreciate your business, thank you.

GEMS on our Investigations0.htm web page - US $9.95

GEMS on all six Investigations web pages - US $49.94

One Solution for Green Investing and Sustainable Growth

We agree the dictates, time-lines, complexities and imperatives in achieving a low-carbon global economy will require an impartial, multilateral, "war room" institution of some kind. From Rio de Janeiro to Ho Chi Minh City and Ouagadougou; from Guadalajara then Thessaloniki to Philadelphia past Thiruvananthapuram, the world is, at once, spinning rapidly yet standing by, looking out for solutions. The influence of politics should be minimized to avoid deadlock and overly-partisan non-cooperation. We further do not believe the vast majority of citizens in many countries yet understand, or sense how it could be, that we are all in the "slow bake" of global warming. The gravity of the situation is not abundantly-clear to most of them yet. We believe many citizens remain only dimly-aware of the consequences and have not yet connected the dots. Perhaps their local government representative is not inclined to do that for them. As more and more people come to realize the severity of the situation and what it means for their own lives and future generations, we think they will become increasingly upset with politicians of all persuasions which is not good. That is another reason to depoliticize the entire issue and promote effective, independent, measured responses to the myriad significant ramifications of climate change that seem to be popping up on a daily basis.

We believe the discourse has to center on the physical and chemical impacts and the ways to curtail same. As soon as the debate emphasizes strategic, economic or business matters the potential for crafting sub-optimal and ineffective solutions increases. This is not a kind of competitive situation involving sectors, industries or countries. We, we being all of us, are up against the Earth here so to speak, and we think we have pushed the Earth too far. We all know the power of the Universe is vastly beyond us, so hopefully we can all agree not to try to oppose it. If we are carrying on in a way the Earth "doesn't like", then let's stop it now before things get ugly for us all. Pollution is a global multi-headed hydra that must be contained and slain by us all. We have breaking news for aggressive industrialists with little grasp of science who, at all costs, endeavour to persist in riding roughshod over Mother Nature: Noone can win a duel with a planet so give it up now before it's too late.

Given the gravity of the situation, no country should be sitting back waiting on others to do something, even if jurisdiction is uncertain or historical responsibility appears to be less. Our great-great grandpappy may well have been a snake-plus-coal oil salesman. But we do not really want to claim or bear responsibility for what some boorish ancestor did or did not do with respect to our natural environment. Education was lacking back then. When the nature of the difficulty becomes so crystal clear as it is today, the time for mitigation has arrived for everyone. There is no place remaining on Earth where someone can go and not be affected by, and see the effects from, global warming and pollution. So we all have responsibility to try our best to slow, halt and reverse-out of our collective ecological mess. It's going to take a very high degree of diligence and cooperation to pull-off all the remedial actions required.

On the high seas in the here and now, we have reprehensible burning of heavy marine bunker fuel oil by ships which by virtue of how "cheap" it is. Yet marine traffic now constitutes about 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Some worry emissions from the shipping industry are actually much higher. It's also responsible for about 10% of acid rain and a vast amount of ground level ozone. One report blamed the soot, fine particulate matter, sulfur oxide, sulphate, various nitrogen oxides and non-combusted fuel from ships as being directly linked to about 60,000 deaths annually from respiratory diseases, cancer and heart problems. Tugboats gush one gram of soot for every 1000 grams of fuel-sludge they burn. Hopefully, emissions control areas surrounding various countries will force ship operators to upgrade to cleaner fuels and more efficient engines.

Much mercury that was released into the air during combustion of various dirty fuels including, in particular, coal has been deposited over time into ice. As the ice melts, that mercury likely ends up in the melt water finding its way to the ocean. Ultimately, is ingested by marine life forms and later perhaps also by us as we enjoy our seafood. Of course, the mercury content in potentially-pervasive products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs has an additional dollop of mercury that is now emerging as another fly in the ointment in our quest for ecological utopia.

How exactly to reduce environmental entropy and chaos and all ways to pullback the forward arrow of time that exists as per the second law of thermodynamics should be growth industries in science and technology in our society. But there exists a kind of communication vacuum partly because scientists tend not to involve themselves in public policy debates or dialogue with an industry association or arguments with firm "f". We've noticed that too often environmental issues are painted by otherwise responsible and sensible people as acceptable costs for others to bear in the wake of their pursuit of some shop-worn commercial activity. Their pursuit of profit is downplayed publicly. The justification given for their actions by public relations people is invariably that they provide jobs in the "real" world. However, as a green investment advisory, we counter that our Earth and its ecosytems constitutes the lion's share of the corporeal world accessible to us. Whereas the economy is a construct of ourselves, an arts subject. The paradigms of economics are changing over time as we become more knowledgeable about what the discipline of economics should embody to promote more precisely the enduring wealth and welfare of us all. For example, more comprehensive measures of Gross National Product have been called for; the European Union is taking actions to make such changes evolve faster.

To illustrate the opportunity costs involved, consider the bad case scenario that this century a maximum of about 500 billion tonnes of carbon emissions can enter the atmosphere globally to keep the Earth's temperature from rising more than two to 2.5 degrees Celsius. Given such a limitation, the aerobic burning of any and all coal, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-gas, charcoal, coal tar, bitumen, heavy oil, shale oil, residual oil, petroleum coke, fossil diesel, asphaltene, kerogen, kerosene, oily-gasoline, rubber tires, plastic, dung, wood, wood chips and pellets, sawdust, wood tar, creosote, pulp black liquor, sludge and bunker fuel is setting us back because we are reaching the limit of all fossil fuel burning much faster by not eliminating the dirtiest, low-end energy sources forthwith. For example, liquefied coal discharges 40% more carbon than oil when combusted. Shut all the high-carbon fuels down. Even some coal-bed methane and shale gas may have to be forgone ultimately if the carbon content is too high or methane emissions associated with development and production are too blue. Or the environmental consequences from intensive use of water, energy and noxious reservoir hydrofracturing chemicals, perhaps including any of benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene, petroleum diesel-based fluids, kerosene, acids, sulfates, chlorides, solvents and pyridines, generally proves too much for this old earth to safely assimilate. This Earth is not a piggery nor an open sewer but please excuse us for wondering about that.

We feel very sorry for the Pakistani people for what has befallen them in 2010. There is a lot of suffering happening and the future is highly uncertain. Part of the usual chaos associated with a natural catastrophe these days is figuring out what is going on so judgments, decisions and plans can be made to effectively deal with the humanitarian crisis here. So we agree it's not a good practice to yip and yap unless you can contribute something helpful not harmful. However, we suspect something we call "gray rain" is a root cause of the misery here:

We think NASA is in the best position to advise about what's going on here in terms of likely causation, including what we present in the following paragraphs concerning the situation in Pakistan. So we are asking those who historically appear to be distributing, acting as a conduit for or unsolicited advisor to others about our research, analysis, interpretations, ideas and advice, sometimes promptly after we publish it, to various clients of theirs without consideration to us or our authorization, we ask they respect our rights, intellectual property, commercial objectives and desires for them not to do that. We earn revenue partly by having visitors come to our site to find out what we are saying about this and that. So we want to authorize funneling our stuff here only to NASA via their bosses or directly and let them take it from here because we cannot confirm this hypothesis on our own. And we do not want others to swoop in without our authorization now that we have done all the hard work and brainstorming. Thank you. If NASA receives, or has, the authority to take over this particular mission from us, hopefully they will compensate us according to the contribution we made. We'd appreciate that because we like to benefit commercially from what we do, too and so far, quite frankly, we have not. So this is why we are trying here to restrict our possible authorization explicitly, so we will receive some payment for valuable services rendered by us. So enough about that, thanks for bearing with us about it.

We heard from some of the wisest weathermen in the world claiming that what was going on in Pakistan was fundamentally a consequence of a huge stalled low pressure system in Pakistan's atmosphere. At the other end of the dipole or dumb-bell, was a vast high pressure cell over Russia. Both were said to result in extreme weather events that are at least consistent with climate change. But no one could say with certainty that global warming caused these events. This appears to us to be the official meteorological explanation of the observed phenomena.

This is what we have concluded so far concerning the 2010 eco-tragedy in Pakistan:  Based on our knowledge and experience, we believe something very important is being missed in the aforementioned "official" explanations if you want to call it that. In our view, what's missing is something that has been presented in the body of our Investigation web pages here for years now. We now call this phenomenon "gray rain". That's right, dirty, gray rain. Just like the weathermen, we suspect the insidious rise in ambient temperature worldwide, and particularly in polar regions, is behind the 2010 heat waves, drought and wildfires in Russia. The likelihood of there being more and more heat waves, droughts and wildfires increases as global temperature rises. But we think in Asia, including various flooding events in Pakistan, India and China in 2010, the main culprit is a vastly-increased particle density in the atmosphere from various aerosol nuclei, much of it from pollution. So in Asia, if this hypothesis is confirmed, men, women and children are swamped by mass wasting events or drowning in what are, by historical standards, abnormally-heavy monsoon or typhoon gray rain. Unfortunately, what historically was abnormal could well be the norm going forward unless we clean up our act collectively in a big hurry. Here's our explanation as to why:

More moisture evaporates nowadays and stays aloft in the atmosphere regionally. The vast majority of pollutants in the atmosphere above Asia are believed to be sourced from within Asia. Water in the atmosphere accretes onto the proliferation of particles and nuclei in the air that are there as a consequence of a mind-boggling number and variety of pollution (point) sources. However, given about the same amount of water droplets and vapor available, for longer intervals of time it does not rain because there are a great many more particles collecting, condensing and coalescing moisture and water vapor in clouds and the atmosphere than existed in the past. Each one has to reach a certain threshold size and mass before raining starts, so it takes relatively longer for this to happen than it did in the days when pollution was far less problematic. And when it rains, it rains a kind of dirty, gray rain due to its origin. And it pours more water down than heretofore had been normal until this millennium because, prior to the downpour, a greater volume of water was held in the atmosphere. So the ferocity and destructive power of gray rain and swollen rivers is manifold greater than the quaint, clear rainfalls and moderate storms of days long passed. Mass wasting processes escalate unexpectedly as soils, ditches, rivers, embankments, floodplains, irrigation canals, vegetation, storm sewer systems, bridges, dams, barrages, weirs, dykes and more are hit with more water in a given time period than these natural and civil systems are able to absorb, hold in-place or divert innocuously.

So, in Pakistan, India and China during 2010, while global warming undoubtedly contributed to extreme weather very possibly by stalling air masses, warming the atmosphere, increasing evaporation at the surface and water vapor in the air, ramping-up glacier melting, causing warmer ocean surface temperature, etc. Notwithstanding, we believe the primary culprit, the intensity-escalating wallop driving these Asian flooding eco-tragedies is the gray dragon of pollution. Given all the pollutants that today augments what was in the atmosphere before man came along and starting burning things willy-nilly, the particle density in the atmosphere is now much greater than ever before. So we end up with heavier, possibly less frequent but much more destructive, gray rain that is correlated with, but not primarily caused by, global warming. Its primary cause is pollution, especially when it's present along with the usual low pressure storm center. Brown clouds that may exist due to excessive pollution alone may be too dry. To get the gray rain from this proliferation of carrying capacity when there is less humidity in the air, particles in the atmosphere still need to be swept with massive amounts of water droplets and vapor that would originate from monsoon rains and typhoons.

Aerosol pollution originating in agricultural, peat land areas or other more rural areas or where wide-scale combustion of low grades of coal or peat occur, are likely to leave their mark in the atmosphere with a tinge of brown, or at least a dun gray color, due to dung, agricultural waste and brown carbon. So we predict a brownish, dun gray rain would be more prevalent in Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, parts of India and western China. In fact, brownish clouds and haze have been documented as lingering in these regions. As we press into industrial heartland and heavily populated areas such as eastern China, parts of India and Vietnam, then we have proliferation of gray cement dust, the black carbon of coal burning, the soot from tailpipe and generator emissions of junk-fuels such as petroleum-based diesel, and the steely-dark gray metallic flake particles of hard core mining, manufacturing, construction and transportation. Supreme infrastructure building and congestion characterize this part of the world and accordingly we're now in dark gray rain, black carbon territory. Furthermore, it appears to us, China has had several extraordinarily-heavy snow and ice storms in recent years. Let's call that phenomenon "gray snow" fall.

That's right - the high particle density above these pollution-thick areas carry the spectroscopic fingerprint of what's being burned en masse on the Earth's surface in the region. So does the rain that falls there, and we anticipate gray rainwater that is collected as it falls through the air should show traces of pollutants. These are further predictions and implications of our "gray rain" hypothesis. The first priority of course is always helping the people afflicted by the eco-tragedy whose lives may be endangered. But when the crisis stage is over, the authorities need some face time facing-up to what's really causing it. We think we are onto something here; the dots in the sky above are being connected in this theory which fits very well with much of the observed data collected in the Eastern hemisphere over the past few years. That's why we're seeking help from NASA for confirmation, support or refutation of this gray rain phenomena we describe here. If it is confirmed or supported, this should clearly impact what countries should be doing to begin to address the monstrosity of this problem. If we do understand why storms can be so intense in this or that area, we can undertake a series of focused actions to unearth, weed-out and tamp-down the root causes until same are eliminated altogether. 

In short, we believe high density particle pollution is the mechanism that often facilitates the brutal intensification of monsoon rainstorms and typhoons affecting Asia. A large number of aerosols are generally found in the atmosphere of regions of high density population where a heavy concentration of noxious industrial and transportation fuels are burned. The incidence of such extreme weather events is likely to be higher nearer these congested regions. We think the offending pollution can be traced to burning too much heavy, junky fuel including coal, petroleum-based diesel, wood, dung, oil, kerosene and more in too little physical space. So high population density areas combusting gargantuan quantities of cheap, dirty energy sources are root causes or "the driving engines" of later eco-calamitous weather events characterized by torrential gray rain, flash floods, erosion, mudslide and landslide mass wasting events. This Earthly demonstration of awesome force is going to generate chaos at or near the Earth's surface for whomever is in the path of those raging waters, mushy landscapes, falling trees and collapsing structures.

In our opinion, the above situation illustrates, irrespective of to what extent it is confirmed to be the case, why assessing weather and weather patterns alone is insufficient. To zero in on the cause of any particular eco-event or eco-risks, you frequently have to consider all possible determinants of ecological survivability (which we have been doing diligently for many years now). It also represents the new paradigm for so-called "top-down" investors. We do not think any advisory can escape facing the pervasive impact that climate change, natural disasters and environmental breakdowns are having.

Our view is, the security of everyone collectively is enhanced the moment we all agree we do not need or want all this heavy fossil fuel stuff. It's a product of the prior millennium. We of course still need Mega Energy more than ever but we do not need Big Coal or Heavy Oil. Those latter entities should have disappeared forever along with the millennium that has now passed. We should all take alternative actions based on the premise that our ecological survivability will be enhanced if we get off of the dirty energy stuff altogether, sooner rather than later being not as good as now. Governments and regulators should not countenance or tolerate any more downplaying of ecological risks and accordingly, miscalculations of project net worth. In hindsight, many projects that were given a "go" were actually "stops" if the valuations were done comprehensively and correctly. Running with "blinkers on", Big Oil have been far too focused on being Really Big Oil rather than being Big Energy. Big Banks and other key investors swallowed that one whole. So now we have Big Mistakes, Ogre Investments and Cheesed-off Investors. Incidents such as ExxonMobil /Imperial Oil / Syncrude is still immersed in in Canadian forestlands, muskeg and rivers; Royal Dutch Shell in Nigerian deltas, nearshore waters and atmosphere; Chevron in Ecuadorian jungle and waterways; and now BP in American beaches, wetlands, continental shelf and slope waters and ocean floor. All of these sorry situations are still in the process of somehow being rectified in monetary terms and resuscitated in ecological terms.

How is it going to be possible to reduce emissions by at least 2% every year from now until at least 2050 if we are not ratcheting-down, phasing-out and eliminating carbon-intensive projects? Surely, we cannot go on like this. The spooky thing is, despite the eco-cacophony that is already upon this Earth due to eco-risk gambling purveyors of high-carbon energy and products, most of those firms involved are yet-still angling forward with production growth plans together with lobbying pressure on governments and politicians to have the general public help them pay for reclamation and other environmental damage they are wreaking. Their shareholders extract the profits and those firms make valiant attempts to deal the environmental havoc to us. Such a corporate strategy reflects the attitudinal problems harbored by officers of those firms who continue to disregard, game and misrepresent the environmental risks associated with their operations to bureaucrats, politicians, potential investors, various media and the public.

They continue to play the job loss and/or energy security threat cards in order to attempt to perpetuate their operations, profits and values. However, we are not aware of studies outlining that fossil fuel energy companies are more labor intensive than renewable energy companies per megawatt of power delivered so what gives here? Old world fossil fuel jobs are going to be supplanted by renewable energy jobs and energy efficiency segment jobs. As the clean energy industry expands, eventually there will be a net gain in jobs and improvement in energy security as clean energy replaces dirty sources of energy.

The sun has billions of years of reserves from its nuclear fusion so the solar industry is presumably going to be a long-lived one. The Earth is expected to keep spinning on its axis of rotation for billions of years so our expectation is the wind industry has a bright future. Physicists tell us the gravitational constant is steady and gravitational forces will be strong for a long, long time, in particular, from our Moon so we can bank on tidal energy being with us. Subterranean geothermal energy sources and oceanic heat flow gradients have the potential to provide power for us all for untold millennia. Given all this, we are not sure we want to hear any more arguments and misinformation from tar sand and coal company executives with their grade school science background, lecturing the world that they have hundreds of years of reserves so only they can be counted on to provide energy security. What a charade! There are so many fallacies in those arguments how can it stand-up to rigorous scrutiny in our new millennium?

The "Ecocene" (our term) is truly-on when fossil fuels are completely-off. To us, in our vision, the Anthropocene epoch should demark the end of our wanton polluting ways including our risky global brinkmanship with incremental asphyxiation, warming and climate change. The new epoch cannot be the beginning of mankind causing that chaos, rather, it should signal the end of our foolish ways because we are more educated and aware than ever before in history. Semantically, to eliminate confusion about where we hope we are going for our future generations, we suggest referring to the Recent epoch we are now considered to be in by geologists as the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is then the time human beings got in there and burnt and harvested everything in sight. When we became more educated about the implications for our ecological survivability, this pollution age ended and the Ecocene began. In our view, when and if that transition occurs remains an open question even though we are in a "must win" situation on this. Hopefully, we can pull-off this changeover sometime before 2020 at the very latest.

At this advisory, we learn literally on a daily basis of the spiraling number and pervasiveness of ecological risks we must grapple with going forward and somehow find a resolution to. The consequences of our collective indifference to eco-tragedy now unfolding and explained beyond any reasonable doubt in a growing number of locations on Earth affects virtually every economic actor out there today. Relevant, forthright explanations of those risks is not very clear in submissions by securities issuers to regulators around the world. Ecological survivability is a vital concept for investors to understand before they invest. The heat is coming on in various jurisdictions around the world for entities to pay for the full effects of their calamitous pollution, not to secretly or quietly offload those ramifications and costs on the general public while preserving the profits for themselves and their backers. 

We believe as more and more ecological disasters unfold, by and large it will be the Courts that will end up dealing with and terminating the mayhem being inflicted on our world by various careless, cavalier, caveman-like practices of carbon, water and energy intensive projects having grave environmental risks. If your carbon footprint is skywards, your use of land, water and energy is rapacious and people are becoming sick from the upstream and downstream implications from use of what you sell, what does that mean? It means it's a good time to push-off because your services are no longer of net benefit to society. Its the shut-'er-down card being played in economics now. As updated laws, rules and regulations come to the fore around the world, our bet is it will give judges the latitude to effectively enforce environmental protection. In China today, shutdown orders affecting the most seriously-polluting operators are happening all over the country as they strive to engineer a turnaround in ecological survivability. 

Implementing a hefty carbon tax in China that directly applies to the sources of greenhouse gases would be a gigantic achievement, and we understand it is being considered for the 2012 to 2015 timeframe. As would be true anywhere in the world for the same basic reasons, invoking a supply-side penalty initiates a long-awaited process of non-negotiable consequences for the perpetrators of pollution. Only in such a milieu are correct economic decisions made. These are ones that are purely in the public interest, in the name of progress, health and wellness of society, as opposed to being at least in part for the benefit of insiders, influence peddlers or entrenched commercial interests. If the latter holds, we really do not have free competition nor the invisible hand of the marketplace at work. Market forces may be distorted for long periods of time if there persists systematic biases or cheating such as "we can pollute and offload our waste out here for free, what a competitive advantage we have". Most children know before they reach the age of four that they, not someone else, is responsible for cleaning up their own mess. How can corporations or other actors in our political economy pretend not to know this?

We say tax carbon merchants directly, hit the source of it. Force all the higher-carbon, lampblack junk out of the marketplace or phase it out by having producers, processors and consumers of dirty power pay heavy levies for the environmental calamity they are contributing to. One of many consequences of not doing so is to further constrain the use of comparatively clean energy sources in future such as natural gas. Natural gas is one-quarter to one-third cleaner than conventional oil and is only one-third to one-half as polluting as coal and heavy crude oil sources of energy. Studies have recently been published questioning the value of commissioning any new coal-fired power plant or of exploring for any more oil and gas. Why? The basic rationale was the Earth is already severely taxed by fossil fuel burning so we will not be able to utilize existing coal capacity or reserves of oil and gas before we have to stop using those energy sources altogether.

Apparently society also has to grapple with the outfall from extensive tar sands tailings and wastewater, sludge, coal ash landfills and holding ponds that at some point prior to ever being integrated safely into the dry landscape, leach and leak contaminants including arsenic, mercury, nickel, lead, selenium, sulphur and more into ground and surface waters. A new scare is coming from research conducted at New York University. Their findings support the notion that certain types of airborne particles are particularly deadly including nickel and vanadium. They found that surprisingly-low concentrations of these metals lodging in our airways may cause serious ailments and disease.

In general, to illustrate, we consider both importers and exporters of dirty fuel to be equally responsible for those pollutants that result from its combustion. Similarly, we think the country offering landing or docking rights for aircrafts and ships should jointly share in the allocation of emissions and discharges that arise from the flight or sailing with the country of origin for the trip. It takes two to tango and we believe social pressure to curtail and contain pollution will increase that much more if there exists this shared culpability. First it was California, then United States, then United States and Canada cracking down to eliminate the often-dreadful pollution emanating from ships. We hope similar changes spread around the world.

As worldwide population levels are expected to soar in the years to come, society will increasingly demand faster and faster replacement of faulty processes, products and services that degrade the environment. As human demands ratchet up on finite ecosystems, the margin for error in this regard will become progressively less as time goes by. We predict one phenomena now resisted by many governments, namely shelling out public monies to retrain and re-educate workers, will become imperative and routine for those laid off for the aforementioned reasons. We would see it as a welcome development socially. People should not have to listen to a chorus of self-centered whining, phony justification for continuance of perilous commercial activities, or complaining about job losses or lack of job increases that may occur in conjunction with ceasing some polluting, inferior business, segment or industry.

Spare us all from the disinformation, anxiety and angst that tends to come from lackey, slow-motion failing institutions; neurotic, unwieldy, weakly-competitive, retrenching corporations; grousing, displaced workers; concerned but parochial political figures who tend to lack scientific knowledge and grounding in the latest technologies; and/or troubled, overly-partisan industry associations who put themselves, their own ignorant, donkey-like self-interest and luxury, ahead of the world's vigilance regarding environmental externalities. 

Financiers or bankers "b" may help company "c" lobby government "g" for grants, tax breaks, subsidies, exemptions, research and development help, special treatment, etc. so the industrial player does not have to pay for the full pollution audit trail associated with their activities. Instead, inevitably, others "o" will. These corporations do not want to stop their pursuits because they do not want to get burned on their investments, retirement income or by hefty write-downs and write-offs of capital stock. There is no way out for them except to realize their losses which they refuse to accept doing so the entire ordeal is extended for a while longer. Until, of course, things get even worse environmentally than the current outlook.

The concept of an International Court with the requisite authority to preside over and prosecute matters affecting concerning global environmental and ecological impacts and issues is one whose time has come. The scope of how human-related activities are altering our world is unprecedented. The unwelcome news appears to be gathering in front of us hourly posing a litany of queries having as yet incomplete remedies and answers from ourselves collectively.

Send all those folks whose manpower is no longer needed a green slip to go back to school and the situation becomes win-win and win again for everyone affected. All the negative societal costs and implications from incremental environmental deterioration associated with the detrimental decisions and activities of atrophied, gray economic actors have been forgone. The entire Earth is incrementally less feverish as a result. Instead of claiming pink-slip type employment insurance benefits of some kind, all the parties involved here with the green slip have to deal with in this change of endeavor is to help with payment of tuition expenses and a stipend or other contribution towards a living allowance while the program of new, forward-looking studies takes place. We know there exists the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations. We call this the Green Education Mechanism (GEM). 

So far, we have come to the sorry conclusion that most resistance to change here arises from vested interests in energy-intensive undertakings. Heavy industry and other major polluters have historically relied on dirty energy sources. The only way momentum to cause these environmental externalities can persist for capital intensive, polluting industries is if there are a significant number of sizeable financial institutions profiting from backing them or government officials using a noble pretext such as the need to eradicate poverty and otherwise uplift the standard of living of the people. The error in those ways arises ominously and perhaps irretrievably soon as we conceive our greed-driven desire for more money or a higher standard of living is a particularly-human foible that may always be with us. By contrast, our empathetic desire to clean up, preserve and maintain our Earth and its living ecosystems is actually an imperative. If we collectively choose not to do it for whatever set of reasons, natural things and/or social upheaval could in places spin irretrievably beyond control. The distinction being, in the latter case, that desire cannot always be with us if we as a species or a society are no longer here to experience it. Rather, we have become one with melt-water and decomposing organic matter. 

We have many more current, troubling pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity and deforestation related questions about stewardship of the Earth's environment and ecosystems including: First and foremost, the Earth, being multinational, probably is wondering if in our world of competing national interests, something is being missed by the custodians? Do we really want to realize at what point air begins leaking into outer space? Are we trying to test at what point the atmosphere, waterways, or flora and fauna including homo sapiens, cease up? Or, given that extinction of species are now occurring at least 100 times faster than has been natural or normal historically, are we underway with the 6th mass extinction of species, the 5th being when dinosaurs were wiped out? The last time our oceans were as acidic as they are projected to become very soon now, you guessed it, marked the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the next era of geologic time. At that juncture, 65 million years ago, only mammals resembling opossums existed. Proto-humans were not yet on the scene presumably due to the hostile nature of ancient environments prior to the advent of the current Cenozoic Era. The oceans are already more acidic than they have been for at least 20 million years. Clearly, we are well on our way.

Do we really want to find out the hard way how the formation and dispersion of different types of clouds are affected by global warming? Especially if this brings us more frequent cumulonimbus storm and heat-trapping ones? Is cloud cover lessening as time goes on due to global warming? If yes, is it causing a positive feedback of further temperature increases due to enhanced penetration of incoming sunlight reaching the Earth's surface? Is the stage set for us to find out to what extent rainfall is curtailed as a result of having many more tiny pollution aerosol particles in the atmosphere for moisture to coalesce around? Do we really want to find out to what extent increases in atmospheric concentration of soot or methane gas alter monsoon cycles such as facilitating only torrential downpours, not more moderate ones? Worse, some fear as a consequence severe disruption and even cessation of critical monsoon cycles affecting Asia. These possible outcomes do not go down well with the tightening-yoke of widespread net melting of glaciers of the Himalayan and Karakoram mountains. Another problem we may bring upon ourselves is if it turns out that dimethylsulfide concentration in the atmosphere is important to the natural formation of clouds, at least in some regions. Because, as ocean water acidification intensifies and coral reefs suffer bleaching, certain types of bacteria and algae that normally produce lots of dimethylsulfide are in decline.  

Do we really want to see how protein levels in staple food crops decrease as atmospheric carbon dioxide increases? Or to see how many countries dependent on rain for farming will have crop yields cut in half within a decade? According to the United Nations in 2009, there were already about one billion food-insecure, hungry people suffering from some degree of malnutrition. Another sampling from the "collective blow to man's empire file" is the finding that rice crop yields decrease by about 10% for every one degree Celsius rise in average night-time temperature.

How many methane out-gassing livestock can we coexist with? Do we realize rising temperatures make it less likely trees and other vegetation can withstand drought, pests and parasites? Do we really want to witness gray Acacia trees that have withered in yet-another African drought? Not to mention fire hazard risk that is escalating with every ratcheting-up of average ambient temperature. Some say the incidence of wildfires could increase by 50% within a generation. With that comes unprecedented levels of smoky, burning wood with an out-gushing of soot and toxic organic carbon aerosols that can impair respiratory systems forever. Plus there may exist a reaction to dump ecologically-damaging fire retardant chemicals in huge volumes to contain the blazes.

Or do we want to experiment with the rate of mountain glacier melting to determine the capacity of alpine lakes before they burst? Or to gauge at what point major ice fracturing and melting of an ice shelf could occur in polar regions? Or do we want to tempt more partial ice shelf collapses in polar regions to see if it will go all the way? Do we really want to toy with the Earth's axis of rotation as one of the gravitation-induced consequences of massive, collapsing ice sheets such as the West Antarctica Ice Sheet? Or do we want to experiment with how little sea ice can remain and still be able to call it home for walruses, polar bears, narwhals and seals? Or do we want to know at what temperature vast stores of methane could be released from frozen soil permafrost regions of northern countries? Or do we want to test the hypothesis that North Atlantic deep water now circulates into the Arctic Ocean or at what point deep ocean circulation slows or stops in places? Warming surface water and air masses above increase the thermal gradient, making vertical mixing involving cold, dense lower layers of the ocean less likely. Or do we want to find out what the implications of our ongoing carbon build-up and consequential deep-ocean warming are for global air temperature something we may be in line for even if further carbon emissions are stopped completely now?

The aforementioned is some of what we realize and are seeing today. Imagine how are children feel about what phenomenon might become real next. For example, we hope the recently-documented proliferation of the four primitive-brained, 24 eye, lethally-poisonous box jellyfish is not another sorry impact of global warming. And we have no knowledge yet that there is a link but the fact they are reproducing markedly in number has us on the lookout for answers here too. We also have had enormous swarms of marauding mauve stinger jellyfish to contend with. Namibian authorities have been concerned about jellyfish multiplying offshore near them and exacting a toll on their marine fishery, not to mention tourism. Warmer water can absorb less oxygen. Could it be that global warming induced hypoxic (low oxygen) events in marine waters near Namibia are triggering either directly or indirectly the helter-skelter survival instinct reproduction of jellyfish as those fish or the sea life they eat are threatened by oxygen deficiency and increasing acidity of the water? We have similar concerns about the ravenous jumbo squid. We already know the giant Pacific Oyster invasion that threatens species such as mussels and Eider ducks is caused by global warming of marine waters. Are we relegating ourselves to a future where oceans support invasive algae, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, protista, virus and bacteria-ridden ocean slime, worms, seaweed, wireweed, sea urchins, squid, crown-of-thorns starfish, copepods, lionfish, spot fish, water snakes and jellyfish swarms but not many other life-forms? Do we really have to start feeling cozy across vast terrestrial expanses and fresh water bodies where water hyacinth, wattle, knotweeds, mile-a-minute weeds, tumbleweeds, prickly pear, cockchafers, chytrid fungus, Cryptococcus gattii fungus, armyworms, hornets, mosquitoes, midges, vermin, palm weevils, kudzu vines and other challenging and invasive species thrive on our ecological mayhem?

Up to 50% of all known reptile species and one-third of amphibians are currently considered to be threatened with extinction, the most sudden wave of extinction ever known to mankind. Aren't you glad you are not a lizard? You may also add tropical insects to that list as these cold-blooded creatures are as likely to roast due to global warming than quickly adapt to it. Polar species vital to the food chain such as krill and silverfish are in a sorry decline. And how about the noble, heavy-coated musk oxen, survivors of at least one ice age but now sweltering to death and obsolescence in the warming oil of our Earthly fry pan? Will this world be as spiritual and soulful without the sound of the violet click beetle, corn craik or bumble bee? In fact, one-third or more of the absolute number of animals of all phyla have vanished since about 1970. Life scientists are saying species are disappearing at 1000 times the natural rate historically. Is it really true that one-eighth of the world's birds and one-quarter of mammal species are threatened? Well, if you're a pygmy nuthatch, maybe there's nowhere left to fly to to "get-away".

A great many more species are susceptible to negative effects from climate change impacts of one sort or another but their numbers have not been noticed to have dropped precipitously, at least not yet. The World Conservation Union claims one third of coniferous tree species and as many as two-thirds of plant species have succumbed forever-more to our modern world or are now threatened with extinction. Nearly half of primate species are endangered including the mercurial blue-eyed, black lemur and the pig-tailed, snub-nosed langur. Is it really true that, on average, three or more species are gone forever every hour of every day? And with that goes our biodiversity, forever reduced. Capitulation is primarily blamed on how polluted our planet has come to be, on the changing climate and on how little pristine habitat remains compared to the way it used to be.

Not only are a myriad of species that depend on an in-tact ecosystem to survive and prosper under attack, entire ecosystems are under assault. Tropical and subtropical freshwater lake and river ecosystems are in drastic decline in many locations. Many wetlands have been transmogrified beyond recognition by developers or other commercial interests. Salt marshes, mangroves, subsea grasses and kelp beds store voluminous amounts of carbon, protect shorelines from erosion, storms and flooding and provide critical habitat for a wide range of species. Already, one-fifth of the world's coral reefs are dead or have been destroyed due to the changing biochemistry and heat properties of marine water. Some predict all could vanish before 2040 if we keep going as we have been for very much longer. Which is very soon now. A 2009 Nature Conservancy report estimates 85% of oyster reefs have disappeared already. Knowledgeable people are already warning that oceanic dead zones could spread and become permanent. Based on that, try to verify if fish stocks can replenish despite lack of oxygen, warming, altered currents and circulation, increased acidity, various pollutants, micro-plastic and styrofoam (light polystyrene plastic) debris in the water and movement of alien species to new locations.

Many scientists are more alarmed by the escalating acidity of our water than any other facet of environmental degradation. Marine waters are becoming acidic at a faster rate than has been the case for more than 50 million years. Our oceans are already about one-third more acidic than two centuries ago, a mere flick of geologic time. The National Center for Scientific Research in France has concluded that before 2019, 10% of the Arctic Ocean will have become too acidic to support shellfish life forms. By mid-century half of it may be inhospitable to calcium-carbonate-shell secreting creatures due to excessive concentration of carbonic acid that arose from high levels of carbon dioxide in the air above the water. Further, if plankton, algae or coral are less able to form shells, less carbon is sequestered naturally by them. Nothing like this level of acidity has believed to have happened for some 20 million years. That's one million generations ago if for fun we can call the "new generation" 20 years long not 25 or 30 years. Regrettably, in this ancient environment 20 million years past global sea levels are estimated to have been around 30 meters higher than now. Gulp! That's a lot of gulps of extra water if you live on the coast.

Should zooplankton levels at or near the ocean surface really be dropping by 70% in little more than a generation? Every second breath we take is courtesy oxygen produced through photosynthesis by phytoplankton.  Would we really like to know how much carbonic acid marine waters can contain before dinoflagellates take over from diatoms? Or pteropods pack it in altogether? Or are we testing how warm acid in a tidal pool will affect snails and sea urchins or their larvae? The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has revealed that two-thirds of Blue King crab larvae died when exposed to acidity levels in water similar to what already exist along parts of the west coast of United States. At what concentration of hydrogen ions in seawater do coral shells begin dissolving rather than building? Are we there yet? Do we really want to push our enviro-brinkmanship to the threshold to witness if shell-crushing predators like sharks, jellyfish and crabs enter warming polar waters to create havoc there for existing benthic marine life? Do you really prefer to eat squid rather than bluefin tuna? Do we want to witness how expansive the ocean's biological deserts can be? Or to test to what extent we have dead zones in shallower marine waters especially near the mouths of rivers?

A little more thinking ahead is what the doctor is ordering for us all because by the time such phenomena is obviously upon us, it's often too late to resolve the situation without experiencing some full-scale ecological disaster.

Subsea grasslands in near-shore areas have apparently been wiped-out globally at the phenomenal rate of about 7% per year from 1990 to 2008. Do we want this to continue any longer? Are we to witness ourselves reaching the ocean deepwater environment threshold with pollutants including ones that persist for great lengths of time? Are we to verify the increasing acidity of oceans causes a cacophony for marine mammals as sound is transmitted further and louder underwater? Or to discover that fertility of oysters deteriorates due to increases in carbonic acid concentration in water? Or that gender-bender chemicals have already caused feminization of males in species across all classes of vertebrates? Or for us to find out the hard way that non-decomposing micro-plastic debris cannot be a staple in the diet of endless species in our food chain? How about plastics that eventually decompose in saltwater and release bisphenol A, polystyrene-based oligomers or styrene monomer? Does a natural, real man present wearing a polyester shirt, sparkly-glow-in-the-dark tie and rayon socks? Does a suave, real woman dress-up with nylons, neoprene-striped skirt, polyethylene under-garments, glossy pink lipstick and purple hair dye highlights? Does she really want to paint on to her face a petrochemical layer-cake of make-up? Why lead a plastic lifestyle and existence that has little of the wholesome spirit or soul connected with it? Is it all about flash and neon lights or the crash of thunderclap and natural light rainbows? It's time for us all to reconnect with nature before it's too late for us all to reconnect with anything at all.

Do we want pollution to become so pervasive it changes the methylation of our genes or reduces the size of gene groups? Do we really have to breathe in all these petrochemical-laced fumes containing stuff like benzene, benzopyrene and perchloroethylene? Should everyday cosmetics contain parabens, phthalates, vinyl acetate, formaldehyde, nickel, antimony, cobalt, chromate, nitrosamines, hydroquinone, synthetic musks, propylene glycol or butylene glycol? Should various lotions and potions have methylparaben, propylparaben or triclosan in them? Should everyday food and beverage packaging material include styrofoam or methylnaphthalene? Should plastics produced from metal-based catalysts before your Grandpappy was born continue to be mass-produced even though same still have not biodegraded and your Grandpappy died long ago? Aren't the extensive dragnets of plastic garbage in our oceans kind-of getting out-of-control in size and scope? What if certain chemicals and pollutants ever-present in our air, water and food chain are altering our genes or switching them on and off creating chaos with the delicate biological systems of organisms including us? Should we continue to try to douse forest fires or coat various upholstery and electronic apparatus with polybrominated biphenyl ethers? Are we too slow developing and applying green alternatives to petrochemical-based plastics, hydrofluorcarbon and perfluorinated chemicals and gases, short-chain chlorinated paraffins, cement, fire retardants, repellants, asbestos, vulcanized rubber, dyes, pigments, coatings, adhesives, abrasives, cleaning compounds, corrosive fertilizers, toxic pesticides, fungicides and herbicides? Biodegradeable plates, cups and utensils are available at low cost and can be used for years so why use throw-away, plastic ones that persist in the environment somewhere for centuries? 

How can we look forward to finding we are on-course to augment the number of endangered or extinct species including many frogs, salamanders and other natural enemies of mosquitoes carrying the aforementioned diseases, beyond the 100 or so amphibians that have already disappeared over the past quarter century? Do we really want to be without hearing the warble of a loon or the raspy cry of an Arctic tern? Can creatures such as the brown pelican, manatee, loggerhead and green sea turtles, sperm whale, bluefin tuna and cobia fish survive an extended bout with hydrocarbons that is coming their way? Will we find out the hard way how much ozone and other air pollution is required before pollinators such as bees cannot sense the aroma of flowers beyond "q" meters away when it used to be "r" meters ?  Already now r = 5q approximately in many car-culture conurbations whereas r = q historically. Are honeybees, key pollinators in fruit orchards and of flowering plants, really on the way out?

Do we really want to ring the spring alarm clock earlier and earlier for plants, insects, birds and other creatures? Do we want to test how many wheatears, swallows and chiff-chaffs can be fooled into staying on in the UK for the winter? Or perhaps, how many majestic Bewicke's swans now forgo their southward migration to Europe during now-milder Siberian winters? What is the fate of the purple-crowned woodnymph after all, and who really appears to have the attention-span of a hummingbird? Are we implying it's "times-up" for pig-tailed macaques to be hanging around with us? Do we want to find out how widespread, concentrated and lethal pesticide can be before the number of songbirds that remain can no longer be heard? Already, the chirping and singing of some birds is reported to be off-kilter due to their ingesting too many chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's). Ad infinitum.

Or to find out how short hibernation can be for chipmunks, squirrels, marmots and hedgehogs without driving them to fatigue, mixed up behavior, an early demise or possible extinction? Hedgehogs may be completely eliminated by 2025 from some regions they now call home. The pika, hyper-sensitive to temperature increases, is now in a fight for survival that some knowledgeable observers believe its going to lose. Their solution to find a cooler climate is a tragic error that countless species are in the midst of committing - to move upslope rather than to migrate further to higher latitude, perhaps lower elevation areas. Soon they will en masse be idling dazed and confused on hilltops and mountainsides very possibly with no escape route.

Are we entertaining disaster by introducing so many "sleeper" alien species into new ecosystems having extra heat and altered thermal tolerances? Do we want to welcome that brown tree snake or mega-snail into our environs, too? Is global warming behind the arousal and spread of some alien species such as cryptococcus gatii fungus in the Pacific Northwest region of North America? Is the fabled quiver tree of drought-stricken Africa really on the way out? Do we really want to swap krill, a staple of countless Arctic species, for the tiny copepods that jellyfish consume en masse?

Do we really want to monkey with nitrogen trifluoride, an ultra-potent climate-altering chemical being used increasingly in various manufacturing activities? How sure are we that the 82,000 plus chemicals in our world already are safe? Or how much mercury in the air and methyl mercury in the water coal-burners can contribute without impacting our food chain, water supply and health? Or at what point a few new chemical reactions will start that we may know little about? Or how much sub-micrometer sized particles of carbon, nitrates, metals, etc from vehicle exhaust and industrial pollutants we can tolerate without developing heart, lung or liver disease? Or to determine what level of persistent organic pollutants can be accumulated in our blood before diabetes or cancer is triggered? Do people really want to move to the big city if they face months or even years off their (average) lifetime as a consequence of breathing the air there? Are we experimenting how salty the near shore environment can become before pregnant women develop childbearing issues? Or at what point species "x" mutates into species "(x+p)" in the field? Or at what point birth defect "y" begins to ramp up?

Or at what point virus "z" gains a foothold or flavivirus "f" expands its territory? Or to test how the incidence and geographic spread of malaria, schistosomiasis, bilharzias, dengue fever, encephalitis, yellow fever, haemorrhagic fever, meningococcal meningitis, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera, hepatitis A and E, diptheria, jaundice, tuberculosis, acute gastroenteritis, intestinal worms, hand, foot and mouth diseases, chikungunya, measles, chicken pox, shigella, ebola filovirus, plague, sleeping sickness, SARS, avian flu, swine flu, West Nile virus, Nipah virus, tick-borne Powassen virus and Lyme disease, babesia, Chandipura virus, Rift Valley fever, Ross River virus, catarrh, eye disease, cancer, allergies, hay fever, asthma, respiratory infections, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and silicosis varies as a function of rising temperature, humidity, salinity and concentrations of various airborne and waterborne pollutants? Increasing concentrations of dust, smoke and other particulates act more and more frequently as transport mechanisms far and wide for bacteria, viruses and protozoa.

Are we waiting for a chameleon or a pygmy tyrant to tell us things are heating up around here? Or pausing to see how well a Maldivian, Kiribatian or Bangladeshi can swim? Or to check how far polar bears can swim underwater or verify if they really enjoy eating one another or mating with grizzly bears as they are pressured to go further south to survive? Only a minority of the number of polar bears existing now are expected to exist come mid-century. Polar bears today are only about two-thirds the weight of those roaming the North just one generation ago. Do we want to field-test if penguins can still find their way and survive despite the rise in temperature? Have harbor seals left the harbor forever? Is the level of mercury in ringed seals really rising in tandem with the amount of polar ice that is melting with the attendant release and mobilization of its accumulated load of various pollution detritus?

In fact, there are many species, including white possums, butterflies, sandeels and eelpouts, whose numbers are considered indicative of negative impacts from global warming and ecological breakdown. Those populations have been plummeting worldwide. Many seabirds will disappear if one of their dietary staples, the sandeels, are in decline due to rising surface temperature of ocean water. Already in some regions, seagulls are down to one-third their number only one generation ago. The lemuroid possum, highly sensitive to rising temperature, has been heading for higher elevations to live. But how long can this adaptive behavior go on until the top of the hill is reached? Then what? What kind of world is evolving if the leatherback turtle, a creature that has survived for over 100 million years, is now quite suddenly an endangered species? Every known species of sturgeon fish is said to be living at the edge of extermination due to the inhospitable environment they find themselves in. Very likely, somewhere between 10 and 100 species of living organisms are becoming extinct every waking day on our planet. For the Madeiran large white butterfly, "time has come today" because noone sees them anymore. Anywhere. It appears to be too late to wave the white flag for them, they're gone now. Who's next? The violet copper butterfly? What values do we hold dear as people anyways? Can a politician stand up and make a political statement about that? What destiny do we look towards? What gives us inspiration? It's clearly time for a rethink, some reconsideration of our cosmic spiritual being and beliefs.

We don't get it. But the leadership of Kiribati, Tuvalu and Maldives apparently do: they've been engaged in efforts to provide assurance to their people that they can vacate the country for somewhere else and have the wherewithal to do so. They consider their situation to be hopeless in the long term. They foresee no responsible and credible alternative other than to plan for mass exodus of their homelands. They are acutely aware now what others may have the luxury of realizing at a later date, namely, that the rap sheet for climate-altering pollution is indeed a long one and the consequences, especially of continued widespread use of carbon-intensive energy sources, are grim. Nobody living near the coast wants to face that brutal 50-year wave maybe every three years as sea levels edge up ever-higher. They do not want decisive action delayed as they could be swallowed up by the ramifications of everyone's inaction or uncooperativeness. They and we all surely do not want to enter the realm of what is known in the mathematics as an over-constrained problem. An over-constrained problem is one for which there exists no solution because there are many constraints, the nature of which are such that, taken together, a solution is not possible. Of course, no one wants to have that happen when the problem to which we are referring is that of global-warming, other serious environmental degradation, further endangerment and extinction of species or individual lives lost in the midst of some catastrophic event such as from extreme weather, spread of disease, ecosystem collapse, water stress or roiling heat.

So what do we do? We think it's counterproductive and wrong-headed to attempt to rationalize and justify the situation of ongoing, unabated environmental degradation by arguing we need to free people from poverty or we need to promote economic growth and the only way to achieve it is to continue to line the pockets of status quo businessmen and officials benefitting from violating the environment. In a new age market economy, if that entity could not pay for the full cost of running that operation including the externalities, that organization should be shut down and resources should automatically be reallocated to other competitors. Very likely other competitors includes new competitors who have worked hard and risked a lot to develop higher-quality, more advanced alternatives. Alternatives that very possibly are being offered for sale at apparently-higher prices than the artificially-low price of the inferior good being supplanted. So our general advice is for regulators and government officials to get out of the way of progress; don't try to team up with an old line competitor to push an inferior good or service on the consumer a while longer. We further disagree with providing non-public guidance to carbon or pollution-intensive entities such as coal miners or coal-fired utilities related to the viability of their investments. Those negatively affected may seek to lobby for help or clarification about the new rules of the game for carbon markets or whatever. If they invested in coal or tarsand, that's their risk capital and their problem from lack of understanding or due diligence not anyone else's. We have some words for colliers and bitumen extractors who claim they built country "x" and are the heroic answer to the energy security needs there - get real, get over it, move on, your time is up. Citizens generally do not believe you anymore because you don't have sustainable solutions.

We believe that operating a carbon cap and trading system, however well-intentioned, at this juncture is risky and subject to complex fraud. There is also the need for comprehensive and perhaps overly-complicated regulation and administration of carbon or other pollutant contracts and agreements. Already the scramble from various industrial polluters is on to try to devise some scheme to minimize commercially the environmental remediation "hit" they can anticipate having to absorb. Regulators are being pressured by them for carbon trading exemptions, free emissions permits and/or certification of some cheap offsetting scheme for their pollution habit with an alleged green project conducted in a developing country. All this invites attempts to spend public money inefficiently. We have already seen how it results in prolonged  participation in the market from those parties who do not want to reduce their pollution absolutely. It further risks compensating those who should not be compensated, and may improperly incentivize. It may cause society to settle for token payments from carbon price declines. It could prolong what should be forestalled. It could cause the conditions for circumvention of the central need to ratchet back on pollution mayhem when the vital response should be to face up to that ecology-driven requirement squarely and resolutely. Markets can encourage participants to manipulate, wrangle, placate, appease, discombobulate or obfuscate about objectives and/or shirk responsibility; result in the sly shifting of assets, production and, of course, emissions geographically; precipitate delays, posturing and diddling around rather than solving the many, serious pollution problems we are faced with. To us, its too much like a hunter with a lance around a campfire in Krakatoa, East of Java, who decides to joust with a spewing volcano.

At this point, we have to have 100% certainty-equivalent that whatever world leaders come up with to stop polluters and climate change, that it works and can be seen to be working. Why don't we be more direct and forthright? So far, it appears to be a bit of a royal battle just to hold global emissions constant year over year. The most recent data shows greenhouse gas emissions worldwide rose by 1% year over year. How are we going to get a grip on the situation such that high single digit reductions in emission levels occur globally every year? It's going to require stronger medicine that will taste increasingly-awful the longer we put off listening to the doctor. Most emphatically, let's ensure the prescription does not give the appearance that something is being done when it is ineffective in halting climate change and other environmental afflictions. No whistling in the dark coal smoke.

Banning the minor but potentially very significant class of greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons would be a noble start to an arduous process. Even attaining that is not a lay up. It's going to require a huge cooperative effort spanning many countries and would result in only an ephemeral victory compared to what we ultimately have to achieve to stabilize the health and restore the vitality of our planet. After advanced and thorough study, the bill from global warming, pollution and loss of biodiversity has been recently estimated to be as gargantuan as two to five trillion dollars a year. That cost reflects the rate of depletion of "nature's capital" as the environmental services of ecosystems to all organisms are degraded and decimated.

The artificial process of apparently-cutting pollution by offsetting to another country in general will not cut the mustard with us though such transference potentially has a role. Some say little or no absolute reductions in greenhouse gases will result from these projects which is devastating if true.

For example, if Japan "reduces" its emissions by availing itself of carbon credits arising from plain-vanilla economic collapse of various businesses in Czech Republic following dismantling of the Berlin Wall, then we wonder about that. Of course, we want to encourage and speed-up termination of prehistoric lignite coal power-driven operations but those entities should be competed-away into oblivion through the normal course of market mechanisms. This is especially true now if we attach a carbon price to the activity. We are never against capabilities and mechanisms being set up in case we need them. However, any diversion of purpose from holding polluters' collective feet to the hot coals to have them reduce their pollution very soon now or drop out of the energy business, to us, is distracting, counterproductive and circumventing green-wash.

Similarly, logging companies clearly have responsibility to replant their licensed areas, otherwise they should not get to log the area in the first place. Forest industry practices have to be sustainable in the normal course. Reforesting commercially-logged areas is expected to be done without fanfare or monetary reward by those who harvested the resources. So surely the logging company doesn't rack-up carbon credits and do same just so they can cash-in on a deal with someone in a faraway land who wants to continue some polluting process unabated in his or her own backyard. You may fool some people with a scheme such as this but do you really believe you're going to get this "solution" past Mother Earth? We need absolute reductions and big ones from the most egregious polluters and we need it soon.

To achieve efficient and effective allocation of resources, you have to ensure the mechanism is applied to the root cause of the problem and is cheat-proof and transparent in its application. Therefore, we think there should be a Global Externality Tax (GET). It would be something like a Value-Added Tax, however, the levy would be against the guilty producer or perpetrator. If they choose to continue to operate in an activity that has negative externalities associated with it, in particular, pollution, then they pay the incremental tax associated with that incremental production and environmental externality or cease activity. If the source country does not cooperate in assessing and collecting the tax, then the destination country would do it for them. If some countries assess the "cost of carbon" relatively lower for whatever reason, then other countries would apply the difference thus negating the possibility of using a low carbon tax as a drawing card for investment.

A carbon tax or tariff could be a subset of GET. GET extends the power to any country or union shipping or receiving goods and services to precisely target and in effect potentially drive dysfunctional economic actors out of business wherever they are located. The producer of incremental pollution effectively pays the consequences of that incremental externality regardless via the global GET mechanism that catches everybody. Otherwise, this world does not benefit from having the proper and efficient allocation of resources as technology advances and comparative advantages of countries change. This isn't protectionism as in protecting some narrow self-interested party from a foreign competitor. Rather, its market economics with full cost accounting that's designed to protect us all from those with narrow self interest, those that want to take more money for themselves whilst leaving their environmental bill for others to pay and the environmental consequences, perhaps life-threatening ones, for others to grapple with.

So its a level playing field for every competitor regardless of where their economic acts are carried out. And nowhere for a scheming businessman to hide out with his polluting operation because its now in the cards to map any of a great number of pollutants geographically in real time with more resources and greater precision than ever before. There should then be fewer threats directed at politicians and governments of some local company transplanting operations to a laxer jurisdiction. So the common assumption of many polluters heretofore that the money will all be in the bank or distributed to shareholders before anyone knows exactly what their environmental risks, liabilities and impacts are will prove in future to be painfully false.

We are concerned that carbon trading mechanisms alone will prove to be inadequate in addressing the problem soon enough. The UK government for one has already recognized that carbon markets are not going to ensure the transition to a low carbon world nor that the diversity in the mix of energy segments that emerges is sustainable. We need serious, wholesale citizen buy-in to the green movement not only a business-driven cash-out play. With carbon taxes such as GET you know there will be no free ride or discount fare for those who pollute because the costs of the tax are assessed directly against the offender irrespective of whether its a consumer, producer or some other entity. They can sink or try to swim a little further with the added weight of extra costs it if they want to. If the world sees that pollution / emissions are still out of control, governments can ratchet up the percentage rate of the GET applied such that polluting by amount "p" becomes uneconomic. Heretofore, polluting corporation "c" had been extracting an amount $x to tack on to its bottom line whilst leaving everyone else to buck up for at least $x to take care of its environmental externality expenses. On an individual firm basis, as the magnitude of the pollution tax it faces increases, projects "c" in the past assessed as being viable will be eliminated at the margin along with the attendant incremental pollution. Like a laser-guided missile, its a direct hit and there is no doubt about the outcome or the consequences. User pays, the abuser pays. There are no delays and no opportunity for intervention, circumvention or gamesmanship. Other more advanced, efficient and conscientious firms "a" will fill any void in supply from the contraction of business of "c". At this juncture, why should it be otherwise? Why prop up losers or give them a "break" when there are now, or soon will be, winners chomping at the bit to replace the old-style polluters? By extension, the same can be argued about the financiers, advisors and investors of those firms. Why not favor the ones who know how to push replacements for those polluters who have utterly failed to properly assess the real-life risks, liabilities, impacts and publicity fall-out associated with their operations.

We disagree that a carbon cap-and-trade system would be a more efficient, cost effective, transparent or efficacious mechanism for curtailing greenhouse gas emissions than the global externality tax or tariff (GET) we describe here. That said, we are for anything that works to stop slime-ball polluters from systematically offloading their environmental remediation expenses and shoddy eco-ethics on others. Various scurrilous schemes have been going on for far too long in too many jurisdictions. Happily, in the Internet age, powerful cheaters can be brought-down with greater certainty than ever before. And, of course, that is part of our aim here, to expose and weed-out eco-failing enterprises and their connections. Secrecy and poor disclosure is one of the hallmarks of eco-challenged, or otherwise failing, security issuers and their backers. Frankly, we could not help but notice this a long time ago. hmmmmm Both polluters and cheaters persist by operating secretly, too often with the tacit knowledge of other "team" members who consciously seek to benefit from this mayhem while remaining at arm's length, hopefully out of reach in the event their friends are exposed some day and the wrath of the public begins to bear down on the anti-social misfits involved in the scheming, sneaking and cheating.

In negotiating climate change pacts country to country, there is no more perverse incentive than to try to outwait the other side in making concessions. The only issue to coordinate beyond the global GET mechanism itself is who, for example, takes particular action, verifying and levying as necessary GET against corporation "c" who has exported good "g" to country "y" from country "z". If country "y" invokes an adjustment its border or port of entry, does it reimburse country of origin "z" for that GET amount given that "z" has been lax or negligent in assessing against "c" and perhaps many other polluters in its own jurisdiction? In one sense, its like a global value-added tax operating in reverse since polluting is a value-subtracting characteristic associated with a particular good or service. So the magnitude of the tax is assessed based on the value loss not yet explicitly recognized in the accounting that arises due to incremental pollution associated with the "value added" economic activity that occurred in country "z".

We like GET a great deal. Properly designed, it will curtail or help stop perpetrators of pollution-intensive and inefficient businesses and consumption. By penalizing those entities appropriately and thereby sending them into decline sooner rather than later, the marketplace progressively and automatically opens up more demand and supply-space for alternative firms and other more environmentally-friendly economic actions and behaviors. As this process runs its course, demand soon reallocates towards, newer, cleaner, greener, more advanced competitors goods and services. Legacy organizations scale back, break apart, close down or are liquidated.

Meanwhile, regulators dispassionately administer the global GET in a back-office setting. There are no questions arising due to volatile markets and no difficulty policing a tax collection versus the alternative of attempting to regulate markets for a rather abstract, inherently-negative phenomenon. The outcome is certain not uncertain or subject in any way to manipulation, opacity or misrepresentation. Corporations can plan their projects accordingly. We are very much market-oriented people here, however, in the drastic case of global warming that looms ominously over all of us, we want the most transparent, efficient, cost effective and efficacious method to reign supreme and that would be the global GET not cap-and-trade markets. The latter markets can still be developed and applied so the mechanisms are there. But to us, all that should remain a sideshow in the very serious global effort required to monitor, halt and roll-back worldwide temperature increases and pollution generally.

With border-tax-adjustments in-place to execute the new reality of GET levies on greenhouse gas emissions and other vectors of pollution, we predict only the odd miscreant would continue to complain bitterly about such a fair-minded, certain, smoothly functioning system such as this. After all, this global GET mechanism is applied boldly, transparently, cross-border and continuously to every Earthly event in the name of preserving the habitability of our planet. With GET, a complete set of bilateral relationships is quickly, almost automatically, established. No riverboat gambling delays to 2015, 2020, 2025, or whenever need be countenanced in this scenario to buffer anybody anywhere, so precious time is saved. It's not there to upset people or organizations, it's there to ensure all organisms can live sustainably in our biosphere. Just the impacts we go over on this webpage, which is by no means an exhaustive list, should make anyone pause and wonder how pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, extinctions and climate change has gone as far as it has already. Its time for action because the consequences of all this are potentially so incredibly- serious for so many lives.

Perversely, in many countries around the world today we still have some form of fossil fuel subsidies in place to shield consumers and commercial interests from paying even the market price. These subsidies are in effect negative carbon taxes, ones that encourages greater demand for, and more pollution arising from, carbon-rich combustion. Seen in isolation, such subsidies also discourage the pursuit and slows adoption of alternative energy, delivering another glancing blow to the belly of our Earth and life as we have known it.

Zooming past Stra and Siwa and Miri to check on Bhola and Sh'huur, oh no, climate change time has come today. From Nis to Sur to Oyo to Ibb, we want to help you keep an eye on changeable things, there's a lot of it about. At Selbo and Labgar, too we wish you all the luck in drawing that green line in the sand. And to Lecce with love for your white houses. Marburg and Ota, we want to see your rooftop solar installations. In Julich, Germany we hope you succeed with high-efficiency solar thermal energy featuring hot-air driven turbines. Or, for that matter, any dry-cool design that uses 90% less water than heretofore has been the case. We are happy to see India's first solar-fired power plant by Awan. And to residents of Roscoe and Dali, too, we are endeared by your wind turbines. To Flexial, Brazil, we really do hope you can succeed over the long haul harvesting nuts sustainably in the Amazon. For Chimoio, Mozambique, good luck in the changeover from tobacco farms to cultivation of jatropha shrubs.

From Daru to Jos to Tio and Nuuk, we really do know you're there. Aboard the sad caravan from Kobo to Sodo, we feel for your food and water insecurity. To Alumot, Israel, let's help save the Jordan River and Dead Sea. Go past Oulu and Remu and on to Sanaa and Suai. From Bor to Bar to Bria, Gra and Oyo, thence to Qutuf and Hinche; your thirst for hope for this Earth is our quest, too. Will salty, dun gray sand completely-envelope Muynak, Uzbekistan? How will tar-ball oil globules affect Fairhope and Violet, USA? Do mountains really come down near Blair, USA? Are forests levelled en masse near Cacoal? Do floods really affect even Taiping, Malaysia nowadays? Will the sea really rise over Male, Maldives? Or infiltrate Moura, Bangladesh a sea-facing village observers extend little hope of surviving intact beyond about five years. Will cyclones demolish Gabura? Will massive monsoon rain-driven floodwaters breach the banks of the Indus river and obliterate nice, quiet, little Jati, Pakistan, too? Well, heavy rain brings deadly mudslides to Cunha and Ambo, Peru, too.

From Aioun, Mauritania to Kelo, Chad, to Dosso and Gaya, Niger, to Gummi, Nigeria, the suffering from desertification, drought, crop failures, crusty, sun-baked topsoil and flooding is so very real, we know. Soil so parched it has reduced capacity to absorb water. We have to get a grip very soon now on such pervasive, realized ecological risks gripping and imperiling so many of us in our tracks. Will heat waves and drought cause the people of Korem to set out in a desperate search for food once more? Or prompt nomadic herders to settle in Dela thereby terminating a mobile lifestyle experienced by these people and their ancestors for millennia? From Mingyong, China to Leh, India to Khapi, Bolivia, we are sorry about the diminishing glacier-fed streams you depend on so much. Good luck in capturing rainwater around Khapi to try to make up for your loss of melt water, because we think you are going to need it. We know that snow conditions in Rogla are generally not that good anymore. From Lech to Vail to Banff to Voss, is your ski season really shortening by about one day per year for a generation? To Sochi, Russia we hope you get lots of snow and ice in the build-up to winter, 2014 and beyond. From Waw to Tete to Gao, Osh and Xia-Xia, we think of you, too. Including those from Jolo and Heihe, we suspect this is no fun atall. In Banana, Man and Ho, Ghana, too, try hard to believe you are not alone. We guess you're not; we see there is also a Hohoe, Ghana.

Comment July 26, 2009 - Here is a concrete, hypothetical example of how our Global Externality Tax (GET) could work at least in the initial stages:  Politician "p" fields another Friday afternoon phone call from a big-wig domestic coal company executive, "bw". bw angrily threatens (again) to relocate their operations and jobs to another country, "oc" if "p" dares to impose a carbon tax or tariff plan as is being contemplated by the home country government, "hc". bw argues bitterly that oc does not have any carbon penalty on coal production and shipment to market and bw is competing with coal companies in oc. What a dunce you are p, why don't you get with it at least one day a week, eh?! p is sick of this sort of antics and pressure-play. p resolves to help lead the introduction of GET in hc which p succeeds in doing. An outraged bw does move company operations to oc then tries to sell its coal production to consumers and businesses back in hc. However, at the border of hc, an agent slaps the exporter with GET. If GET is not paid, the ship will be denied the privilege to offload at the port. Wonders never cease and the GET is paid forthwith. Because this particular GET was designed assuming joint responsibility between the exporting and importing countries, in this case oc and hc, 50% of the GET assessed and collected is forwarded to the treasury of hc government and 50% is sent back to oc government. bw gets nothing back, exactly zero. Both oc and hc opt to re-invest the incremental revenue collected in clean projects and green technology in their own country. bw is smarting now because the financial impact on bw's company seems to be about the same wherever bw tries to have it spew pollution freely. bw reasons that the Earth is the biggest sewer there can possibly be anyways, right? However, at this point bw and other employees of the company are really getting worried. They stop going to bars and restaurants. Workers start spending weekends learning how to re-engineer the old company to reduce waste-streams. They soon conclude it will not be feasible. The younger people at the firm start searching colleges for information. Older workers phone mystified gray bank advisors with instructions to dump their company's stock from their portfolios. They also ask for assistance in planning an early retirement. Catching wind about what many of his staff are doing, bw places an urgent phone call to World Trade Organization, lambasting them for apparently allowing the "high-seas illegality" of this GET. bw is claiming the GET monstrosity is ruining his company singlehandedly. A low level service representative at WTO coolly informs bw that it is perfectly legal to impose such a border tax or tariff adjustment. There already exists a similar tax levied against coal companies still operating in hc. Despite being implored to do so by an incensed bw, the agent refuses to transfer the call to her boss. Goodbye bw. Rumors begin circulating among the banks that bw's coal company might be headed down. The market price of it drops. A fledgling solar power firm "sp" sniffs out an opportunity to fill the slight gap in supply. sp provides a higher quality, clean energy alternative albeit at a much higher price than the price offer cited in bw company literature. Funny thing though, sp projects in the short term future that they will be able to sell their renewable energy profitably at the current border tax adjusted GET price for coal per joule of energy equivalent. But not at bw's phoney, low-ball price, at least not for some time yet. So much for bw's cost accounting and price-setting; it seems something was missing there all along.  

Given all the above, we think its reprehensible that heavy industry anywhere would be actively engaged opposing imposition of environmental levies based on the amount and carbon content of fossil fuels being burned. Far too much coal is used. To us, the polluter-pays principle represents the path of least resistance to solving environmental problems because it is so hard to argue with. As we have found out already, there is no shortage of anxious industrial executives in many countries trying to pretend they do not grasp this elementary concept which is or should be part of the curriculum of entry-level economics courses. Without incorporation of external costs and risk factors, there is no way to allocate resources optimally among alternative projects that utilize various technologies, skill sets and forms of energy. So many bad decisions have been made which results in more pollution, less-advanced technology being developed and deployed, and reduced energy efficiency.

We will not invest one plug-nickel in any company that operates in a smoky gray mode, making money off pursuit of smoky gray commerce. Green advisors like us invest only in entities that actively seek to reduce pollution and are not a shade of gray, or are already clean and green.

In our view of the world, we have always believed at this advisory that talk of more coal or heavy oil is gray nonsense. Time is tight. A way to progress even faster would be to plan and push for a worldwide ban on coal including lignite and bituminous coal and coal-based synthetic fuels. The lone exception for more time for replacement may be for anthracite, hard coking coal to support the steel industry and other metallurgy. Otherwise, coal's time has come and gone. Speaking purely in economic not scientific terms, banning it means that, considering the cost of externalities, coal is already much more expensive than other forms of energy not cheaper, GET it?

We believe most of those involved do GET it. Interestingly, many jurisdictions not faring well in our Eco-Table at this juncture are the same ones who speak out against invoking such a mechanism. We believe there is causation in this correlation. Its because these jurisdictions realize GET will work so there would be significant consequences for them to have to re-engineer their economies away from their current overdose of gray entities contributing heavily to pollution on Earth. Unfortunately, pollution takes its toll across borders, too and there are no customs agents to turn it back at the border. We believe the situation globally is sufficiently grim that criminal sanctions are necessary to bring to justice egregious polluters.

We all need to emerge as global citizens who can empathize with those in other countries, not focus on just their own, and form bonds with this Earth. We cannot allow narrow, envious self-interested parties, greedy, graying money-grubbers, anti-social ultra-nationalists, lackeys of schlerotic institutions, those types of losers, ruin our planet. Globally, our natural capital is severely depleted and degraded already; we are working from a natural debt position now and this year we have yet-another deficit situation.

In our view, potential solutions to stop the ominous and complicated problems of climate change should not be entangled with too many other problems, for example poverty. Or we are never going to get to where we have to be in time. Those pervasive issues have to be solved separately, having to some extent, different imperatives, time frames and mechanisms than what needs to be put in place very soon now globally by governments to halt greenhouse gas emissions buildup, pollution and other environmental degradation, rise in temperature, myriad threats to the survival of many species, spread of disease and extreme weather destruction, etc. If too many objectives are melded, it may make a timely, universal solution overwhelming, beyond reach. There cannot be any further delays to a negotiating process that's already bogged down and too slow and cumbersome. If we have to have unanimity, we could be waiting until the end of time before the political representatives of nearly seven billion people are able to agree. There are many ogres that have come to be and we need to overcome them before they overcome us all. The roadmap to resolve the environmental colossus is to break it down into bite-sized pieces. Metaphorically, are we going to wait for the nincompoop driver of a Studebaker in some neighborhood on this Earth to be able to afford a Prius™, or are we going to force him and his atrocious slagheap off the road now and get him onto a bicycle or horse instead?

Clearly, the magnitude of economic growth as reflected in Pan Geo Investment Global Table© (see Performance Page) does correlate to some extent with countries that end up in Pan Geo Investment Eco Table© below but correlation does not imply causation. We think there is strong evidence that new methods, energy sources, technologies, people and organizations associated with clean and green growth can and will systematically go about solving the world's pollution problems. The key is to accelerate this changeover to be as quick as possible. This implies the need to clear reactionary forces out of the way with fervor or to bring them onside. That the pollution quagmire exists to the extent it does is largely attitudinal. Changing flagrant attitudes, conspicuous consumption, egregious habits and wanton lifestyles will not be a cakewalk for anyone who attempts it. Those who have experienced a luxurious standard of living and leisure, and who have become accustomed to it, taking it for granted, often fight like alley cats before giving up even a smidgeon of their Earthly excesses and transgressions.

We cannot count on any consumer-oriented society to bail us out of our environmental troubles, at least not in a timely fashion. We trust that brainpower, smart regulation, research and development, engineering, technology, manufacturing expertise, venture capital and financial wherewithal will play an instrumental role in getting us all out of the environmental mess we are all in now. As time goes by and the gravity and intractability of climate change and ecological breakdown becomes more and more apparent to one and all, the masses will progressively chime in with wiser marketplace choices and with more frugal and healthy behaviors and lifestyles.

Answers from anywhere and everywhere on Earth are welcome. This includes everybody from Dneprodzerzhinsk to Kota Kinabalu to Shijiazhuang, from Cox's Bazar to Nizhny Novgorod and Xishuangbanna, too. Whiz by Tanjungkarang-Telukbetung to Nakon Ratchasima, past Petropavlovsk-Karnchatskiy and Puerto Santo Tomas de Castilla. We include Yamoussoukro, Tegucigalpa and Shijiazhuang also. From Szekesfehervar to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte to Sri Ganganagar, the heat is on us all to perform, it's not just you. From Kampong Chhnang to Port Muhammed Bin Qasim to Zaporizhzhya, we need your answers also. From Bandar Seri Begawan to Alexandroupolis to Sungaipakning, you're in it along with us. From Comodoro Rivadavia past Antananarivo and Novocheboksarsk, from Narayanganj to Kahramanmaras, it's not too late for us all yet. By Ban Laem Chabang and Afyonkarahisar then Vishakhapatnam, Rachaya al-Foukhar and Konstantinovka, it's not us and them, it's only us. If we do not act with green resolve, the de facto eco-police, our Earth, will somehow be at all of our doorsteps. Marine water will inundate or the air and heat will exhaust and sicken us. Or our water supply will be too contaminated to drink, will have evaporated or become too salty to consume safely. We do not realize yet how far-reaching the implications are of continuing to do things our way when it is not in tune with Mother Nature, being way out of bounds over and over, having committed innumerable infractions.

Ordering our complete solution is referenced in our November 30, 2008 Comment below our Forest Green Eco-touring Countries Table near the top of this webpage. We are not talking about GET mechanisms now. Rather, we are outlining what should be explicitly considered by every country in the framework to solve climate change before things get to the point where many more ecosystems are routed and many more lives are ruined. We want to promote eco-consciousness because we do not want to see the advent of eco-warriors, eco-catastrophe, eco-refugees and more if we fail to address serious eco-problems that are already simmering in many settings around the world. This solution is what we believe forms the basis for a fair and equitable agreement. How do we justify saying who is responsible for cutting back and by how much? Here is a way every country can work together to tamp down pollution. It's important to note that our solution can also be used as a negotiating tool. While we can offer an opinion as to how we would formulate the solution for agreement, it would be the work of many others who could perhaps use it as the foundation for a firm agreement. We believe it's unique. It's designed to solve eco-problems, in particular, the scaling back of greenhouse gas emissions.

In some cases, we feel we have no choice but to hand off to the authorities soot black, smoky gray and murky crimson boxes containing metallic gray memoranda cards illustrated in the table below. Black and dark gray boxes perhaps with pink, purple, mauve or gray lettering, symbolize sickly, chemical-altered sunlight piercing through dark carbon soot and gray smoke in the atmosphere. We also have the smoky-dun grays. We have the oil-sheen purple-black, bitumen tar-black and sooty, coal blacks too. Thick brownish-gray clouds cast a pall over a broad region including parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Afghanistan. The constituents include black carbon, sulphate, nitrate, ozone, various metallic particles and more.

We have used a kind of parched, sun-baked yellow-brown to indicate the threat, reality and affliction of desertification, erosion and water shortages that many countries face. Many of those countries are in Africa. We understand full-well how they are victimized by any increase in average global temperature, never mind an "x" degree rise. Further, yellow haze or sandy dust are now a regular feature of the atmosphere of many countries listed in our Eco-Flags Table including China, Mauritania and Afghanistan. In other bands of this Table, we also mix in a saturated, murky ox-blood red, cadmium or dull red, pink or crimson for visual effect. The use of gaudy pinks, crimson and indigo purple lights are intended to give viewers pause that something is going wrong with the chemistry and pollution enveloping us. Something is amiss. Do we really grasp the speed and extent we are altering our natural environment or are things teetering beyond the scope of our understanding? There is never any harm to come by slowing things down for a period of time to ensure we have a grip on the situation. We're not sure we grasp the dog-eat-dog, old growth style development rush. If creating job "j" implies ecological mayhem at the margin, we do not need that job. Send the bloke back to school with a stack of books until society figures out what else he or she can do that is in harmony with our Earth. The main thing in life is not money, rather its being in tune with the natural world, the real world. Unfortunately, current economic paradigms and models are silent about that so there is an artificiality to the discipline that is not working out too well presently. Frankly, we shudder to hear conventional, old world economists talk and analyze while still apparently oblivious to environmental and health and wellness factors, issues and imperatives. This is 2010. Our survivability depends on us en masse closing the window on the past and arriving at the door to the future.

In the real world, we would like to see lots of white or light pastel colors to enhance reflectivity of light and heat and cool things down. White roofs, white houses, light-colored or pastel-colored houses, buildings, vehicles, pavement and clothes. Think twice before selecting saturated-color paints, tiles, dyes, pigments, garments and fabrics. Driving over a light-gray concrete highway made from clean, green cement is a much better option these days than taking another power drive down that tarry, hot, dark asphalt-laden I-Lost-Hope freeway. We sincerely hope asphalt, asphalt-based and tar plus bitumen shingles are not among citizen,"c" 's  options for roofing material. Better to wait for next generation gel-based ones that change color to white and thereby increase reflectivity of sunlight as temperature rises. We believe climate-warming could develop into a game of inches where we're all involved in a kind of goal-line stand to stop the planet from heating up beyond some crazy tipping point that would be lethal to many lives. So let's learn to do without the asphalt driveway with coal tar sealant, please and thank you.

See Investigations1, Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 pages to see our Eco-Table with Eco-Flags. In short, it represents our rendition of our historic and unprecedented descent into the murky, risky and uncertain depths of the unknown ramifications arising from polluting our planet. The astounding biodiversity we have all been blessed with came about over long periods of time as a function of global temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, etc regimes and, of course, many other variables, too. We have decided only quite recently, on a de facto basis, to start monkeying with those weather conditions and biochemical imperatives that may prove to be essential for biodiversity and quality of life. Just what will the outcome be for our children, our children's children and so on through the chain of life, for other species, for developing potential medicines and therapeutics, for preventing the spread of disease and poverty and for ensuring the safety of our drinking water and the food web? Does anybody really have a trajectory on the vast implications of what we are doing when we recklessly strip from, unduly contaminate, dry out, heat up, or eco-pressure the life from, the Earth's delicately balanced and magnificently intertwined ecosystems.

Pan Geo Investment Inc., a trusted advisory for the new millennium, has been producing globally-integrated portfolio investment evaluations transparently using our exclusive, proprietary software since 1991, the dawn of the Internet.

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Acknowledgements and Gratitude:  We are grateful to and acknowledge the Government of United States of America as an important source for key input data utilized in production of Pan Geo Investment Eco Table©. The World Resources Institute report on the environment from 2005 was an important reference on cumulative, historic emissions for many countries. Nevertheless, any opinions expressed, interpretations or rendering of information presented on this web page are entirely that of Pan Geo Investment Inc. performing its role as an independent investment advisor and analyst. Accordingly, Pan Geo Investment Inc. is solely responsible for same.