The Climate Macroeconomic Megatrend. A Virtuous Carbon Cycle

1. Public finally recognises quality of life, safe society and an efficient economy trumps status and prejudice. Accepts this personal social responsibility. Acts, Lobbies and Votes low carbon
2. Government takes this electoral confidence signal. Accepts its leadership responsibility. Strongly regulates, incentivises, hypothecates low carbon
3. Business sees this clear price signal. Accepts the business responsibility to innovate. Plans long term business around low carbon goods and services
4. Public consumes more low carbon goods and services. Go back to 1

Dealing with climate starts with the individual. This can be strongly reinforced with leadership from the Government who can then regulate. Following this signal Business can then innovate confident about future fixed, less volatile and regulated price factors. The risk is lower, people can make the big calls with less chance of losing their job over it.

Key is for the public to start this virtuous circle by lobbying and voting for the real climate leaders. They can also lead themselves by creating the demand and by committing to pay the price for low carbon goods and services. This is only the case for an overwhelming minority today.

Presently the public want low carbon goods so they can feel good about it, but they are not willing to pay. Business wants profit so must wait for the early adopters to take the lead. Government leads slightly ahead of the public, slightly behind business. so we are in a stale mate

We all have plenty of carrots. More carrots will not move people as is seen with the price of fuel. Its inelastic. Sticks are now needed to make the change. Public and business will accept stick if it is both reasonable, fair and most of all they trust the leadership whipping them with it. Political levers such as the Conservative IHT promise are really not the right way to win public trust. They merely reinforce public opinion of poor leadership.

Climate Leadership Responsibilities

Climate is a Human Problem. Technology and economics are the easy parts. We either have the tools to revolve this or we do not. If we do not we are hosed anyway. If we do, the political decisions needed to move the global public and commerce to resolving action is what we should be undertaking right now.

The problem I have with this is I also believe the public are the beginning of a virtuous circle to climate success. But our leaders, prior to this, must first deliver us from prejudice. This means accepting responsibility rather than blaming others. Uniting people rather than dividing them. All things that are rarely undertaken by today's leaders, especially prior to important political events such as elections. The times when the public is most acutely aware of the state, its administration and how much to trust it.

For politicians this means commencing a courageous journey to the Undiscovered Country. An imaginary place where we have given up our prejudices and finally learned to get on with one another as global citizens.

Of course the alternative is much more costly and painful but may be of equal merit to the biosphere and perhaps civilisation in Darwinian terms. There will be fewer mouths to feed, fewer cars to fuel, fewer homes to heat and cool.

Should Politicians Really Get all the Blame?

Or is it time for the public to accept responsibility too. As prot said on his visit from K-PAX, “Don’t blame the politicians for your problems. They are merely a reflection of yourselves.”

I guess it's a question of enough of the public accepting the situation and pressing the politicians to act and enough politicians accepting the situation and having the confidence that the public will back them when they act. So far there is little acceptance in public due to wealth factors, thus the politicians are not confident they will get backing if they act.

In a democracy the government can only lead at the margin without risking getting voted out. Some might think our reaction to a politician who makes a small tentative shuffle in the right direction should be to say 'Well done, that's great. Now can you go a bit further, by teatime please'. Others recognise we don't have time to play around waiting for selfish public and weak leaders to make the call.

I’m with the latter based on historic human behaviour.

Wealth Denial is Analogous to Carbon Denial

Why do so many of us lie to ourselves and each other about the money in our pocket? According to Ms Dawson, it's because our financial wealth is perceived to reflect our social and mental health. She explains: "It isn't surprising that ‘money' is such an emotive issue, because how we manage our money is a reflection of how well we're seen to be coping with life in general. "We lie about our financial problems in order to save face, and to avoid being regarded as greedy, disorganised, naïve or out-of-control - all traits associated with over-spending or financial mismanagement."

The same could be said about our use of fossil fuels across the spectrum, individual to organisation to government to state. All of us dare not reveal their carbon footprint. It just looks too bad.

Climate Sceptics, We Need 'Em

First we denied that the globe was warming much faster than it should. Then we denied that it was mankind causing this effect. The latter is now the centrepiece of the denial lobby. So what. The science is overwhelming and therefore a sensible society should take measures to reverse the damage... Or should it?

There is a new kind of sceptic emerging that is saying that we should not do anything, whether climate change is manmade or not. Don't get me wrong, I like sceptics. Coming from a marketing background I know all too well that as soon as you start believing your own BS, you know you are in trouble. Sceptics keep us on track to the truth because they are rational people who debate in a realistic way and help us to actually question our own marketing. Its the deniers who are so dangerous because their lobby is purely dogmatic, emotional and usually with a disconnected political agenda.

When a species or society exploits an unrestricted and limited natural resource, eventually it will fail and the outcomes are in the lap of the gods... or Darwin. This is commonly known as "The Tragedy of the Commons" and the exploitation of the biosphere to sink our unrestricted carbon emissions has now reached such a limit and apparently we are soon to pay the price through rapid and dangerous warming.

These new sceptics are claiming that climate change is the biospheres way of delivering a "natural cull", much like plagues and wars have done in the past. And we should let it get on with it. This seems hugely callous, and who says so and who says who gets to survive. In the past its always been natural selection. Maybe its the same here too. Equity once again does not get a look in, and again who says that we are all born equal.

I don't accept the above equity argument but at the same time I have no rationale to deny its unfair either. There's a huge amount of unfairness in life that is completely overlooked by even the most kind of citizens. Often we do not realise by living like we do we are punishing someone out of sight, out of mind. But at the same time we do not look far for those we could easily help.

My view right now on the outcomes of climate change on civilisation are those that are abundant, wealthy, flexible and adaptable enough will make it through quite easily. The rest will be the victims of evolution

Who Cares About the Climate Anyway

Following conversations with several friends recently, who are generally good people, but refuse to limit their excess use of carbon, usually with the excuse that they don't really care, I decided to have a deeper think about why they were adopting this classic form of psychological denial.
Normally its used as a means to deny its their problem simply by saying they don't care. That way they have put themselves in a position that means this existential threat no longer hurts them or makes them feel directly uncomfortable and they can continue doing those things that are the root cause of the emotion in the first place. I suspect they are risking that some magic is going to resolve any problems between now and when any climate fallout affects them directly. Its a good bet I guess.

So I needed to discover why this was and if there was any reasonable rationale for the behaviour. It came to me the other day after reading a report called the "State of the Future in The Guardian about how organised crime is by far the biggest threat to our future alongside climate change and access to decent water

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2167270,00.html

But the trigger in the report was not the leader. It went on to say that there are now 27 million people held in slavery, more than during the slave trade and the majority Asian women. So I thought why are we not doing anything about this. And to my point, why do we still not care about slaves given the dramatic scale of the problem and the shameful history still bearing down on those of us still reaping the fruits of that vile trade. Well I don't have the answer about our selfishness here. But it does tell me that its not the only thing we don't care about.

Its an obtuse thing to deny the logic behind climate science's claim to anthropogenic climate change these days. Its clear to me that any remaining denial is purely political, emotional and influenced largely by prejudice. Logic and science do not come into it. For me this is almost certain behaviour

So people only care about things that are immediate and close to us, things that will affect our livelihood or safety directly. Remote dangers and injustices, no matter how big, that fall outside our immediate sphere of comfort are clearly not that important to us. We really don't actually care about them or the outcomes of future generations. I suspect this is ultimately because we do not need to care about the social well being of others any more. We are all wealthy enough not to have to rely on the help of others.

Its still difficult to explain this complex argument to my friends without hurting their feelings though. One statement always does get them thinking though:

Our fun loving lifestyle of travel, homes and leisure means that the climate issue will be resolved by Darwin

One World Cafe Opens

Wednesday 11th July, One World Cafe, Leigh Street, London WC1H 9EW

09:30am - Meeting Opening, informal introductions.
09:45am - Steve Burak, Introduction to 'One World' Centre
09:50am - Stephen Stretton about the climate change think tank & campaign for stronger targets.
10:00am - Prof. David MacKay (Physics Department) - Energy and Climate Change
10:15am - Colin Challen MP - Speech & Opening of Shop
10:30am - Tea break 11am - Informal discussion about the programme for the think tank & the One World climate change centre.
11:30am - Dr Adrian Wrigley - The taxation system and how it can be fixed.
12:00am Questions, discussion
12:30am Close

7pm Celebratory Party Begins.

This Climate Thing is a Lot of Fun

Here are some questions that are pressing on my mind. Difficult, fundamental and nearly always ignored. I'll be blogging them one by one as soon as I can. We open the "One World" think shop Wednesday, I start consulting as Energy Officer for the local authority this week, have a Carbon Rationing Action Group to launch on Wednesday for the Maidenhead community and now am being recruited to take part in a new think tank on energy and the climate. Life is fun right now!!!

• Population is THE Most Inconvenient Truth
• The Civilisation Tragedy
• Equity. Fairness or Dreams
• A Real Sceptic Speaks the Truth Actually
• The Climate Tragedy
• Is the Climate Really Just Evolution
• What Are we Trying to Protect, The Biosphere, Civilisation… Or Me!
• The Wealthy and Educated Will Survive
• The Right Number of Humans
• Global Warming. Lets Open Our Minds
• The Undiscovered Country

Offset Someplace Else

Under the hazy hampton sun
A flower show has just begun
While Nero fiddles, people sweat
Humid heat then months of wet
Our scorching planet future warm
Makes Russia's wastes our only farm
Amid concern a fashion walk
Inspires, excites, much more than talk
Are Georgie's clothes and David's Plants
A lease of life or funeral dance?
A message mixed with hope or fear?
Oceans dead are oceans clear.
With flights on offer we may confuse
So I'll leave the last to Shakespeare's Muse.
"All this men know but none know well
To spurn the heaven that leads men to this hell"

Steve Stretton, July 2007

Churchill... Say what you like about him, but here's my favourite quote

"You ask what I have to offer ? I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. THAT is our policy"

- Winston Churchill upon his very first entrance into the House of Commons as Britain's new Prime Minister on May 13, 1940, Winston Churchill only received a lukewarm reception from the assembly, while at his side, outgoing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who's policy was to appease the Nazi's was heartily cheered. Churchill made this brief statement, which became one of the greatest calls-to-arms ever uttered. It came at the beginning of World War II when the armies of Adolf Hitler were roaring across Europe, seemingly unstoppable, conquering country after country for Nazi Germany, and when the survival of Britain itself seemed quite uncertain

This is what I call courage, this is what I call real leadership, this is what is missing in our world today

Do you believe in God or a god? Then read on

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Epicurus, circa a very long time before Christ

What can I say about New York City

...electric, big, culture, ethnic, stink, fast, fashion, rude, fun, home, money, coffee, leading, helpful, lost, win, grid, green, sky, bagel, rainstorm, global, gotham, rubble, heat, subway, efficient, lights, impatient, skating, on off, real, useful, happy, ultimate, the one, mine, everyone's...

That is All I can say about New York City

Are We Really Born With Rights?

Maybe!

In life we certainly have duties. Rights support the laws against which mankind and societies can measure both their selfishness and selflessness. But nothing else. We made them up at some point and they are not divine in any way, what is.

However, our duty as individuals and as a society is to behave like humans, benevolent beings. In other words, we're on the right track, dont change anything, keep going and take care of how you treat yourself and others. Most of all seek the truth no matter how painful it feels.

But dont accept that rights are a given, because we are born with no more than an "Entitlement" to an existence in the Universe.

Are You Really That Poor ?

Given the recent media and political coverage on poverty I wanted to look at what being poor in the UK actually means. I just didn’t buy the story that there are that many poor people in the UK. OK so the bottom 10% of the population may struggle to live the full western lifestyle but when I look around me the only truly poor people in the UK seem to be those who have been victims of extraordinarilly unlucky circumstances as a result of crime, location or health.

Initial research started with government figures showing the poor are classed as those on less than 60% of the national average wage

• Average UK wage is about £23k
• Average UK household income is £35k (at 1.5 persons per household)

60% of these numbers are £14k and £15k per capita respectively. So assuming an average income of below £15k per capita means you are officially classified as being poor. That isn’t a bad income at all and surely it’s not really poor… or is it?

We Need Better Stuff Not More Stuff
Given that western lifestyle and success revolves around status and possession of assets, another thing that keeps bugging me is that of quantifying wealth factors that make you feel more or less happy. I feel this fall under two banners:

• For the Wealthy
• More money brings little further happiness
• Companionship and altruism bring a great deal more happiness
• For the Poor
• More money brings a great deal more happiness
• Companionship brings little further happiness

So what does this mean? Maybe it means that we would like better stuff not simply more stuff. So what “Better Stuff” do we need? Are these things always material? For both rich and poor more money nearly always brings greater status. I have read that higher status in society leads to longevity and this is an important topic for another discussion. And more complex, does status influence happiness as well as make a claim on longer life.

The Happiness Threshold
I then started to look for the threshold where more wealth brings little further gain in happiness. Some would say there is no ceiling. Research found the following.

The Observer happiness threshold is around £25k. Another source puts the happiness threshold at £10k (needs reference). The UK National Minimum Wage is around £11k. And Alter.Net March 23 07 claims “money consistently buys happiness up to $10k income per capita. So the consensus on a happiness threshold (excluding the Observer) is lower than the UK poverty threshold qnd about the same as the UK national minimum wage. Interestingly therefore the UK government seems to be saying you can be poor and still be happy.

UK Poverty Compared to the Developing World
So how does UK poverty compare to the poorest in the developing world. Well 3rd world poverty, classified generally at less than $1 per day, or about £0.54 per day and £200 per year. This amounts to just 2% or 1/50th of the UK National Minimum Wage! Now you could say we have found some really poor people and we are converging on my point. Therefore even the “happy” UK poor are “wealthy” on a global per capita basis. No wonder they are “happy” when they are earning 50 times what real poor are earning. You could argue that the developing world needs much less cash to keep the lights on but they often don’t have lights anyway. Finally on this, in 1820 an American family lived on $1500 per year in current money, close to current averages in Africa. Ref Alternet Mar 22 07. A sobering thought.

A Place of Your Own
Another whinge factor in the UK lately is the access to a mortgage for our “poor” hard done by population. People are claiming it’s so hard for people to get on the property ladder today. And the biggest moaners do not seem to come from poor backgrounds here, most of them are middle class. But I know people who had trouble 25 years ago and did not complain as much. One example earned less than her mortgage and had to borrow from her Mum to keep the payments going and this was not considered abnormal at the time apparently. Recently I read someone complaining they only had about 20% of their earnings left over after essential expenses. Only 20% left to spend on "stuff" poor things! Is it the deposit or the interest/payments they mean are impossible? Or is it most people get peeved if they don’t have enough disposable income after house, food and transport has been covered to spend on stuff to maintain a decent level of status anxiety. This is the nature of our society I guess. How will this look to future generations.

Realtive Jealousy
I think this delta between minimum wage and average wage is what the Lib Dem politicians have been claiming is “Relative” poverty. The level below which social unrest commences due to… what exactly? Jealousy? Real poverty has been confused by this political agenda and is known as “Absolute” poverty as in 3rd world or significantly bleow minimum wage here in the UK. As a result of all this data I decided to personally undertake a short experiment to see what it felt like to live on minimum wage of about £970 per month. I did this for 6 months and found it straight forward and easy. The only downsides were some definite discrimination, folks looking down their noses at my obviously poor lifestyle and missing out on most of modern society’s luxuries. Most surprising was how embarrassed (or jealous) it made me feel about those so openly displaying their wealth via typical badges of status. They seemed rather insecure individuals all of a sudden.

Its Not About Being Poor Then
As a UK citizen, I temporarily conclude that living on 11k is not living as a poor person at all. It just means you get fewer luxuries and need to deal with some rather arrogant human behaviour from time to time. And maybe we treat those with relative poverty as second class citizens, unofficially of course. Essentially this means the worse off are being discriminated against, its “poorism” in other words. These folks may then get caught in a viscous cycle of criminalisation to boot.

We Live Like Kings
Something I intend writing about at another time is on the wealthy who often claim they have made success through merit alone. I don’t believe it’s that simple and much success is pure luck though heritage and genetics even today. Some of us are born with higher IQ potential than others, thats not skill, its luck and those lucky enough could use some magnanimity. Even if you are unfortunate enought to lose your job you will still live the life of a king relative to the majority in sub sahara. Think about it!

So our politicians need to think a little more carefully about poverty and what it means… and in the mean time make sure those in the 3rd world don’t hear us talking until we have a more selfless story to tell.

Too Busy ?

How often have you heard this lately:

“I’d love to help out but I’m Too Busy right now”

Yeah right! But everybody seems to be saying this these days. And their net output does not seem to have increased. And they don’t seem to be experiencing a proportional level of achievement from it. So what does this oft heard statement actually mean?

How busy are you really then? You are probably experiencing a mix of the following:

1. Doing things useful to society
2. Doing things useful to yourself
3. Doing things that are neither 1 or 2 above

Given output is not incrementing exponentially it would seem the latter statement forms the vast majority of this “busyness”. And we’re burning a heck of a lot of fossil fuels doing it. About 95% of the stuff we do and buy has a carbon footprint. If most of it is used within idling activities, what does this say about our society and what impact does it have on our quality of life as individuals.

Here are some of the nastier culprits depleting our quality of life:

Laptop Leisure

• Taking laptop to bed with you
• Watching TV while “finishing” the days work
• Sunday night binge – preparing for tomorrow morning
• Answering work calls on holiday. Don’t you think the world will continue without you

The Email Plague - “I have a 1000 emails to do since the weekend”

• Why? What makes them so important
• They are all imporatant ergo, none of them are
  
• None are important, so they are all SPAM
• Somewhere in between, so you wasted a lot of time figuring that out
  
• Forgotten how to talk to people? If they are really important , go see them, pick up the phone

At Work Politics

• Competition for pay rises and even keeping your job
• AKA back protection or Vertical Teamwork
• Much time is spent being seen to do the right thing
• Brown Nosing the boss
• Maximise time spent travelling to meetings that don’t need you
  

Status Anxiety or Pseudo Quality of Life

• Lots of time spent earning more money to buy more stuff to throw away
• Throwing away gives you status among peers
• The race to keep up with the latest gadgets, trends, fashions
• Cattle Class Holidays as far away as possible. Why suffer? It’s a holiday isn’t it
  

So what is the resulting behaviour? People will do the things that are most likely to keep them in their job and make them feel like they have achieved something (even if they have not) And also things that will make them look better than their peers and even pay lip service to Quality of Life factors.

Where does this leave us. Quality of Life and a selfless pursuit of a better society are secondary to most individuals. See Tragedy of the Commons for more on this. The challenge of raising individuals’ consciousness to the needs of future society is difficult. We don’t seem to care about other people enough essentially...or are denying it is a problem because its so difficult and uncomfortable to think about.

How can this consciousness be raised and what’s in it for the individual. And will it need a very hard landing to trigger a change. Such as the climate is threatening to do.

Climate. Who’s Fault is it Anyway

The world is in deadlock on dealing with carbon emissions. The developing world see’s the developed as being responsible. The developed world see’s the fast growing developing world as the future culprits. Stale mate! No one trusts the other. No one sees any leaders.

So how has this come about. In the developed world, own responsibility has been a historic and continued high carbon growth causing the climate problem. The mitigation roadblock is that there is no foreseeable low carbon pathway planned. People are too busy having a nice time to worry about future generations and thus deny there is a problem. In the developing world own responsibility comes from historic cultural, religious, political and economic failures being the cause of poverty and a chance low carbon footprint. The mitigation roadblock for them is a desire for economic growth and poverty alleviation.

So how do you break the Deadlock. Would the south accept slower growth if the north delivered a viable low carbon pathway? And visa versa. Both would be converging activities, ultimately to the benefit of all. For the 1st time in history, this needs “everyone” to start Talking, Trusting, Risking.

Actions that could be considered are: What political action would this require; What economic system needs developing; What technology would be adopted

This is no longer about blame. Its about action from real leaders.

Globalised Mitigation Program

Look here for a rather old idea from a few years back on my first thoughts the problem and some ideas on how to deal with it. Essentialy it asks for a "global response" on dealing with the climate as the only way to succeed
/gmp.pdf

Looking for new thinkers

We are looking for people to share ideas around this blog. Why not drop in and leave a comment about something you think needs discussing. Try to make it something new