Marketing and Alternative Energy

Many people tell me that raising their children is their way of doing something good for this world. With the approaching birth of my daughter, I have indeed begun to look at the world in a new way, and given a long thought as to how my wife and I may do good. News of war, famine, disease, and climate collapse falls in a new light now that I am responsible for shaping a new human life. With so many idealogical evils afoot, raising an individual with the capacity for compassion and positive change will be no small feat.

Unfortunately for most of us, we can’t start from scratch. The adults of the world have a difficult time realigning our belief systems, broadening their perspective on new technology, and adapting to idealogical shifts in the cultural atmosphere. It is human nature in a sense, to stick with what you believe in and approach new events within the context of your past experiences. It’s something that sustained man through the cave years to the present day, and it will take a hell of a lot of work to shift it on a global scale. But it’s not impossible.

Of particular import to me is the environment. I can’t even fathom a day when the natural experience that helped shape my young life will no longer exist. Nature is amazing in its raw complexity and beauty and it must be experienced to be appreciated.

There are some things that need to happen in order to sustain our planet’s natural beauty. Fossil Fuel consumption must be slashed, natural resources must be allowed to remain in tact, pollution must be eliminated or removed, and all while our economic interests shift to accommodate such change. There is an amazing power within the marketplace to drive innovation, but only when the conditions are right.

As of now, large companies who are responsible for delivering energy to the public are hesitant to invest in emerging technology because demand is unreliable and the capital investment necessary for the delivery infrastructure is often prohibitive. Businesses are the largest polluters, as opposed to civilians. The technology is here: alternative and hyper-efficient fuels can already make a significant impact on existing industry.

There is a terrible Catch-22 at hand: Industries don’t want to market green products because they believe demand is weak. Demand barely rises because the marketplace is not making new green products available or attractive.

Energy companies are huge. They don’t just have a lot of staff or a lot of offices, they of course have a lot of money. And like most industries, they work hard to make money, and avoid situations that involve losing it.

Energy companies are some of the biggest players in the theatre of global warming and pollution. Strangely enough, this dangerous dominance puts them in the bet position to profit from the global trend of climate change. Whether it’s wind power generation by electric companies of biodiesel distribution by oil companies,

Why would anyone want to help out the energy companies? It isn’t really helping them. Consider it an exercise in the fine art of inevitability management. Those who pursue alternative energy will have to deal with Big Energy in some capacity, whether as a competitor, ally, enemy, or business partner. The energy companies will only shift an increasing share of their business

People love their stuff. Especially in the US.

There are some things that I am tired of seeing in marketing. One thing is cute commercials for oil companies.

The above ad simply adds fuel to the fire, as far as I see it. An attempt to use ‘cute’ in the wake of well-documented greed and exploitation. Corporate entities whose profits soar while the average person struggles at the pump are committing a double crime of conscience.

The sad part is, we need gas. We need to fuel our cars and lawnmowers and commercial jets and ATVs and jet skis and all the other internal-combustion amenities we hold so dear. And we use additional fossil fuels to light our homes, heat our water, and even power the gas pumps. The petro-socio-economic complex is real and it has interwoven into everyone’s life in intimate ways.

While executives reap tremendous rewards in the form of bonuses and wider profit margins, the employees lower on the totem pole also rely on the oil economy for their livelyhood. I have a very clear perspective on what it’s like to work for an industry that you do not admire, but feel you cannot leave because work can be scarce. Oil, people, and money; they need each other.

What if one part of that triangle fell out of place? What if the money dried up? There would be no industry and thousands would lose their jobs while the economy as a whole would suffer.

What if there were no people to buy gas, or work for these companies? The industry would collapse and thousands would be left jobless.

But what if there were no oil? What if we simply replaced the word “oil” with the word “energy”? It’s not a power company or an oil company, but a company that has a broad-based mission to create and acquire technology that produces and distributes energy, without the complications associated with our current petro-economic situation.

British Petroleum, the same firm with the cutesy animated ad, above, used to run ads that highlighted how much they had spent on biodiesel, solar power, and environmental protection.

The larger challenge lies not in the creating technology with little to no environmental impact, but in the institutional inertia of our petro-economic symbiosis between corporate oil giants and individual consumers.

On the one hand, we must change. We made a poor decision and we are now paying the price Gasoline is eating away at the fabric of the environment

From climatecrisis.net:

• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.
• Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.
• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.
• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

The environmental crisis facing humanity is nearly impossible to comprehend in both scope and depth. This is not a case for fearing the future. It is instead a case for addressing the needs of a growing population that must reverse its lifelong effect on the natural world.