Hummers: Our response to climate change?

Naomi Klein writes in The Nation today about two "growth industries" -- green technology and homeland security -- noting that last year, by revenue, they were neck and neck, and this year homeland security is seen as the better investment:

The market, however, appears to have other ideas about how to meet the challenges of an increasingly disaster-prone world. According to Lloyd, despite all the government incentives, the really big money is turning away from clean energy technologies and banking instead on gadgets promising to seal wealthy countries and individuals into high-tech fortresses. Key growth areas in venture capitalism are private security firms selling surveillance gear and privatized emergency response. Put simply, in the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and guns and garrisons on the other--and the guns are winning.

According to Venture Business Research, in 2006 North American and European companies developing green technology and those focused on "homeland security" and weaponry were neck and neck in the contest for new investment: green tech received $3.5 billion, and so did the guns and garrisons sector. But this year garrisons have suddenly leapt ahead. The greens have received $4.2 billion, while the garrisons have nearly doubled their money, collecting $6 billion in new investment funds. And 2007 isn't over yet.

Klein notes that there is more profit in continuous protection, recurring escape, and privatized emergency response -- just what we need: a "pay to save" emergency management program! -- than in investing to mitigate the hazard and reduce risk. This is similar to the argument that pharmaceutical companies focus on developing drugs that treat symptoms, rather than eradicate disease.

This "disaster capitalism" trend (as Klein calls it) is summed up well by HOPE: Hummer Owners Prepared for Emergencies. Buy a Hummer so you can save people from the floods resulting from the more severe and frequent storms caused by high CO2 emissions from your Hummer!

I do agree with Klein's general argument here. But one thing she leaves untouched is the fact that even those who are investing in "green technologies" are taking a similar for-profit, silver-bullet approach, rather than "investing" in behavior changes that require no new technologies and won't make much money for anyone (but will still reduce our risk of disaster).