Category: Sustainability

If you’ve watched the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the headlines – Biggest in History – you may also have wondered what it means. Just how big is big?

One comparison that resonates is, at its peak, it was the size of the US State of Kansas. This is approximately the same size as the State of Victoria in Australia, just under half the size of European France and twice South Korea‘s land mass.

It’s also spawned a few comparisons. What if BP had spilled solar panels instead of oil calculates it would be enough clean energy to power the USA, Central and South America for 25 years. The oil, as opposed to solar, is enough energy for less than one day’s power demand. The BP spilled solar panels post also calculates costs.

Clearly solar power, on its own, is not the full, comprehensive, alternative to oil. The Rocky Mountains Institute in 2007 looked at how to Win the Oil Endgame. It documents how USA (and by extension world) oil dependancy can be ended – profitably, securely and equitably – within decades. It demonstrates viable effective alternatives to oil.

Picture: BP Oil clean-up

People in many situations collaborate, for example companies setting carbon neutral targets for themselves.

But does this see the long term protection of resources? Resources that can be overused by individuals and groups resulting in much less for everyone? Like the world’s ability to absorb carbon?

The graph illustrates a great example of this in today’s world. It shows how voluntary group effort – from lobster fishing communities – has succeeded where government regulation did not.

The blue line is the catch for a degraded inshore fishery. This is in Maine, USA and the fishery is governed by legislated quotas, catch limits and, licensing etc. These rules are not credible with relatively low compliance and strong resistance to strengthening restrictions. And the fish catch, everyone’s livelihood, suffers.

Red is the Maine lobster fishery. Its governed by formal and informal groups strongly influencing state rules. The result – a lot more lobster.

The challenge is to apply this knowledge to all situations including climate change. As a signal of its importance, the joint winner of the 2009 economics Nobel Prize was Elinor Ostrom. Elinor leads much of this work. In the words of the Nobel committee she has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. … user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins.. often see good outcomes

That is we do protect resources, voluntarily and willingly.

Graph data: Science 12-12-2003 The Struggle to Govern the Commons Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern

Humans have to collaborate to address climate change. It’s a self-evident fact and often used as a reason for doing nothing – don’t act until everyone agrees; action, by any one individual, group or country, can be negated by another.

Yet many carbon neutral companies including Google in 2007 , News Limited Internationally by 2010, PwC in 2008 and HSBC in 2005 must see an advantage. And are willing to act beyond what many would say is the immediate self-interest of the company.

These companies hold out market results, staff and stakeholder engagement, profile, publicity and, innovation on products and services as benefits. But is there also an altruistic element? Are humans wired to collaborate?

Some of evidence comes from experiments. Give people two options:

1. to work together for the benefit of a group; or,
2. not to work and rely on everyone else in the group.

Not surprisingly there’s a tendency not to work – no benefit for anyone. But if the experiment allows individuals to punish non workers, suddenly everyone tends to work. Even when there is an individual cost for those who voluntarily sanction non workers.

Importantly, if you then allow people in a group that has no sanctions to freely shift to another group they will very quickly move into the one where there are sanctions. That is we seem to prefer just systems which is something the seemingly altruistic carbon neutral companies may also be benefiting from.

So we can cooperate for better lives and the next post’s focus is groups and societies that have, historically and voluntarily, collaborated. There’s many examples of this with groups answering shared resources issues similar to our greenhouse gas problems.

Details on collaboration experiment here. Picture: J. Sutliff from Henrich, Cooperation, Punishment, and the Evolution of Human Institutions, Science 7 April 2006

Vividly imagine value – is there a trick to valuing the future? Humans, generally, care more about the immediate at the expense of longer term. In the field of climate change it’s clear that we don’t seem to value the future as much as the present.

This future orientation is clearly important. Animals, for example, can act in response to the future:

When a mouse hides before a cat enters the room it is responding to an event that has not yet happened, and its ability to do so is one of evolution’s most remarkable achievements.

Humans have this ability too. But we also experience the future simulating it:

in our minds. We know… that it would be painful to go an hour without blinking… that winning the lottery would be more enjoyable than becoming paraplegic… because we can close our eyes, imagine these events… Unfortunately, the conclusions that we draw in this way aren’t always right. Trysts are often better contemplated than consummated, and sweetbreads are often better the other way around.

As Daniel Gilbert puts it, it’s notoriously difficult to get people to be farsighted. But you can get people to imagine the future more vividly.

Would you like to be 65 with an extra $100,000, is very different from imagine yourself at 65. Will you be living? What will you look like? How much hair will you have? Who will you be living with? With the imaginary scenario suddenly we feel like saving.

Daniel argues these techniques are marginal. But there are also many situations in which humans voluntarily collaborate to protect the future. When humans cooperate is the topic for the next short post.

It is more than two decades since we started re-imagining global and local production. By the early 1990’s, it was abundantly clear that we should not, nor could not, attempt to create a sustainable society by simply treating and collecting waste.

There are many inspiring examples of change since the 90’s. From Natural Capitalism, which shows how we should produce our goods and services, to Factor 4. The most recent demonstrates an 80% reduction of environmental impact per unit of economic output is achievable and available to us today – it’s here: Factor 5. Factor 5 covers everything from our homes and cities through to steel and cement, agriculture and transport.

But our overall society now has an even greater impact, by any of the common metrics, on the environment than it did in the 90’s. If resource use and waste avoidance makes such economic sense, as the examples demonstrate, we’re entitled to ask what’s gone wrong. Why are we 20 years down the track with so many easy wins still waiting to be implemented? And what can we learn from some of the standout examples of change?

This is the first in a series of short blog posts. We’ve set the scene, so what are some of the barriers – beyond technology – in society, mindsets and worldviews. Next blog is on valuing the future over the present.

What do Australian Futures look like? Or rather how can we help shape them? The 2010 Future Summit organised by the ADC Forum tackles these questions head on.

This year marks a dramatic shift for the Forum. While the summit creates a unique and irreplaceable dynamic, by its very nature there are inherent limitations – it’s in one place, for an (all too) limited time and our futures are complex, interconnected and dynamic.

To address this, in partnership with Google, the Forum is introducing a year-round digital platform. Google Wave will offer leaders in business, government, community and the arts the chance to engage fully in an ongoing national dialogue.

This kicks off at the summit with six Thought Leader Groups. GreenMode and I are very honoured to be invited to facilitate the Australian Futures group. Other groups will include Investment and Innovation, Green Economy and Global Economy, Local Impacts.

Watch this space, the Future Summit website and Michael Roux’s blog for more.

Scientific opinion presents facts and, for example with climate change, often a very high likelihood of sustained and significant economic, social and environmental pain. Yet, even when nearly all scientists agree we don’t accept the facts, can instead frame the information in ways that suit our own contrary beliefs or, as individuals or societies are not willing to act.

Why? This perplexing and dangerous circumstance is true even when action is manifestly in our self interest – financial or otherwise. This is certainly the case for climate change. Consequently the Cultural Cognition Project’s research is a very welcome addition to our knowledge.

A Cultural Cognition study suggests that, although people view scientific opinion as important, people from diverse cultural outlooks form different perceptions of what most scientists believe. That is, people draw conclusions about the risks of things like climate change that are congenial to their values.

Bottom line – it’s not just about the facts. It’s how people perceive and value this information and often hold significantly different worldviews. Such views influence perspectives, the ways in which we construct meaning and, priorities we place on action and inaction. See A Climate For Change for a short worldview background.

Picture: From the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School

Can you significantly reduce the energy requirements for standard homes? Yes!

A major project by Delfin Lend Lease, the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, the Centre for Design at RMIT and GreenMode, using commonly available and off-the-shelf technologies, home impacts can be cut by more than a Factor of Five without any substantial redesign of the home.

The improvements are achieved on typical homes in new South-East Queensland residential development sites. Importantly these changes are affordable. Additional capital costs are approximately paid back by savings on power use.

The project models the performance of a representative selection of 35 standard homes approved and/or constructed at Springfield Lakes near Brisbane. A set of sustainability changes – including efficient appliances, construction materials, shading and only mirror changes to orientation (flip the house on one axis) – were applied. The home’s environmental impact was then re-modelled.

The results are outstanding. Affordable change, little or no redesign, and no need for extra architectural input.

Factor Five change is not only about homes although they are responsible for nearly a third of an Australian’s environmental footprint. The Natural Edge’s Factor Five book shows the way for our whole society beyond just homes.

Four months on from the Global Copenhagen climate conference and people in Australian may be feeling that climate change and carbon pricing is off the agenda. But is it?

The graph shows worldwide and Australian news reports on climate change (data from Dow Jones Factiva). After the expected peak of reporting in December 2009, during the Copenhagen conference, the media’s focus on climate change this year is similar to 2009. At least in quantity.

Clearly the media is only part of the picture. Before Copenhagen, Andrew Norton at the Australian Centre for Independent Studies summarised opinion polls. The results show consistent public support, high urgency, for action on climate change. They also show a majority of people are willing to pay, although the analysis does not consider the substantial cost and carbon savings that can also be made from energy efficiency.

We would say that carbon pricing is still very much on the agenda. Google’s Dan Reicher summarises this well. He said recently that carbon pricing is an “essential signal we have to get to” and “money is sitting there to make significant investments”.

While the science of climate change is undeniable it does not mean everyone is convinced. I recently presented at an event with Ian Plimer, a leading climate sceptic, followed this week by lunch with Senator Nick Minchin. Senator Minchin led the opposition to Australia’s emissions trading legislation.

So the question is why? Messrs Plimer and Minchin passionately argue against the evidence.* They equally passionately argue we shouldn’t take action on climate change, even just to insure ourselves against risk.

The insurance argument is compelling. You and I insure our homes against less than a 1% chance of fire destroying the house. So why wouldn’t we take out climate insurance, lower our emissions, generate profits from efficiency and be part of the next green industrial revolution? Ultimately, the direct cost of climate change action is probably 1 to 2 percent of global GDP. For Australians that’s an average of $8 to $16 a week.

This makes logical sense. But as Hunter Lovins, co-author of Natural Capitalism, puts it in an interview with philosopher Ken Wilber, ‘when something is not working we tend to argue harder on the logic’. You’ll hear stories listening to a Plimer presentation. Emotive pleas to prioritise far more important issues from Minchin. And it feels so reassuring not to have to act, not to do things differently.

So what’s the story of climate change action? It’s partly the reason for this blog (and GreenMode). Stories of success, innovation and adaptation – the visionaries and people that are defining the future. It grows from the way it makes us feel and those around us, as much if not more as from the logic of climate science.

* Senator Minchin and Prof Plimer background includes: Four Corners and Minchin; Questions to Minchin at lunch; and, George Monbiot and Ian Plimer.