Wake Up Geek Peeps, all the money is in the GreenScam!

Met up with a friend of mine from the Web 1.0 days yesterday, and we were talking about today's bubbles - and we had both come to the observation that Tech Bubble 2.0 was small beer compared to the GreenScam.

To explain - The Web 1.0 bubble was essentially the parting of the mass consumer from their money via IPO and dotcom trading fever of ludicrously overvalued small tech companies that had made no profits. "Web 2.0" is still essentially about the parting of large corporates from their money via acquisition of........

But (as yet) the consumer's dumb money is not involved, except if they hold shares in said corporates.

No, the real consumer scam today is the GreenScam, where by a combination of playing on their altruism and guilt, consumers are being plundered anew.

And not just consumers - we have seen a rise in the number of "Green Consultancies" visiting our clients, promising penances, salvation and Marketing Goodness via Carbon Neutrality in terms that would make even the most ardent web 2.0 PR blush. Some of the presentations are just laughable* - as the Sunday Times noted on the weekend, this is largely just another unregulated Financial Services business. (Can't ref that article online, but here is the Beeb on the subject). Nothing new there then.....Double Glazing by another name.

And Politicians seem keen to get in on the act today, legislating away on politically popular but extremely irrelevant things - or just doing it plain wrong. Take the Air Travel Green Tax...to quote the Sunday Times again

The Stern review noted that air travel is responsible for 1.6 per cent of global emissions; companies operating to and from this country are blamed for 0.1 per cent of the total. This is not a large number and it pales into insignificance when compared with the amount of household energy that is wasted. The notion, which Mr Osborne apparently holds, that airline emissions could account for a quarter of Britain’s carbon sum by 2050 requires extrapolation that Thomas Malthus on speed could not come up with.

By the way, did you know these numbers:

Total Manmade % of Global Emissions - c 5% - or 0.1% if you include water vapour as the main contributor to the greenhouse effect
Total UK proportion of that - c 2% (The US is about 25%, China 15% etc etc)

Of the UK's proportion, the bit the consumer is responsible for (directly plus indirectly) is about 180 M tons out of about 550 for the UK overall - i.e. c 33% (being very generous, this is direct plus indirect after a ll) - so where is HMGov putting its weight today - right...that 33% who can't hire lawyers, lobbyists etc to escape - i.e YOU. And the "£$%^ Media comes out with supporting stuff like this.. When there is an obvious 80/20, clearly a focus on the 20 is the key!

No, the way to really do it is to cut Industry's output - and that really means not buying the products they so desperately want you to buy - or, more accurately, not replacing them at such a high rate.

Take cars. You want to be a really green driver? Just don't buy a new car. The energy involved in manufacturing a brand new "green car" absolutely dwarfs the energy you will save by driving it on its lower fuel consumption. But for some reason the government seems less keen on that path, in fact some years ago this same Govt. froze the year in which classic car status was given (this allows you a few economic benefits eg no road tax). Go figure...

And this is all bad for us NetHeads, because every buck spent on the GreenScam is not being spent on Bubble 2.0! And if one really is going to close down all that energy guzzling industry, we need stuff to make money from, and consume all that Green electricity.

The problem is, we are not organised. Web Workers of the World, events will overtake us unless we unite our Social Networks into one large Open ID Brotherhood.

We need a Manifesto!

We demand tax benefits for 'Net companies as we are greener than green!

All airline taxes should be used to fund Web technologies

Ditto car emission taxes

Lattes should be tax deductable

(Addendum after an email exchange - the serious point being made behind the flippancy is that the Green Web is potentially a major part of the solution, but its benefit is being drowned out by a host of other parties, many seeking s[ecial benefits for themselves which will skew investment )

So, do your bit for the Green Web - generate some User Content to your MP! Celebrate the Geek! We are one of the greenest industries around - an hour on the World of Warcraft is an hour not travelling and polluting (though easy on the Second Life, OK?).

* For my sins I studied Mechanical Engineering as my 1st degree, a few quick calcs on the back of the presentation allows me to work out that many of these schemes - much like wind farms when "externalities" are considered - pay back outside a human lifespan - talk about long term investments......

(A footnote - in my student days being "green" rivalled being a computer geek for social nerdiness (yes, I read all the Club of Rome stuff, E F Schumacher etc etc). But in the last 5 or so years the pendulum has totally flipped, and the amount of commercial humbug now being generated in the name of "greenness" is as scary as the commercial antipathy was then - a lot of the greenstuff being pushed today is at best ineffective, much is downright scandalous - but to say so risks putting oneself again beyond the Social (and Religious?) Pale. It seems impossible to have policies that tread the happy medium. Maybe the social media side of Web 2.0 will enable the the Wisdom of Crowds to surface, but... )