Corporations Need to Start Thinking About Climate Change

Remember those carefree days of 25 years ago when you would go into the local travel agency to book a flight and hotel in a far off land or a strange part of this country?  They knew the good deals and they knew where were the best places to stay.  Then if you got stuck in a foreign country because of, lets say, a hurricane, they would do their best to get you home.  If you don't remember these times check out The Americans TV show, because travel agent is the front jobs that the two Soviet spies use in the series to stay off the radar of their FBI neighbor.

Those were good times when you could reach a human on the telephone and they may in fact work in the United States.  All the travel agencies including those that were fronts for spies were put out of business by the big bad on-line experience.  As has happened with record companies, book stores, and video stores, travel agents were gobbled up by big corporations who distribute that service via the internet. But are they prepared for facing down Mother Nature?

In a time of climate change when storms are bigger and more frequent, are these companies ready for once in 500 year floods, hurricanes and earthquakes that seem to happen every 10 years now?  The internet based travel companies need to hire a Vice President for Climate Change/Disasters.  Their customers are getting stuck on islands that they can not get out of or are cut off from the rest of humanity because of a flood.  They need help and right now, and corporations are not prepared to help.  They need to establish a procedure for assigning staff to get their clients into a safe place and home as quickly as possible.  They could provide a vulnerability index for how safe places are to climate change; how secure is their infrastructure; and how prepared are these places to natural disasters.   Those who want to vacation in a place with a higher vulnerability would need to pay a slight surcharge to compensate these companies for rescuing travelers.  They could set up procedures if their customers are facing a natural disaster.  They could help with relocation when a customer is dealing with no power and sporadic cell service where they are vacationing.

These companies could publish these vulnerability indexes which may prompt locals to do more to fix their infrastructure or better prepare for disasters.  Would large hotel corporations and airlines want to see a 5% climate change vulnerability fee attached to every room or seat? Tourists should not be in the way when a country or city is dealing with keeping the population safe.  There may be seasonal increases in the price of a hotel/airfare during hurricane season as a form of rescue insurance.  I would have paid more for my ticket if I could be assured that the group that booked my trip would charter a flight off the island.  They could incorporate this into their advertising..."We will get you home."  They would need to set up a special team to work to get people safe with an expertise on disaster planning and relief.  With all the epic disasters, there is a lot of expertise in the United States on evacuations and finding safety when the infrastructure collapses.

People are going to begin demanding that these companies respond appropriately as the disasters grow in strength and numbers.  They will need to put plans in place to shelter in place, evacuate, and think creatively about helping their customers.  Some of these companies are going to see the writing on the wall and then the rest will have to follow.  Other industries will have to follow as well.

By Brian Davis