For the first 36 years of my environmental career, I accepted that, while the solutions I advocated would be good for both society and the economy in the long term, in the shorter term I was asking this generation to make sacrifices for the benefit of their children.
In 2006, as the clean energy revolution began to take hold, I had to reconsider my opinion. Short-term thinking does drive pollution, waste, climate risk, community and ecosystem degradation but the bigger problem is short-termism caused by corporate America's obsession with quarterly earnings and executives fixated on maximizing personal returns and stock options before they retire - even at enormous overall cost to the economy for both this generation and our children and grandchildren.
Indeed, most Americans have no idea just how short-term our capital markets have become. In a recent rebuttal to the charge that hedge funds seek short-term gains with long-term risks, New York Times business writer Stephen Davidoff claimed as progress the fact that "The average activist hedge fund actually holds shares in a company for 20 months, according to one study".
See full Article: http://www.ceres.org/press/blog-posts/ceres-eliminating-corporate-short-termism-on-climate-change
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