If you understand cash flow you understand climate change

For a small business such as ours maintaining a healthy cash flow is a must. Cash comes into the business when invoices are paid. A recent survey showed that Australian businesses were on average now waiting 58 days for invoices to be paid. This means that for most businesses the cash that will come into the business in April is dependent on what the business invoices now in February. There is lag between when the work is done and when it is paid for. Failure to invoice enough in February could result in a business running out of cash in April. And when there is no cash, there is no business.

Climate change is similar. The carbon we put into the atmosphere now influences the climate well into the future. However rather that a time span of weeks or months, its decades. Todays carbon emissions will influence the climate for decades to come. So to get a stable climate in the future we need to cut greenhouse gas pollution NOW.

Many years ago a friend “temporarily” left the shell of a model T Ford in my front yard as he had no space to store it. Its still there. I haven’t asked my friend to take it away because it reminds me that some of the carbon that car generated over its lifetime is still in the atmosphere driving climate change.

Since climate change is like cash flow, if we want a stable climate as we grow older, and for the sake of our children and grandchildren, we need to be acting now.