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Franny Armstrong and Team Stupid today launched the campaign 10:10 - on the back of the release of the film The Age of Stupid. The film (which this author has not yet seen) spices up a documentary on oil and climate change with a fictional, backward glance in time at the present day. It is designed to be no less than a catalyst for change in the attitude of viewers regarding the reality and urgency of climate change, and thus one that inspires meaningful action across a broad front. The film’s production, distribution and funding models are themselves innovative - and that too has helped form a buzz around the film. Meanwhile, the associated 10:10 campaign is an attempt to get individuals and corporations to sign-up to a pledge to reduce their GHG emissions by 10% (over 2009) levels by the end of calendar year 2010. So while the film is intended to galvanise action, the campaign is intended to provide the framework for execution. I sincerely wish both the film and the campaign the best of success.

However it pains me however honesty compels me to say that I also ultimately believe that neither effort will make a difference to the course we are on.

Here’s why…

We are well beyond the point where simple changes to everyday behaviours are going to make any meaningful difference to climate outcomes. That’s not to say that there aren’t a long list of good things that can’t be done at an individual level - from the choice of lighting and building environmental control methods to the selection of green energy producers. There are nearly as many lists of methods regarding “how to drop 10% of your emissions” as there are tonnes of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere every year. We have no shortage of knowledge with regards to what needs to be done. What we lack is any broad interest in actually making those changes and making them stick.

Of course, that lack of interest is what both the movie and the campaign are attempting to address. But it won’t work - there is too much momentum built into the system of doing things for the change to occur. Honestly - of all the people I know I can’t think of a single person who is today not already switched onto the idea of the need to reduce their own reduce emissions who is likely to change opinion now to meaningfully internalise the need to alter behaviour. Note the emphasis - I do know people who are doing their darnedest to make a difference, both in their own lives and in the broader community and business world. However of all the intelligent, successful and everyday people I know, living everyday lives I see no evidence whatsoever that the message on climate change is sinking in. Of course they are all aware of all the little things that I happen to do at a personal and professional level - however all that is relegated to either being something that is regarded as endearing and quirky personal characteristics (and thus forgiveable) or the “Well that’s just all about work…let’s talk about something meaningful like the great deal I can get on a new sports car since the recession.”

The all too obvious answer of course is to interject with the suggestion that if a sports car is needed then perhaps a Telsa Roadster might be a better environmental choice than an AMG modified Mercedes. However the real, strategic answer is “How about cycling, walking, or catching the train instead.” Its the difference between the tactical choice and the strategic direction and lets be honest, we’re not gearing up for it. After all, in order to make enough of a difference that we avert further climate change we don’t need 10% of film goers to elect to watch The Age of Stupid, and then have 10% of them not only to sign onto the 10:10 pledge but to also actually achieve the committed reductions. We need more like 50% of the developed world’s population to make and then deliver on that commitment, while supporting the developing nations in a wide variety of ways such that they do not fill the resulting emissions reductions with their own GHG fuelled economic growth.

The question is “What’s stopping us getting there? Surely a people-powered social change such as that of the 10:10 commitment will overcome the inertia?” Actually, its hard to believe that it will. Realistically speaking there is little to point to which would indicate that the carrot approach of market forces alone will set the appropriate path and pace for change. Cutting through to the “bottom line” we can actually say that market forces have proven to be utterly ineffective at delivering a low carbon economy. Only a bloody great big stick approach involving market intervention of a dramatic kind is likely to alter that outcome, and there is much to point to support the case that such market intervention is unlikely to occur.

Take the USA. Obama’s administration does I think get climate change, as well as understanding that a path toward a low carbon economy provides opportunities for a renewal of US economic fortunes. However one needs to look no further than the debate - if we can sensibly call it that - in the US concerning the health care system to find an example of the ability of the US population overall (stirred on by Republican Party agitators) to violently insist on retaining a status quo that is both already enormously damaging to human health and fiscal responsibility, as well being forecast to cause far greater economic exposure down the track. There are plenty of parallels between how the US health care debate is playing out and how events would unfold if the administration attempted the necessary market interventions required to reduce the USA’s by 10% next year, with further dramatic changes scheduled annually thereafter. Rest assured that bipartisanship will be sunk deeper than the Good Ship Titanic if the Democratic Party administration took that path. The chance to play politics on the issue of climate change and by doing so to place a Republican leader back in the White House in 2012 will override the longer returns to humanity that come from avoiding a greater than 2c degree rise in global temperatures by 2050.

Meanwhile in the UK there is consensus amongst all but the Brown family that the Tories will form the next UK government. Even the most ardent of Labour supporters can smell the paint fumes from the writing that is on the wall on this one. From the perspective of the government in waiting there are therefore no significant votes to be had in taking a more hardline approach to climate change than has already been mooted. Cameron has done green and almost certainly has recognised that he doesn’t need the incremental votes of the 10:10 pledged voting public to achieve power. Look no further than the very real absence of a detailed plan from Camp Cameron on how to achieve real structural change regarding climate change (hint to London’s Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson - it makes no difference to climate outcomes if Heathrow expansion is cancelled in favour of a runway in the middle of the Thames).

Meanwhile down in Australia the debate between the incumbent Rudd government and the Liberal opposition over the details and implementation timetable of the proposed Climate Bill is raging. The Rudd administration, seeking to exploit the currently shambolic leadership of the opposition party has flirted with the idea of pushing the question of the adoption of the bill - which has thus far been blocked by Liberal Party opposition - through to a double dissolution election. Doing so would deliver both the opportunity to strike politically while the opposition is weak, outside of the standard election cycle (thus extending the overall potential duration of the Rudd government term of power), while giving all the appearance of taking action, while actually avoiding the pain of making real change. The latter is in fact the only guaranteed outcome of the whole process as there isn’t a climate scientist of any repute who has looked at the proposed Australian bill who feels it commits Australia to the necessary level of emissions cuts. Politics over real climate action again.

If all that sounds awfully cynical let me hold up some examples to ponder of where phenomenally important decisions and agendas have been pushed through by the government of the day. The following list is not, to be absolutely clear, meant to be representative of what have been good decisions. There are merely examples of the lengths that government will go to when they really want to achieve an end.

Exhibit one: The Iraq Invasion. When George W. Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein he co-opted no less than Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Colin Powell, and most of the USA/UK/Australian media in a campaign of popular and political persuasion both audacious in its scope as it was inevitable in its outcome. The general citizenry were lied to regarding the evidence for WMDs, and when none were found the raison d’être for the war was conveniently changed. When hundreds of thousands of protesters voiced their opposition to the invasion they were ignored (something to keep in mind if 10:10 does in fact succeed in drumming up widespread ground-up calls for action on climate change).

Exhibit Two: When in 1999 the question of whether Australia ought to become a republic could be ignored no longer as a question of federal political importance no less than a national referendum was held to put the issue to the public vote. Some would say that the outcome was manipulated by the structure of the actual referendum questions citizens could reply to - but like the Iraq War the point isn’t necessarily about the rights and wrongs of the process, its more to do with the fact that when an issue is deemed important enough to be brought to the voting public’s consideration a process and will exists to do so.

Exhibit Three: During 2008 and into this year as the economies of the world collapsed governments have not pulled back from a degree of market intervention that is without precedent. Money is being printed in the US and the UK. Banks have been nationalised, car companies and airlines bailed out. Indeed the outcome of the 2008 US election cycle ultimately hinged on the question of how the nascent government would address the failing economy and the rapidly growing ranks of the unemployed and homeless. You can bet too that as the dust clears from the market collapse that a whole slew of new regulations will be introduced designed to tighten up fiscal and corporate governance in the hope of avoiding a repeat. So we have widespread extraordinary intervention already, and we’ll get a whole lot more intervention in the form of ordinary legislation later.

The 10:10 campaign, for all the good it will do, and for all the good intentions of those behind it exists solely because there is a leadership vacuum on the issue of climate change from the only people who can truly make the strategic and structural changes required - the collective governments of the G8 nations and those of India, China and other major emerging large GHG emitters. People power alone is not enough to sway the outcome - those protests that have already taken place continue to be dismissed as the Greenie Fringe. Our elected leaders have the capacity and track record in manipulating widespread public opinion on the occasions that they wish to. When that fails they simply claim the mantle of electoral mandate in order to override a minority of public dissent in the secure knowledge that the majority are too distracted to really care anyway. Simply put - we won’t achieve the necessary GHG emissions cuts without structural changes to the global economy; to society; to transportation and housing; and to the balance of fairness of the world’s economic systems without deep market intervention. And we won’t achieve that without a degree of leadership so far utterly absent on this issue.

We can be honest. Or we can continue to be collectively stupid. The status quo may win votes and avoid an uncomfortable degree of change, but only history will honestly judge the degree of the stupidity of the age in which we live.

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.

Anyone who’s ever attempted to avoid certain foodstuffs, whether for reasons of taste, allergy, diet, belief or morals, will know that it’s the fine print in the ingredients list that is all important. The ingredients list, together with standardised disclosure labels such as the Soil Association’s “Organic” symbol, the Fairtrade mark, and the Food Association’s “traffic light” symbol help consumers make informed decisions over what they put in their mouths. It’s worth noting that many foods have ingredients lists longer than the fine print in a mobile phone contract, which is an indicator that when required to by legislation, manufacturing companies can manage to track a complex set of base ingredients in a way that supports required disclosure.
It must be said that such disclosure requirements aren’t always welcomed by industry, however there’s a grudging acceptance of the need to label together with a strong desire to happily seek a stamp of approval if having one is suddenly recognised as being a positive brand differentiator. Disclosure, and informed choice, are after all powerful market shaping forces that have created new markets and enabled the phasing out of products, sources, and manufacturing methods newly considered undesirable or dangerous. There are many examples of these phenomena, but the two most powerful examples in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) food market in the last two decades are the Fairtrade and Organic Produce marks. There have also been notable “issues based” campaigns such as that conducted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the UK against battery farmed chickens during 2008 and 2009. The power of such issues-based campaigns ought not to be downplayed especially when sufficient media attention gets behind one. Consumer preference can be extensively shaped when attention is drawn to the sourcing of produce tainted with the whiff of dubious morals or unsustainable practices.

Disclosure also supports one of the most basic and powerful tools of international diplomacy; the application of economic pressure through sanctions and market control. Forcing companies to identify and disclose the use of materials sourced from a particular country allows for the enforcement of laws restricting trade between certain countries. The U.S.A’s Export.gov site provides full information regarding international trade restrictions, as does the UK’s Foreign and Commercial Office site. Such restrictions fundamentally shape market behaviour, and restrict everyday company actions such as selling to or sourcing from specific countries.

By now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with the ICT and consumer electronics industries; and the answer is Tantalum. Tantalum is a rare mineral with conductance properties that make it an essential ingredient in the capacitors inside every mobile phone (and many other ICT devices). Tantalum is sourced from only a few mines around the world, with the majority of supplies now coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC has been in a state of guerrilla warfare for many years to the tune of around 6 million deaths, and Tantalum mining and export is to the conflict what opium poppy farming is to Afghanistan; providing a rich source of international trade that funds continued conflict. Tantalum’s role in the DRC conflict has long been recognised, with the U.N. creating a panel to look at the issue back in 2001, at the direction of then UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

While the intervening years have seen little real change, Tantalum’s presence in consumer and office electronics goods is facing renewed focus. In April, U.S. Senators Sam Brownback, Dick Durbin, and Russ Feingold drafted and introduced a new act called the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009. Under the draft legislation, U.S.-registered companies selling products using columbite-tantalite (a source of tantalum), cassiterite, or wolframite, or derivatives of these minerals, would be required to annually disclose to the SEC the country of origin of those minerals. If the country of origin is the DRC or neighbouring countries, the company would need to also disclose the specific mine that the minerals are sourced from.

How significant that act might be in shaking up the electronic supply chain is perhaps indicated by the fact that meanwhile, the world’s largest source of Tantalum outside of the DRC is busy shutting down operations. Australia’s Talison Minerals, which previously enjoyed a 50% market share for supply of the mineral, mothballed its largest mine at the end of 2008, a move that reduced its active Tantalum mine operations from three to one. In announcing the action Talison cited unviable market prices related in part to cheap supply from the DRC. Perhaps the U.S’s Congo Conflict Minerals Act will see a reversal in this market state in the coming years, as the restrictions and market pressures make electronics manufactures reconsider their supply chains. Right now, electronics manufacturers are unnecessarily and significantly exposed as far as the provenance of the Tantalum supply.

All of which is a good lesson as to why “sustainable IT” is more than a passing nod toward an energy efficient server or a refillable printer cartridge. While the newly drafted Congo Conflict Minerals Act has a way to go before being adopted (as is or amended) it is a sign that far more scrutiny can be expected into the ICT industry supply chain in the future. Such scrutiny no doubt introduces complexity in both adherence by manufacturers, as well as in the level of consideration a buyer might have to take in selecting a product and supplier. However scrutiny crucially enables informed decision making, which is never a bad thing. Meanwhile, take another look at your mobile phone, there’s more inside it than just your contacts list and a battery that never lasts long enough.

Originally written for eWeek Europe:
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/sustainable-supply-and-the-trouble-with-tantalum-850?page=1

Earlier in June I posted this quote from John Wyndham. The intervening ten or so days has just reinforced the appropriateness of the quote, in my mind. Both the IEA, and Alexey Miller, who is the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, are pointing to the likelihood of $250 a barrel oil prices. Much hand wringing and protesting by truck drivers all over the place. The drivers are even choking on their jasmine rice in Thailand, though whether a “drive-slow” or a “traffic blockade” would be noticed in Bangkok is another question.

Meanwhile, in my native Australia petrol is now at A$1.60 a litre and predicted to head to A$2.00. The Australian government of Kevin Rudd, which was voted in only last year and promptly signed up Australia belatedly to the Kyoto protocol, doesn’t have the bravery to say what needs to be said: “Price reflects supply, and what we’re seeing now is a harbinger of what a carbon emission restricted economy and lifestyle will look like”.

This is why, to me, a carbon-down future is not an issue for technology. The highest barriers we will need to overcome are those in people’s minds. Mind you, we can’t blame them. Governments the world over have known about the reality and risks of climate change for at least twenty years, while Hubbert predicted global peak oil in the 1950s. Economic policy, education curriculum, and a lack of bravery and honesty by politicians have wrapped humanity in a warm(ing) comforter blanket of high energy dependency.

On the weekend I met up with some friends. The teenage son of one couple said that his high school science teacher says that global warming is caused by sunspots. I choked on my beer (we were having a quick rest and refreshment halfway through a bike ride), while I quickly jotted down the name of his school so I can make sure I don’t send my kids there. No doubt it would be regarded as inappropriate meddling to make the reality of anthropogenic climate change a required aspect of the next generation’s eduction. Pity, as they are going to have to live with the consequences of the choices and actions of today’s workforce and government.

(*) Legislate me

Despite a struggling economy, and a failure to meet its current obligations under the Kyoto protocol, Japan looks likely to take strong action to force industry to drastically cut CO2 emissions. Yasuo Fukuda, Japanese Prime Minister (pictured) will likely announce a self-imposed target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 per cent by 2050, according to media reports. The announcement is expected to be made in a speech at the Japan National Press Club.

While the US Senate bows to pressure from the united forces of the coal industry, Japan is looking to move unilaterally. Japan is one of the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases, and is obviously an industrial powerhouse. Fukuda’s government views climate change as a serious risk and one that also requires business/economic transformation rather than mitigation. The announcement is a recognition that without legislation industry is not likely to move far enough or fast enough on transformations that will enable the necessary cutting of emissions.