Big idea guy and self-described “Adventure Capitalist” Spin Williams has been watching the weather for an investment opportunity. I have a feeling he’ll soon be underwriting shovel brigades on the Russian tundra.
Here at the meeting that never ends, we’re excited to hear about the tremendous blizzard hitting the East Coast. For that matter, we’re thrilled about all the other blizzards and prodigious snowfalls that have been happening worldwide, causing droopy domes, travel problems and airports that resemble youth hostels with people sleeping everywhere! What fun!
And I don’t say that just because I’m in sunny California. Los Angeles hasn’t been very sunny of late, what with all the pre-melted blizzards we’ve had in the past few weeks. They arrive like they have been shot out of a fire hose. Whee!
But anyone who knows me also knows I’m always looking for something new – something that affects the way people see the world and alters their behavior. The leading edge of change – that’s where I make my living.
The thing that caught my attention was this commentary in the New York Times where a climate scientist named Judah Cohen makes the case that global warming is actually the cause of this recent wave of extreme wintry weather. Warmth leading to cold? Consider my mind officially boggled! And not only that – he contends that one key, but overlooked, aspect of the Rube Goldberg Contraption that is our world’s weather is the snow cover in Siberia!
I’ll spare you a detailed explanation, but basically the bowling ball of melting polar ice runs into the plate glass window of atmospheric moisture, releasing the swinging weight of increased precipitation which, in it’s pendulum-like rocking, pulls back the spring loaded boot of Siberian snow cover, which kicks down the line of dominos that is the jet stream, toppling the last domino into a confetti- filled bowl that represents the arctic air mass which then jiggles its way down the slippery ramp that doubles as the face of North America, tripping a switch that starts the table fan of colliding cold and moist weather systems, thereby tipping the bowl over in front of the aforementioned fan, which leads to a sudden explosion of white flecks everywhere in the room.
Or something like that.
Anyway, my “take away” from Mr. Cohen’s article is this – if we want to clear the snowy streets of New York in December, we have to dig out Novosibirsk in November. And I don’t mean plowing out the major arterials, I mean de-icing and un-whitifying the whole place. Maybe you do it with massive trucks and salt, or shovels, or flamethrowers. I don’t know. Or else you cover over that reflective snow with big solar energy absorbing fabric panels, like the fence that guy Christo put up.
Is it a big job? Sure, but by taking on the big jobs, you can make a big difference! Here’s the encouraging part – Russian snowplow drivers are a lot cheaper to hire then the ones that work for NYC. And they’re already positioned right where we need them! Finally, a kind of “outsourcing” that really makes sense!
How many hundreds of millions would businesses and residents along the prosperous north east coast of the USA pay to avoid what they’re going through today? Heck, if we could just get the financiers on Wall Street and the cast of Jersey Shore to put up a small portion of their combined wealth, I’ll bet The Siberian Sunshine Company (TM) would turn an immediate profit! Investors, form a line!
Another over-the-top notion from a guy who never stops figuring the angles. My only “take away” from Spin’s idea is that the world’s weather could have been designed by Rube Goldberg. Interesting concept, but probably not even close to the truth. Winter weather is much more complicated and a lot less fun than Goldberg contraptions, which are only baffling for the sake of being baffling, and typically do not lead to the shut down of major cities.
What part of your life is Rube Goldberg-esque?
