We Are Destroying The Planet?! 1 $€€ M0N€¥!

(In case your browser doesn't interpret the title correctly, it says, "We Are Destroying The Planet?! I SEE MONEY!" but with various currency symbols and numbers instead of letters.)

I can't quite believe that I saw this article from BusinessWeek today. Because I'm somewhat speechless, I'm just going to quote the first bit of the article and let it speak for itself:

Set aside, for now, the really complex and costly financial implications of climate change. Ignore the tricky abstractions of carbon trading. Forget the worries over flooded cities and the ins and outs of renewable energy.

Instead, consider just a few everyday money-making ideas created by the warming of our planet. For example, oenophiles could short the stocks of vintners in drought-prone areas such as Australia or California and bet on upstarts in Canada and England, where new wineries are sprouting as temperatures rise. Or, since ski resorts are seeing less and less snow, it might make sense to buy and hold manufacturers of snowmakers.

Of course, the potential of climate-change investing goes far beyond mere curiosities. A growing number of advisers to big institutional investors and high-net-worth types are sizing up companies based on how likely they are to benefit from rising energy prices, stricter regulations, and changes to the natural world ranging from freshwater shortages to new disease patterns and more chaotic weather.

'Nuff said.

Humanity's "Progress": Creativity, Tools, or Sheer Population?

Picture progress' progress over, say, the past 500 years. Without computers, we did amazing things. With computers, we've done more amazing things. But, how much progress is due to technology, and how much is due to individual creativity, and how much is due to the pure number of humans increasing?

Meaning: Leonardo da Vinci thought, drew, painted, and built amazing things. One guy, without a computer. Radio and television were developed, as well as computers, using vacuum tubes and slide rules. The first successful small computers were built in garages and small, run-down warehouses, by very few people.

But, find things that are coming out now: biotech, software, whatever. In many cases, it's not "just one person" doing it, but a team or a company, or a country. Is that due to sheer numbers of people being thrown at the problem? Are we becoming more stupid because we each, individually, have to give less to have a project succeed when there are multitudes working on it?

Maybe we need to return to slide rules and hand-mixed paints, and using our own minds instead of computers.