thinkingstring.com

A response to Dave Hampton’s excellent and thoughtful case for the “YES” argument.

Its important I think to not confuse the causal relationship that exists between the electorate and elected, and the very real need for the latter to use the power that they uniquely wield to make structural changes to the workings of the society in which we live.

We can debate the degree to which the elected are influenced by the actions of the constituency, both on polling day and on all the other days in between. Days the people may choose to spend not in comfortable pursuit of middle-class distractions but rather in a passionate expression of their belief for governmental or corporate action and change.

We can debate who wags whom and where the ultimate power to influence the view of reality that both the politicians and the people hold – I would argue that the media super-barons have at least one cheek ensconced on the throne of power with their proven ability to make or break a candidate’s aspirations, their demonstrated willingness to take sides on an issue, and their role as lenses of the world and its priorities for most citizens.

But what we ought not debate, and what we should accept as pragmatism is that as long as we accept that the sole answer to avoiding catastrophic levels of environmental degradation is for individuals to make personal and non binding pledges of action then the chances of our ultimate success are slim. That is not to say that we should just be sitting by, wondering why things aren’t the way we’d like to find them to be. It is important for us to take an active role in building the world we wish to live in. We get the world we make.

It is a simple recognition of reality that achieving the 80-90% emissions cuts that climate scientists advise are necessary requires changes to the system. Never mind dealing with the other pressing environmental issues we face such as water supply, land degradation, and the genocide of species.

To achieve emissions cuts of that magnitude then no less than transport choices, electricity generation and distribution methods, urban planning, construction methods and materials, and what food we eat must all be addressed. The reality is while a minority may care enough about an issue to make personal pledges, and to stick to them, the vast majority will go with the flow.

I may pledge to walk or cycle, but on a cold, wet and windy day most people just think I am an idiot. Or worse; someone with no money or no aspirations. I may elect to have a staycation, but in the time I have taken to type this much eight jumbo passenger planes have passed through my view on their descent to Heathrow.

As long as the default choice is the status quo with regards to housing, transport, energy supply and food supplies, locked in a behavioural framework where success is defined by a larger house, a larger car and ideally one that is endorsed by Top Gear, more overseas holidays and more consumption of throwaway stuff, then the reality is that the majority will blindly follow those choices. Meanwhile, developing nations and the next generation – those who will inhabit the world we deliver to them are being educated to aspire to repeat our mistakes, locking us into another thirty years heading in an unsustainable direction.

The premise of making personal pledges is to recognise that the status quo is broken and that the default sets of choices have something wrong with them. That is entirely a good thing – the more people who lift their eyes from the motoring or travel lift out of their paper and take a moment to think “Is it a good and worthwhile decision in the grander scheme of things that I fly the family to Florida so that the kids can eat popcorn and ride a roller coaster at Disney Land?” the better. However we do not have the timeframe available to us now to allow us to hold minority choices to be the strategic answer that will lead to ultimate success.

We need systemic changes that deliver default choices to the majority so that without pledges or other conscious action on their behalf their ecological footprint is sustainable. The power to deliver those changes lies not in the hands of a minority of average private citizens, no matter how vocal, passionate and committed they are. It lies in the hands of those making the macro financial and legislative structures that shape the world we live in.

Debate we can on how to best achieve the attention and action amongst our elected leaders. However it is to be pragmatic to recognise that success lies not in a minority swimming against the stream, it lies in changing the course of the river. Ten thousand people could sit in peaceful protest in Heathrow’s terminals tomorrow, but until the system stops classifying their actions as illegal, until the media brands them not as “Enemies of the economy” but rather “National heroes”, and until the majority of public opinion has some degree of empathy for their actions it will all be just a blip soon lost in time and significance as the status quo resumes.

We do not have time for the luxury of optimism. We have time only for bold thinking enabled through pragmatic execution. The time for despair may yet come, but it is not upon us yet as we are still “this side” of the historical record; a record that will document whether we lived through the age of stupidity or the age of grand deliverance.

YES there is time for individuals to fight climate change without government regulation by Dave Hampton

Before talking about individuals and governments, I’d like to separate out the: “Is there enough time?” part of the question.

Let me be clear. I think we have very little time. But is there enough time? I don’t know

The late great Dana Meadows had a famous stock answer. When asked if we have enough time to prevent catastrophe, she’d always say that we have exactly enough time, starting now. Ok, you could observe that it’s a while since she gave her answer now. But that would be missing the spirit of her answer. What is crystal clear, like the melting ice, is that we don’t have long.

We don’t have time for the luxury of pessimism any more. Neither despair, which, although sometimes tempting, is illogical, unhelpful, and, some might observe, part of the problem.

Dana treated the future as choice, not fate, and she defined with luminous clarity how to do (as one sometimes must) what is necessary.

I turn now to E.F. Schumacher, in Small is Beautiful: “Can we rely on it that a ‘turning around’ will be accomplished by enough people quickly enough to save the modern world? This question is often asked, but whatever answer is given to it will mislead. The answer “yes” would lead to complacency; the answer “no” to despair. It is desirable to leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work.”

“Down to work” I believe he meant, is taking every single action we can take, now (to fight climate change) within our direct sphere of influence. To act now, and now, as if we believe CO2 to be a toxin. To work to eliminate it from our lives, without delay, without excuses, and without exception. This ‘work’ prepares the foundation for the next stage. To BE the low carbon life.

There is a vital point here. How can we demand that others take action before we have. We can do so, but our words will fall flat. This is obvious, but oft overlooked.

Once we have trimmed our own lifestyle to the level where we are as much a part of the solution as we are the pollution, then we can turn our hand to other work. To being an advocate. To inspiring our peers. To persuading all the powers that be, whether bosses, captains of industry, MPs or PMs. Persuading them by whatever peaceful means are available to us, ethically.

Then, once everyone is awakened, and engaged in ‘the war effort’ – then the process turns to cultivation, reward, acknowledgement, and steady escalation of ambition, raising of game, until the job is done. Until the world can live happily ever after again, without fossil.

I see no point in my logic above where we the people – have to hand over power to them – the government – to make us do something that we have told them we want them to force us to do!

Governments don’t lead, they follow. People lead.

IF we lead well, they will follow well, and one day, when its popular and with the benefit of hindsight, they can legislate for all the things that we’ve done, and proved can be done.

Regulation is necessary, and will follow our collective individual actions, but these must precede it, and with urgency. Waiting for governments to regulate, hoping they will - is a mugs game – a game of mutually assured destruction. It’s the game we have been playing for the last 20 years.

The new game is one of simple example, responsibility and advocacy with high contagiousness.

After all, if all each of us manage to do, is just set our own back yard in order (simples) ..and we all just do that one thing… then the world will take care of itself!

NO there is not time for individuals to fight climate change without government regulation by Simon Perry

I’m all for the movie The Age of Stupid. I think it is a clever plot framework for presenting the multi generational challenge that is climate change. I am always mindful that my own children will be fifty-ish by 2055, the year in which the film is set. Note to Franny: can we please have a version that is specifically designed for the ten to sixteen year old audience and their teachers? My aspiring actress daughter volunteers herewith.

I also think that the associated 10:10 campaign has much going for it. Chipping away at the wall of popular ignorance and intransience that has prevented mass awareness of the risks associated with uncontrolled climate change is a task that will require constant and innovative ways of gaining attention and airtime. People love to rally around a cause; and making a pledge, wearing the rubber wristband and joining a Facebook group makes everyone feel involved and even helps encourage some people to take some real action.

The creation of popular rallying foci isn’t however the strategic answer to achieving the necessary changes required to avoid a level of global warming above two degrees Celsius. Like it or not, the pragmatic answer is that we require market intervention in order to deliver the financial incentives and regulatory control that will force individual and corporate change.

Businesses are answerable to their shareholders and private owners and the strictures of legislation, not to moviegoers and the minority of the population that will take a 10:10 pledge. I eat local, organically and avoid all animal products, but my supermarket still sells factory bred chicken swizzles from China, all in the name of “providing a choice to the consumer”. No business will make a strategic or structural change in the way that operate as a result of only popular pressure, where such a change runs the risk of reducing competiveness and material profitability, especially with regard to reducing emissions. Corporate history is awash with examples of profit over purity in areas such as ignoring human rights, general environmental degradation, overfishing, over-extraction of water and production of products that are unhealthy or dangerous.

Meanwhile the long term and multi generational nature of climate change effects, and the necessary duration and scope of our responses requires that the educational curriculum must be updated in order to develop a generation of “emission adepts”. The knowledge of economics, history we teach and the social values we attempt to instil in the citizens of tomorrow must recognise and call out the flaws of reasoning we have thus far applied in our economic systems and commercial approaches - thus bringing us to this brink of catastrophe from which we must retreat. We must teach to every child the skills and knowledge required for them to play an active role in transitioning to a low carbon way of life, starting now. “No child left behind…in a high carbon mindset” ought to be our mantra. School Governors, PTA members, and even the occasional brave teacher may organise a screening of The Age of Stupid, and the school may even pledge to reduce, recycle and reuse the kitchen scraps in the eco garden compost. However the teachers will also follow the set curriculum knowing that OFSTED scores standard tests and attendance records, not CO2 emissions and 10:10 pledges.

It is legislation and governmental leadership that will shape the reality of our future. Given the scope of the necessary changes – wide, systemic, and interwoven; the urgency of the required response; and the need to get this right first time it is almost inevitable that deep market intervention will be required. It is equally likely that the average citizen and business lead won’t like the changes much, given how far they will potentially push us from the status quo. This is of course Catch-22, governments won’t act if doing so has a short term negative electoral effect on popularity while we the governed won’t accept the changes (however grudgingly) unless we are forced to. In this context both the movie and the campaign are helpful – if only everyone who views and pledges remembers their priorities come election day.

Franny Armstrong has demonstrated exceptional vision, tenacity and commitment in making the film and the campaign a reality. How many of our elected leaders will demonstrate the same clarity and courage in order to now make the changes we need a reality? Voluntary and individual action around the edges won’t achieve the necessary emissions reductions – never mind address other pressing environmental issues – in a free choice open market.

Over the last decade I’ve led or been involved in the review and auditing of numerous large-scale infrastructure projects. A worrying percentage of those projects had run into difficulties, prompting the audit – recovering from which required an expensive and time consuming re-engineering of the project . By large-scale infrastructure projects, I’m thinking of those projects, which span all (or most) Business Units and locations and impact upon multiple business processes. Such infrastructure projects typically include enterprise information security management deployments - in particular Identity and Access Management (a domain where most of this author’s hands-on experience lies), as well as other technology management areas, such as Network and Systems Management and Service Management. Of course it is always better to avoid the problems to begin with, rather than have to go through the process of project review, re-engineering and mitigation. Especially now when trading conditions dictate that every effort is made to deliver on time and under budget it is important that much effort is invested up front to get things right first time round. Four simple guiding principles distinguish the delivery of a successful enterprise project from one that needs eventual rescue:

Make a plan – and stick to it!
There are all sorts of variations on the theme of “Plans are nothing but planning is everything” attributed to Winston Churchill, Dwight D Eisenhower and General George Patten. My personal favourite is “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. However, when you’re undertaking an infrastructure project, it’s important to take the time to plan and prioritise properly. This includes engaging with key business stakeholders and building relationships with them. It’s vital that these stakeholders are at least represented, if not actively participating throughout the project.

Remember – the plan needs to stand up to the pressures that will inevitably arise over the time scales involved in enterprise wide infrastructure changes. Beware pressure to modify the plan or the design to accommodate one stakeholder (for example: one software vendor or service provider in a consortium; or an internal stakeholder such as one business unit) at the expense of the overall design. Similarly, over the timescale of a typical infrastructure project, new versions of the core software and hardware products that are being deployed will inevitably be released. You have to have a clear plan of how and when you will adopt these new releases, by allowing for “technology refresh” activities at suitable intervals.

Bottom line: Once the design is signed off, resist the temptation to adopt a new version or service pack, unless there’s a very clear need for some functionality to overcome a major problem.

Listen to the vendor. They know what they’re talking about (most of the time).
At this year’s IAM Summit in London, Gartner Analyst Perry Carpenter pointed out that failing to listen to advice from the vendor and/or systems integrator will in most cases be a mistake. The vendors and their partners have implemented their solution many times. Sometimes, it worked and sometimes it didn’t work so well. It’s worth capitalising on their experience.

This is in fact a double-edged sword, which cuts all the way back to the solution selection phase of the project. Each vendor designs and builds their product to deliver a defined set of use cases in a particular way. During product evaluation ensuring that the actual process needs of the project match the use cases the vendor can perform against is the best way of avoiding the “Sure we can make it do that, but the product wasn’t really architected that way” response later.

Aligned to their product architecture (which mirrors the use cases the vendor has designed for), each vendor will have developed a logical deployment architecture. In fact one major IAM vendor embodies that notion in their “Deployment Playbook”. This is a standard design which embodies all the best practices that that vendor’s professional services consultants have learned over many projects. The vendor estimates risk in terms of deviation from the deployment playbook and costs services accordingly.

Bottom line: Consider the use cases that need to be satisfied during the selection phase and select a vendor that closely aligns with those. During deployment, the closer you can then stay to the chosen vendor’s logical architecture, then the more likely it is that the deployment will be successful.

Beware Showstoppers.
When considering the risks attached to an infrastructure project, it becomes clear that some risks, if they occur, will force the project to be abandoned. The likelihood of running into these risks is exacerbated by the typically long time frame of infrastructure projects. For example, you’re planning a 3 year project built on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and at the same time the Enterprise Architecture Board is planning a strategic switch to ASP/.NET in 12 months time. These risks can’t be addressed within your project, so they have to be treated as assumptions (you assume that they won’t come about) and are “owned” at a higher level in the organisation.

Bottom line: Be sure that the governance arrangements for your project are adequate to ensure that the impact to your project will be considered by the decision makers and also that you have a channel to “escalate” if a project assumption should prove false.

Frequently deliver in small increments and prioritise by value returned.
Implementing a new piece of IT infrastructure, whether for security management, or service management or something else, inevitably takes a long time. It’s a well-know truism that you should plan for the whole of the organisation’s strategic planning horizon (typically 3-5 years) and deliver within the budget cycle (typically 1 year).

Experience has shown however that projects are viewed as being more successful if they deliver value and return on investment in a number of small, regular, and incremental builds. The logic for this is twofold. First, by making regular deliveries into production, the Business can see real value from the project in the shortest possible time. The second reason is more to do with hedging your bets. The completion date for a project is generally derived from the critical path. So, provided nothing goes wrong with any activity on the critical path (which by definition have little to no slack in their “required by” dates) then the project will complete on time.

In reality, the range of possible completion dates for the project as a whole is very wide (with the outside estimate typically 150-200% greater than the shortest duration). Projects which overrun face the risk of being cancelled before completion. By planning to deliver multiple increments, with the greatest business value (and the highest risk) embodied in the earliest increments, then if the project is cancelled early, there is still a working infrastructure, delivering the majority of the benefit to the business. The increments that get cancelled probably contain the “bells and whistles”.

Bottom line: Deliver key use cases first and make regular deliveries of additional functionality, to ensure that the Business can see the value of continuing.

Infrastructure projects can and of course do succeed in delivering value to the Business. But, to achieve this, you need to put a lot of effort into programme management and in particular into publicising you project and its successes to the Business. Above all, keep in mind that just because it’s infrastructure, doesn’t mean that it’s all about IT. Remember that people and processes are involved too.

Fittingly the news (as reported here) that the UK government is to push the use of high speed rail over the use of short haul aircraft for travel within the UK comes to me via a copy of The Guardian from the nice man seated opposite me in seat 29, en route to Edinburgh. We sit here in a little threesome of macbooks, the newspaper man, his colleague and I, with only a niggling worry at the back of the mind that there is only one 240v socket to share between us. The other two macbooks being the newer it is likely that my battery will run out sooner, giving me “first come, first serve” ownership rights over the electricity nipple. Perhaps the only time that a short(er) battery life gives any sort of advantage.

The preferential use of rail over air for passengers, and over road for long haul freight has been a long term interest for this author. Perhaps a legacy of being birthed in the rail town of Crewe, and being descended from a family with the stains of coal dust, diesel, and points grease deeply embedded in the pores. My father recently retired from his position as General Manager of Invensys Rail Division’s Asian operations, based in Bangkok, after a lifelong career in the industry of rail infrastructure internationally working for Westinghouse Brake and Signal (now a division in the conglomerate Invensys). Both of my grandfathers worked as boilermakers in the Crewe train yards, and my mother was a computer operator for British Rail in the 1960s. No trainspotter me, but I hold no distain for the concept of long distance steel wheeling and will now happily eschew the opportunity to doff my shoes and stand in line to be body-rayed at Heathrow.

The UK Governments newly found support for rail is a welcome change from years of neglect, and billions of pounds of subsidies and countless examples of planning support for more carbon intensive travel options, especially flying. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead continue their legal challenge to the previously granted approval for a 3rd Heathrow runway even as transport secretary Lord Adonis reportedly states that “switching 46 million domestic air passengers a year to … rail is manifestly in the public interest”.

Interlude - just noticed that the curved girders supporting the roof over the platforms at York is attractively pierced with little star shaped cutouts.

Those 46 million passengers will only choose rail over anything else if the price is right (not I would argue, necessarily cheaper), while the service and experience meets or exceeds that to had in car or in the air. The provision of positive customer service experiences must also extend beyond the actual journey to include the planning, booking and ticketing; the transfers between the starting and end points and the relevant stations; and the numerous peripheral steps in between. The latter by the way, is a euphemism for “shopping opportunities”. Much effort has been made to create a sense and reality of “joined-up” services when flying. Ironically the Heathrow Express rail service provides a more seamless travel experience for air travellers starting or continuing their journeys into the capital than many long distance rail passengers might expect to find. Not only is there a morass of overlapping and uncoordinated rail services in the UK, operated by a mess of privatised and public companies, there is generally very little integration between rail and other transport modalities.

For passengers, the challenges of navigating between services - finding the connecting train for example - is hardly assisted at present to anywhere the degree that a potential air traveller might enjoy. It is impossible for instance to access a single application or internet hosted service from a handheld device and be provided with real time information on services throughout the duration of a multi-hop journey. Considering the availability and accuracy of GPS based location services on modern smartphones it is difficult to believe that an mash-up application can’t be developed that would not only pull together all the details of a travel booking, but could also guide the traveller to the correct platform for the next connecting service too.

Meanwhile, it is not just 46 million passengers who ought to encouraged into modern rolling stock, it is also long distance freight. Mile for mile, rail is most energy efficient method for hauling bulk goods, especially heavy produce. The pressure group Freight on Rail states that each bulk freight train can take the load equivalent of fifty HGVs off the roads. HGV drivers will twitchily reach for the keys for their big rigs all the while threatening rolling protests and road blockages at any suggestion of a concerted effort to switch bulk haulage (back) to rail, but the fact remains that shuttling the goods they carry by rail between distribution points emits far less GHGs than the fleet of HGVs required to do the same job would emit. Freight on Rail reports that 26% of the UK’s emissions can be attributed to road transport of goods.

A resurrection of the UK rail network is more than just rolling stock, routes and encouraging passengers and cartons alike onto the tracks. It is also about urban planning. Rail is an infrastructure at both local and national levels. Towns, transport interchanges and other peripheral infrastructure elements need to be planned with the idea that rail is a preferred transport modality. Rail infrastructure is long lasting and immovable once installed and so new urban developments, and redevelopment of existing towns etc need to flex a little to best accommodate their presence and encourage the use of the supplied services. Such ideas fly in the face of the open market free-for-all that characterises post-Thatcher Britain, however perhaps in these market interventionist times we may find the political and public will for a more planned approach now, with the goal of a better service and environment for all in the years ahead.

Last minute addendum: if this reaction by the airline industry is anything to go by, Adonis’s announcement might just have some legs.

A little while back I wrote about disclosure. Just a few thoughts trying to articulate a code of mini-corporate conduct by which I am attempting to shape my own little slice of the economic pie.

And so it is with no small amount of surprise, mixed together with what I hope is the appropriate amount of sincere humility that I find that David Tebbutt has said a few words on the subject here in the blog he authors for SmallBizPod.

As I mentioned to David via Twitter today, I’m not seeking to inspire here, just to get my own house in order.

Kicking around some ideas related to what “governance” means to eco/grreen - this is a work in progress.

First up is the observation that it’s really “governance of sustainability” which is more expansive than “eco/green governance”.

When applied to an organisation “sustainability” then encompasses ecological sustainability, and also financial sustainability,risk management, human asset management, and operational management. The following graphic illustrates this idea:

Throughout all of these areas are compliance conformance and reporting needs, project portfolio execution and coordination tasks, and strategic planning.

There are numerous ways in which each of these areas interrelate. While a “eco-governance” is a generally new concept it is clear that you can’t actually achieve anything meaningful if you handle it in isolation.

I’m working this up into a full blown article, meanwhile I’m just thinking out loud…

What isn’t surprising is that America hammered home a ground stake yesterday at the G8 Summit with the declaration that they will commit to an 80% reduction in GHG emissions, achieved by 2050. The idea that the Obama administration would take such a direction crystallised on the evening of October 2nd, 2008 in St. Louis Illinois.

On that evening the then Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin and the current Vice President Joe Biden primped, positioned and even occasionally answered a question during the Vice Presidential (nominee) televised debate. Biden, in response to a question regarding the causes of climate change responded; “It’s man made, it’s clearly man-made. That’s why the polar ice caps are melting”.

For those paying attention, this was a watershed moment – remembering that every answer given in that debate must have been subject to intense preparatory deliberation by an expert team of policy setters and massagers of messaging. Biden’s answer unequivocally nailed a sign on the wall pointing to the direction the administration would take. Here we are, some nine months later, and the bright spark Biden gave voice to that night has gestated in the G8 announcement.

And yet, like a newborn child, there is both an infinity of possibility and the great potential for tragedy all wrapped up in the same bundle. The G8 announcement, designed to spur developing countries like China and India into making similarly far reaching commitments, is problematic in that it fails to set aggressive commitments for interim emissions targets. Climate scientists would like to see developed nations achieve 50% emissions cuts by 2020, on the way to the overall 80% cuts three decades later. The announcement also courted controversy for the failure to concretely specify the baseline year against which relative targets are calculated – “OK…I’ll cut 80%. 80% of what though?” So…dramatic progress, but the devil remains in the details.

If the announcement isn’t a complete surprise then, is there anything that is? There’s certainly no surprise in the fact that 99% of the western world will get up today and do exactly the same things that they did yesterday, even if they read the newspaper headlines regarding the announcement as they crunch through their morning bowl of cereal. They’ll eat the same food, use the same transport method to get to work or drop little Mary-Jane and Muhammad at the local school, and book the same holiday destination regardless. An infinitesimal number of people will internalise the news and begin to think how their lives might be different if conducted such that they generate only 20% (or less, depending on the baseline year) of emissions than they do today.

Similarly, business leaders will generally have the same meetings they otherwise would have had. Focussing not on the method by which they may achieve profitable operations with 80% less emissions, but instead on this quarter and this year. Product Managers, Vice Presidents of Futurology and other foretellers of the future will spend the day dreaming up two-dot-oh this and three-dot-oh that, mashed up, twittered and iPhone ready for all. Ministers of Education, School Principals and Teachers will pull out the same textbooks and all give no thought as to how to enable the room full of fresh-faced 9 year olds with an education suitable to successfully progress and contribute to an economic model that is undergoing a fundamental shift throughout the duration of their future working lives. The 9 year olds of today are the 50 year olds of 2050. They are generation of Emissions Transitioners – the Digital Immigrants of the carbon-down age. Their lives will be defined not by the rhetoric of the 2009 G8 Summit, but by the continued action of many throughout the coming forty years.

Perhaps the surprise then, if there is any, is simply the degree to which the minutia of planning necessary to actually enact structural change has thus far failed to materialise. To have the head and the mouthpiece of the dog bark is one thing, but to have the body react requires specific directions to be sent to the nerves and muscles that initiate and coordinate action. It is high time that detailed consideration is given to how change will be achieved and successfully guided and governed along the way.

Clearly the necessary structures to accommodate and encourage change remain illusive – preceding the G8 announcement by just a few days was the news that an ambitious plan to generate 4,000 megawatts of wind farm electricity in the USA was being mothballed. The project was cancelled, according to the chairman of BP Capital Management due to fact that “transmission issues and the problem with the capital markets make (the scheme) unfeasible at this point”. The country that does achieve such a plan for renewable energy generation and distribution will be the first to lay claim to the pole position in the rankings of countries decoupled from the pollution, profit, violence and warfare associated with oil production in many parts of the world.

A high game of brinkmanship therefore continues to be played amongst the world’s leaders. At stake is nothing less than the shape of the geopolitical stage and the economic ordering of the winners and losers in the “green economy”. Mixed in amongst that is the question of what sort of everyday opportunities and decisions will be available to everyone alive today who is 45 years of age or less – for we are the generations of transitional action. L’Aquila may rumble with the aftershocks of tectonic discontent, but it is the aftershocks from the 80% announcement that will rumble far longer and with far more potential reach.

A recent tweet by tebbo recommended a short article on a proposed in-wheel electric motor that can be retrofitted to existing petrol vehicles…. “RT @Vibroseis Retrofit hybrid kit for your car using electric wheel motors http://bit.ly/8gLox <<< Nice one Mr ex-IBMer”

Its an interesting idea. The technology proposal is for a set of electric motors to be installed between the wheel and the brake mechanisms, and powered by a battery array in the trunk. The motors will take up some or all of the load with the petrol engine therefore needing to work less, perhaps including down to only an idle speed. The petrol engine wouldn’t be able to be turned off completely when in motion as it will be required to power the vehicles existing essential systems - steering, brakes, aircon, digital-integrated-multi-media-web-browsing-GPS console, and heated 48oz coffee mug holders.

The practical challenges to making such a system work have to be: electric engine power limits; battery technology constraints,; integration with existing controls especially braking (incl. ABS) and acceleration - such systems may be fly by wire or cable/hydraulic; networking of motor units in order to synchronise output across the two/four wheels; the need to support multiple wheel size, stud pattern, rim offset configurations.

Wheel sizes and configurations are standardised more than you might think. A quick check of the webiverse finds that there are probably about 20 combinations of wheel size and stud pattern that are used across a high proportion of vehicle manufacturers and models. The practical consideration of deliverable motive power from the electric motors versus vehicle weight might reduce the range of cars the technology is practical for anyway, so the most common 20 size/stud patterns might well fit 75% of the addressable market. If the electric engine drive assembly is designed to allow for it then additional stud patterns can be bolted on easily. The published design schematic (see figure) seems to indicate that this is catered for.

The other caveat is that of bureaucracy. As the electric motor system is a change to the motive power source of the vehicle, and on paper adds horsepower over and above the existing petrol engine I would imagine that every vehicle in which it is installed will need to pass some sort of re-registration and roadworthiness inspection. There will no doubt be insurance implications as well.

There is another important design consideration - style. There is a trend toward Brake Bling. The designers will do to remember to cater for those who wish to greenvertise their new electric wheels.

It’s been an interesting week in jolly, old England. The thermometer that is positioned in a hanging plant basket just outside the kitchen window where it can be read of a morning from the climate comfort of the indoors crept to 39c on Wednesday. Allowing a few degrees for the fact that the rear of the house cops the full blast of the PM sun, and we can safely call the temperature that day as 35c. Meanwhile, due to the simple exercise of keeping the curtains closed on the sunny side of the house as the day went on, indoors maintained a temperature a noticeable 6-7 degrees lower than outside. If only he house (an extended 1930’s semi) had some decent shading verandas it’d be even more pleasant.

If only..

If only all those people who gleefully jumped up during this winter’s snowfalls, pointed out the window and jabbered “See…snow. In England. Just proves global warming is a load of hot air. If the climate was warming we wouldn’t have snow now would we?” would now take a sweaty moment to consider the meaning of a different day. As Goerge Monbiot points out, the same climate deniers are noticeably silent in the face of a heatwave.

A four day UK heatwave does not a global climate trend make however. It may be likely that the UK regionally gets more hot weather incidents as a result of changing climate, but the specific incident of a few hot days is not the indicator that we’ve suddenly reached climate tipping point.

However, the recent heatwave ought to provide something for the climate deniers to think about. Because they’re also fond of saying “We’ll anyway, I like hot weather. We fly to Spain every year to holiday in the beautiful heat. If it does get hotter, I’m all for it. Malaga in East Anglia I say. Bring it on!” That’d be the same people then who drearily moaned there way through four days of hot days this week? Moaning about sleepless nights, their faces flushed red after the small exertion of walking 200 metres from the town carpark to the school to pick up little Edward or Edwina. The same ones passing out at their desks due to the lack of office air conditioning, having already dangerously weakened themselves through the hot crush of the morning commute on the Tube.

What they might well think is “This hot weather is not as much fun when you have to live in it, going to work in a suit when its 35c, and going about the everyday humdrum of life under blazing, cloudless skies.” Because the lesson of this week’s heatwave is not “One heatwave = final proof of global climate change,” the lesson is “England’s infrastructure is not designed to deal with hot weather.”

England’s housing stock for instance lacks the wide eves or verandahs to be found in countries like Spain, Australia, and South Africa, that provides shading for the walls of the dwelling when the sun is at its hottest point. Meanwhile the county’s office stock is, aside from new structures such as The Gherkin, devoid of air-conditioning, and locked in a design that gives no thought to the need for extensive natural air flow on a hot day. Instead, what windows there are are likely to remain shut against the incessant roar and exhaust fug from the traffic below.

Little Edwina will be spending the day sitting in a school classroom, distracted from lessons by the heat, the stickiness, and her state of mild dehydration. The UK school system doesn’t do heat well - there is an almost complete lack of shady areas in the playground.

Summer hats that would protect faces, heads and eyes from the fierce midday sun (right when school lunch break is) are not a feature of 99% of school uniforms, and there is no universal policy anyway that would encourage / force pupils to wear them outside on the hottest days.

As the drought conditions across southern England showed a few years ago, this nation is also woefully unprepared to deal with any extended period of summer dryness; at the time of the hosepipe ban high street retailers (remember them?) continued to sell an extensive range of backyard wading pools “All of which can be filled and refilled with impunity.”

In short; 35c is an enjoyable lark when on holidays, dressed in swimming trunks, sunglasses, a beach hat and with nothing more taxing for the mind to do than read a Dan Browne novel by the poolside bar. Living with 35c: working, commuting, shopping, schooling, cooking, cleaning, sleeping and myriad of other daily activities are not at all as much fun. Its even less fun when the basic infrastructure of the country isn’t geared toward dealing with it. And changing that infrastructure will require a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of disruption.