http://www.marcgunther.com/2007/04/21/lobbyists-pest-control-and-dikes/ This blog is about the impact of business on society. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:14:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.marcgunther.com/2007/04/21/lobbyists-pest-control-and-dikes/comment-page-1/#comment-5545 Tom Konrad Sun, 22 Apr 2007 13:23:54 +0000 http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=173#comment-5545 One of my more climate-worried frieds told me he wanted to buy real-estate puts (options that produce a profit when prices go down) for coastal cities in prepartaion for coastal flooding. Un?fortunately, currently avialable real estate options expire within 9 months, which is a little short of a time frame for serious coastal flooding, even by his pessimistic estimation. So I suggested the dikes idea to him... your got me thinking about it again... I need to do more research on this, but I've noticed that one advantage of renewable energy technologies when compared to adaption technologies for the investor is that it's easier to identify companies which will benefit. Adaption will probably be a great opportunity for contractor, but most contracting companies are small, local, and/or privately held. Denver has a great one, CH2MHill, that does projects across the world, and I know their CEO "gets" climate change (he was taking about sustainability in the early 1990s)but they are unforatunately for outside investors, private. I think dikes are going to be a great business opportunity, but not necessarily a great investment opportunity: their low-tech nature means that there are insuffient barriesr to entry. One of my more climate-worried frieds told me he wanted to buy real-estate puts (options that produce a profit when prices go down) for coastal cities in prepartaion for coastal flooding. Un?fortunately, currently avialable real estate options expire within 9 months, which is a little short of a time frame for serious coastal flooding, even by his pessimistic estimation. So I suggested the dikes idea to him… your got me thinking about it again… I need to do more research on this, but I’ve noticed that one advantage of renewable energy technologies when compared to adaption technologies for the investor is that it’s easier to identify companies which will benefit. Adaption will probably be a great opportunity for contractor, but most contracting companies are small, local, and/or privately held. Denver has a great one, CH2MHill, that does projects across the world, and I know their CEO “gets” climate change (he was taking about sustainability in the early 1990s)but they are unforatunately for outside investors, private. I think dikes are going to be a great business opportunity, but not necessarily a great investment opportunity: their low-tech nature means that there are insuffient barriesr to entry.

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