The government hast to take the long view, Moriarty says.

Question: Should the government be doing more to help the environment?

Jim Moriarty: The government has a really difficult task in the long view. Probably the largest goal that they have is to- is just personal safety and then after safety, freedom, and then after freedoms, prosperity, are people earning enough, can they all read, and all those kinds of things, do the sewers work, does the infrastructure work, etc. And somewhere in the midst of that whole thing is the almost environmental framework, is the planet changing, are we degrading the planet over this 365 days of this one single year of someone in office? So yeah, governments absolutely have a role to preserve the environment but it’s not just their role and it’s obviously not the only role that they fulfill so I don’t- I’m not someone who puts a huge amount of emphasis and-- I absolutely believe that there should be carbon taxes, there should be a price on carbon, there should be very specific things that the government must lead, but in the end I’m putting- I’m betting on business, I’m betting on industry, because they have the cash, they’re going to get it done, and they’re going to make money doing it, which is why they’re going to get it done. If they don’t get it done, they won’t make money. So if the government doesn’t get it done, they still make money

Recorded on: 9/27/07