Today was a great day, and a microcosm of how I think we can succeed in our mitigation of climate change and energy price increases. The exciting events took place in the Triangle area of my home state of North Carolina, and showed that even for-profit private companies can aim for the greater good at times. I met with fellow part-owners in Greenway Transit, LLC, a company dedicated to bringing sustainable transportation options like pedicabs and biofuel rides to the communities of Chapel Hill/Carrboro and Durham. We then drove over to Raleigh to meet with leaders of a similar company serving our neighbors, Raleigh Rickshaw. We could have had a competitive attitude that prevented us from sharing helpful tips essential for success — but instead we decided to focus on how our skills and resources could enable both companies to achieve their potential.
In fact, we came out of the lunch meeting with a plan to partner so that each of us benefit as much as possible, and the climate, local air quality, and transportation consumers will hopefully all be better for it. Raleigh Rickshaw has a great operation that features almost 20 rickshaws powered by dozens of drivers. Greenway has a lot to learn from them, and I hope we can help teach them from what we have learned over the years as well. It’s the type of partnership that I hope can continue to spread throughout the private and public sectors so that we can muster enough resources and will to lower greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs for people in the US and throughout the world. We will see if we can get the international post-Kyoto process to achieve mutually beneficial reductions in GHGs aggressive enough to prevent dangerous tipping points from being passed (like the full melting of Greenland or the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf).
In other news, Dell announced that it has achieved carbon neutrality in its operations — a milestone that is an inspiring model for other companies, campuses, and other institutions (and of course an achievement that takes independent verification to ensure that such victories are indeed victories and not greenwash).
Also, the EIA reported that weekly US stockpiles of petroleum remained below average after crude oil and distillates inventories grew but gasoline fell. The lack of a clear bullish signal allowed the market to let oil continue its slow downward trajectory as gasoline moves toward $3.50 and diesel toward $4 at the pump. As the natural gas figures come out and the hurricane season continues, we will see how the prices develop.
Tags: bicycles, climate cooperation, Dell, Oil