Resource Intensity and the Copenhagen Blues

The Copenhagen Blues

Mark Brinkley

The great Copenhagen climate summit is now well underway and many people seem to be making encouraging noises. But at the same time, there seems to be a huge and growing amount of scepticism around. Such is our suspicion of politicians and opinion formers these days, that if they all seem to agree on one thing, then they simply MUST be wrong, or so the thinking goes.

For me, the worry isn’t about
• whether or not climate change is happening (it surely is),
• nor whether it is caused by our carbon emissions (it surely is – I’ve not been in any doubt since I first saw the ice core readings a few years back, I think that’s what clinched it for me. You can stick sunspots)
• nor how serious it may be (Bjorn Lomborg is beginning to sound more and more shrill, or maybe he’s just annoying because he is so smug)
• but just what the hell are we really going to do about it.

Yesterday, I heard Ed Milliband, our climate change minister, being interviewed on Radio 5 by Simon Mayo. He was game for a few questions and one enterprising listener in Japan asked the population question. Like “if we can’t cope now, how are we going to cope with 3 billion extra people on board?” And Milliband minor answered thus: “By 2050, our economies will be six or seven times larger than they are now, and so we must ensure that all that growth is low or zero carbon growth.”!!!…………

 

Full artical at http://markbrinkley.blogspot.com/2009/12/copenhagen-blues.html

 

Has the SD Commission ever ‘got it’?

Sir Jonathon Porritt stands down as Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission today and he blasts government, with a small ‘g’ as  having not ‘got it’.

The reality, however, is the SD movement has never ‘got it’. That our ‘Quality of Life’ is a quality issue. That sustainability is a journey of continual improvement and not a destination.

Of doing the right thing, right by enabling process learning, something that our democratic institutions have failed to evolve to do and we have failed to educate ourselves to understand.

My past letters in Green futures illustrate this

dd

Letter published in Green Futures May/June 2001

I noted with interest your reporting of the EU Environmental Awards and the comment by Environmental Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom that “sustainable development and greater competitiveness go hand in hand” [GF 27, p10]. These awards were appropriately made to companies that have or manage significant environmental impacts.

Most small or medium-sized companies, however, do relatively little to address their environmental impact, despite the effort of projects like SIGMA [see GF 23, p 21]. We need to do more to engage such companies. I am convinced the best way to do so is by integrating sustainability management into quality management – since most businesses have at least some system for the latter, however informal.

But it’s becoming increasingly evident that the traditional, customer-focused definition of quality as ‘fitness for purpose’ is inadequate. We need a new definition. Here are two possible ones that I advance for debate:

1. Quality minimises the ‘loss to society’ resulting from the creation, use and disposal of products, processes and services.

2. Quality maximises the life cycle efficiency of products, processes and services.

Viewed in this way, less than perfect quality creates unsustainable systems, which are the basis of the problems being addressed by the SIGMA Project and other initiatives.

An additional benefit of this redefinition of quality will be to re-examine the ways in which the quality and environmental ‘industries’ have become so ’standards-based’. My definition of quality implies a ’synergy’ between the supplier and customer rather than compliance. My hope is that the SIGMA Project will become a means to do precisely that.

Derek Deighton

 

Letter published in Green Futures 2004

Reading with interest Jonathon Porritt’s article in the current edition of Green Futures brings to mind my letter you were kind enough to publish in edition 28.

  The view I expressed then and I feel is evident from this article is that Sustainable development is seen as an unaffordable luxury and not a central business imperative.

  The environmental community has admirably driven SD but will only gain credence in business if it is expressed in terms of Quality based financial metrics; a concept that has a resonance within all businesses, large and small.

 Reprising my previous letter, SD advocates must work to redefine Quality a

“Minimising the loss to society resulting from the creation, use, and disposal of products, processes and services.

 If losses are minimised, sustainability is brought nearer. Quality and sustainability are the two sides of the same coin, toss it and you can only win.

 

Derek Deighton

 

Government – what are we here for?

It is being reported that Gordon Brown’s UK Government is considering changing the UK electoral system, in the light of recent ‘expenses’ scandals.

But the core question is not being asked, and unless this is, any debate is meaningless and any measures taken, likely to fail.

Striped of all rhetoric, the question is ‘government, what are we here for’ – and the answer, in a exponentially changing world hitting against resource and environmental buffers, can only be

“We are here to enable the liberation of the creativity needed to balance the ‘One Planet Equation’ for UK citizens by working to continually reduce the ‘resource intensity of society’, RIoS.

In the process securing an equitable ‘quality of life’ for all, whilst seeking the same globally”.

Expressed this way it is clear what we need to do, it doesn’t provide the answers, only a focus to enable constructive and continual improvement.

dd

see

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/the-one-planet-equation/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/and-the-answer-is-i-dont-know/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/leadership-and-the-virtuous-circle/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/the-uk-public-inspection-regime-increasing-the-resource-intensity-of-society/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/liberating-ingenuity-and-creativity-to-enable-the-future/

 

Libby Purves is almost right in her analysis

 Libby Purves is almost right in her analysis of our ‘predicament’, but she describes entertainingly, yet another of the symptoms resulting from  our not understanding the risks and costs of failure within our democratic ’system’

Unless we grasp this reality in our increasingly resource constrained environment, then we are doomed to fail as a society and in the process lose our democratic institutions and freedom. Libby intimates as much at the end of her piece.

dd

Stop buffing the image – just make things work

Heaven save us, am I weary of personality in politics! Bored of red dresses and amateur psychology, body language, stiletto jokes and balls about who-hates-Balls! It goes beyond party – I hate both Mandelson’s analysis and hostile analyses of Mandelson, David Cameron’s damn bike and Margaret Beckett’s caravan. I do not care who is “comfortable in their skin” or whether they “find a voice”…………..

…………………You think this all takes us a long way from the cult of personality? I don’t. Building an image takes up attention, effort and money (ask any diva). The setting of unglamorous priorities, and careful listening to people on the front line for longer than a camera’s flash are not always compatible with buffing one’s image. But we all know which comes first. The good news is that the electorate are now so sick of the whole shebang that something will happen. It may be dangerous, but it will be different.

See full article at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article6451867.ece

 

 

When will we start to comprehend reality?

We have two comments below which illustrate our failure to comprehend, that  in a rapidly changing world we have to recognise the need to grasp the nettle and design a new form of politics that is proactive and recognises the resource limits we face; unless we can continually reduce the Resource Intensity of Society, then we are consigning ourselves to the scrapheap of history as a viable and coherent entity.

Any system that does not enable process learning and continual improvement, as our present institutions fail to do, is not fit for purpose.

dd

Lord Drayson

Environmentalists, he said, mean well when they say that cutting our carbon footprints will involve major personal sacrifices. But this negative message switches too many people off, making them less likely to take simple steps that might help to save the planet.

“I personally don’t believe it is going to be possible to persuade the vast majority of people to accept a poorer standard of quality of life,” he said. “I do think it’s possible to convince people they will be able to maintain a standard of quality of life more sustainably.”

see http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/cheltenham-science-festival/

Matthew Taylor 

How politics is conducted from the cabinet to the local constituency is profoundly dysfunctional, 30 years and more behind the way successful modern organisations run themselves. A new politics needs new institutions and new processes but it also needs a radically different culture, and a style of political leadership that is open, collaborative and emotionally literate.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/03/a-new-politics-constitutional-reform2

 

How many light bulbs does it take to change a man?

 David McKay’s book has been  highlighted on this Blog before  and the video at the link below makes an excellent contribution to the debate on the conundrum we face.

Unfortunately, the video, being short gives the impression that the problem is how we expand supply to meet demand. However, the real question is how do we reduce the ‘resource intensity of society’ to match, realistically available supply.

Another unfortunate aspect of the light bulb analogy is that it gives the impression that the use and waste of energy is in ‘things’, when in reality much is wasted in how we organise  these things to run the society we have.

The gains obtainable by this ‘effective’ use of energy are probably an order or two in magnitude greater than making ‘things’ more ‘efficient’.

The critical test of this fact is being made in the UK Parliament at the moment, where the lack of understanding of the risks and possible costs of external failure has created pressure for ‘change’.

However, the pressure is to change the system to make it more efficient not more effective, which can only be achieved by asking ‘what are we here for’  – to which the answer can only be “we are here to improve the ‘quality of life’ of UK citizens by reducing the resource intensity of the goods and services they consume per unit of consumption per capita.

Arguments about preserving democracy etc., in a society constrained by the ‘first law of sustainabilty’, are unsustainable in themselves and will only lead to its loss in the not too distant future.

What we have to create is a proactive process of government that ‘protects its citizens freedoms as far as possible in such a resource constrained world’, whist working to enable the continual reduction in the resource intensity of the goods and services that they create, consume and dispose of.

dd

Prof. David MacKay’s book, “Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air”, has been published, and it’s an instant success. Now there’s a video, a radio interview, a Guardian editorial singing his praises … and a bafflingly inscrutable criticism from the Sustainable Development Commission.

More information and a video can be seen at http://lightbucket.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/david-mackay-energy-star/

 

Towards an accountable capitalism

Towards an Accountable Capitalism

ISBN:

Author: Stephen Davis, Jon Lukomnik and David Pitt-Watson
Contributors:
Price: Free
Publication Date: 26 March 2006

The credit crisis has been a systemic failure. Though the press primarily blames the bankers for our problems, the failure was not that of one single set of agents.

In this paper, the authors set out some of what went wrong, and how we can develop a framework of policy and institutions needed to ensure a vibrant and stable financial system in the future. This will require new thinking about the type of institutions on which a successful modern financial economy depends. In particular, the paper focuses on the relationship between each of these institutions and how it is possible to get them to work in a way that will support open and effective capital markets.

The paper’s aim is not to lay out a detailed framework for bank solvency or accounting regulation though we will touch on many examples of reform. Rather, it is to try to clarify the principles on which any responsible Bretton Woods-style remaking of the market system will rest, and how these might be applied to the banks and other institutions where finance is raised to keep the economy going.

This paper is part of our Tomorrow’s Capitalism programme.

view full publication (PDF file)

information at http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=652

 

Crisis = “a good excuse to do the wrong thing.”

 The article below, although taking Healthcare as the example is exactly the situation in all sectors and critically the financial sector at this time; a direct result of the western, reductionist and reactive democratic institutions.

The Blog wants to see these retained but we are poised on a knife-edge and unless we recognise this and evolve them to take  ‘holistic’ and long-term proactive action we will fall into the abyss.

dd

……………………..The worrisome part was Governor Deval’s remarks. In response to demands for what he called an “Utopian system,” he said, “Let’s not get caught up on how to make our healthcare system perfect…or else we will just talk and not walk.”

That is exactly the approach that keeps us from ever healing healthcare. The crisis mentality says we must act now and take what we can get, do what we can do, because we are in a crisis. With respect, we have been in a healthcare crisis for at least 40 years and ad hoc crisis managementhas kept us from beginning to truly fix – to cure – healthcare.

Forty-six million have no health insurance. This is called a crisis and we must fix it now! Was it not a crisis when only 20 million were uninsured? Then too, we applied a quick fix and look where we are now.

The call to do what we canperpetuates the failure cycle in two ways. First, it accepts what is do-able rather than working toward something that really fixes. Second, it ignores the interdependence of the elements in a system such as healthcare. You cannot adjust (much less fix) just one part without affecting the other parts, usually making them worse. Systems thinking and experience with healthcare should have taught us that by now. …………………….

………………….The excuse to do the wrong thing is that we have a crisis and must act now. In ARRA 2009, over $670 million is allocated to healthcare to: increase insurance coverage; promote electronic medical records; and beef up HIPAA. This piecemeal approach will work. It will work to: raise national healthcare expenditures; complicate communication; increase errors; expand the already bloated bureaucracy; and exacerbate shortagesof nurses and doctors. All are unintended adverse consequences caused by ad hoc crisis management and the lack of systems thinking.

Full article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deane-waldman/crisis-a-good-excuse-to-d_b_179232.html

see also

http://www.thesystemsthinkingreview.co.uk/

 

The ‘Oil Curve’ and governments in transition

This Blog avoids, as far a possible, discussion of our ’symptoms’ as societies but the article below is a good roundup of our current position in the western economies.

To misquote the Lord of the Rings, ‘a One Planet Equation to rule all’. We ignore it at our peril.

http://oneplanetequation.wordpress.com/one-planet-equation/

dd

 

The Peak Oil Crisis: Government in the Transition

……………………..The transition from a lifestyle in which we live on dwindling reserves of fossil energy to something more sustainable is obviously going to take increasing amounts of government support just to keep functioning. We have built a very complex civilization in which we are dependent on a complex supply chain for the essentials of life – food, warmth, sanitation, health. The days of the independent, self-sufficient farmer are over for 98 percent of us. Take away or even start to reduce supplies of food, electricity, natural gas, and gasoline and we are in a lot of trouble.

As the supply of liquid fuels dwindles and increases in price, travel, particularly by aircraft, is likely to fall sharply. Services provided by the federal government – defense, foreign relations, interstate highways, and regulation — that have grown to massive proportions in the last 70 years are likely to take on a much lower priority in favor of food, clothing, shelter, public safety, education, health care, and employment that will be provided at the local level.

Over the next 20 years we are almost certain to witness major changes in the functions performed by various levels of government and whether we like it or not, the share of our resources going to pay for these functions – i.e. higher taxes. Although it is not yet generally recognized, this great transition has already begun.

Full article at http://www.inteldaily.com/news/154/ARTICLE/10127/2009-03-20.html

 

Dr Rajendra Pachauri and reducing resource intensity

 Dr Pachauri is right in saying that “Focusing on Emissions Reductions Alone Will Get Negative Reaction”, which is the raison d’etre of this Blog.

However, this Blog feels he is missing the point in speaking of ‘Green Economic development’, what is required is a financial system that is based on the ‘first law of sustainability’, that awards those, by incentives and tax beaks, who develop business models that lead to a continual reduction in the ‘resource intensity of society’, taxing and legislating more heavily those that don’t.

see also

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/the-one-planet-equation/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/reducing-the-resource-intensity-of-knowledge/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/the-impossibility-of-using-symptoms-to-drive-change/

http://trailblazerbusinessfutures.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/to-paraphrase-we-have-to-keep-ahead-of-the-oil-curve/

dd

 

Focus on Green Economic Development, Not Just Emission Reductions: Chair of IPCC

Dr Rajendra Pachauri (chairman of the IPCC, director-general of the The Energy and Resources Institute, and now head of the newly formed Yale Climate and Energy Institute) was one of the speakers who kicked off the Copenhagen Climate Congress’s opening session. One of the most interesting things to come out of his presentation was the notion that rich nations’ efforts to push rapidly growing nations to cut their carbon emissions would be more effective if the focus was also on more rapid technology transfer and green economic development.

After his speech, I had a chance to sit down with Dr Pachauri and ask him about this in greater detail:

Focusing on Emissions Reductions Alone Will Get Negative Reaction…………

You have a remarkable opportunity to restructure the economy and moving towards a much greener future. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal…said that the auditors of General Motors have come up with a report that perhaps General Motors cannot be saved. Then why are we wasting billions of dollars giving taxpayers’ money to these companies?

This is an opportunity when we can bring about change. If we don’t bring about change then you spend more and more money of the public supporting the same industries which have caused a problem in the past. Even if you were to look at revival of the economy, there is a real opportunity to bring about a shift where we move towards greener jobs, greener economic output; and that’s what the world should be focusing on.

I must say…President Obama has realized that, because he is focusing on it: His revival package, which will bring about improved efficiency of homes, of government buildings, of greater investment in solar and wind, and essentially seeing that the economy becomes less dependent on fossil fuels, or at least imported fossil fuels.

I think the two objectives [reviving the economy and combatting climate change] can be tied into together. They don’t have to divert from one another.

See story at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/focus-on-green-development-developing-countries-not-just-emission-reduction-ipcc-chief-says.php

other links

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