According to Steven Cohen over at the Huffington Post, the
transition to a sustainable economy may happen without the government. Cohen is the executive director of Columbia
University’s Earth Institute and he is amazed that anyone, especially politicians
supposedly in charge of our best interest, could possibly deny climate
change.
However, he does feel a bit of hope when he looks at groups
outside of the federal government.
Columbia University, for example has just started a partnership with the
Earth Institute to field a new concentration in environmental policy and
sustainability management along with their decade old MPA in Environmental
Science and Policy. They even have their
own graduate level certificate program in Sustainability Analytics.
Cohen also mentions other agencies at work. People like Mayor Bloomberg, who have beenmoving for urban sustainability, or companies like KKR who recently released
their second Environmental, Social and Governance Report where he quotes a
letter by Henry Kravis and George Roberts explaining how businesses are looking
beyond the PR value of growing green into the tangible benefits of
sustainability.
Given how the federal government is working, it may be up to
individuals like these to make sure that sustainability becomes a reality.
“The planet is under stress and the
path to a prosperous future is to make the transition to a sustainable
economy,” Steven Cohen explains. “The planet Earth is truly the gift that can
keep on giving. The transition to a renewable, sustainable economy is underway;
maybe not in Washington, but pretty much everywhere else.”
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