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.

Al Tepper of OOFFOO has organised a little online debate, inspired by the release of Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid.

The question to hand is this: “Is there time to fight climate change without government regulation?”

Al says: We all encounter cynics when it comes to being green and with the global launch of the 10:10 campaign we thought it would be a great idea to debate whether or not individuals can make enough changes to tackle climate change or whether ultimately we need governments to regulate our way out of this mess. Is the carrot enough or do we need the stick?

Joining us to get the debate started are two great green voices: Simon Perry, Sustainalyst @ Thinking String & Dave Hampton aka The Carbon Coach (his latest newsletter is very relevant).

The original debate posting, together with reader comments can be found here.

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.

The debate, if you can call it that, in the US over health care system reform is a truly bizarre spectacle, and one that is an abject lesson in how to distract an argument away from the core subject being discussed.

The indisputable fact is that approximately 40,000,000 people in the US cannot afford access to basic health care services. By “basic” I refer not to agonising decision over whether to have nipple enhancement or not while you’re in to get your breasts done. No…by ‘basic’ I mean services like non cosmetic dental care, A&E care, blood pressure and cholesterol diagnosis and treatment, diabetes diagnosis and treatment, natal care, and services to repair all the wear and tear experienced during the average first 18 years of life. The bottom line here is that the current system, the status quo, is structured such that 40 million mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons and daughters have zero ability to pay for services to fix health problems that are chronically painful and perhaps life threatening. With no “health care net” available either “no ability to pay” translates into “zero access”.

To reiterate what is an important and fundamental point. The current population of the UK is approximately 60 million people. If 40 million people in the UK were similarly effectively blocked from access to health care then two thirds of the population could not go to the dentist or doctor ever. The current population of Australia is 21 million - so if you deported all the doctors, nurses and dentists from Australia and closed all the hospitals and clinics you’d still only be halfway to denying 40 million people basic health care services.

Meanwhile, for the other 260 million or so Americans who do have access to health care, services and treatments are eye poppingly expensive. However, be careful your eye doesn’t pop too far out as it may not covered by the health insurance scheme provided by your employer - which is shelling out an estimated US$12,000 per employee per annum to pay for that insurance (providing insurance for the employee and up to 3 dependants). That’s US$12,000 more that could be paid directly to the employee as wages if the employer did not structurally have to cover the health insurance costs. If you think twelve thousand bucks is chicken feed, it is worth remembering that that figure is the about the US minimum wage - though it is also worth remembering that if you were an employee actually on minimum wages, it is unlikely that your employer would also be providing health insurance making you perhaps one of those 40 million people unfamiliar with the inside of a doctor’s waiting room.

This author speaks from experience with regards to the platinum coated pricing schemes of US health care as we had a son born in New York state during the family’s four year tenure in the USA. It is worth providing a short summary of those costs to provide perspective:
- total time mother/son spent in a hospital: 12 hours (the minimum time before you’re allowed to check out after giving birth)
- total time doctor spent in room: 60 seconds (to sign a form)
- nursing staff: 1 “in and out” with the majority of nursing provided by self funded midwife
- drugs and other interventions: zero (yes you read that right; no drugs, no interventions)
- use of “machines that bleep”: zero
- use of ambulance or similar: zero

In short - you would struggle to describe a birth experience that required less support from neo-natal services other than a home birth.

Total cost: just shy of US$8000; with the employer provided insurance paying for 90% and leaving us with a 10% or US$800 deductible. Just what was worth eight thousand dollars of medical treatment remains a mystery to this day.

Meanwhile the US is ranked by the WHO in almost all indicators, except for cancer survival rates, far below Oman, Morroco and Colombia, as well as the UK, France, Germany (just keep listing other major European and Scandinavian countries here), and Australia. The USA ranks 37th.

To summarise: the US has a health care system today that under-delivers against important key performance indicators (infant mortality, average life span etc), is eye wateringly expensive for those treatments it does provide, and leaves 40,000,000 people with zero health care. Oh, and by the way the status quo is projected to bankrupt the country entirely as it will fail to scale further as the populations increases and ages.

The debate therefore ought to be a simple one - does the US maintain this status quo, or does it seek to reform health care in such a way as to drastically improve the USA’s WHO rankings , provide basic services universally, and reduce the overall costs to prevent budgetary collapse.

However that isn’t the debate that is taking place. The debate that is taking place is over whether the provision of universal health care is “socialist” (translation: pinko subversise communist), and whether fantastical death panels will rule over the worth of Grandma’s life (Sarah Palin says she can see the Death Panels from her medicine cabinet). Take these two distracting and emotive topics, add a little dash of Glenn Beck to the aforementioned Salt of Palin and you’ve just hijacked what was a needed and sensible debate, and you’ve turned it instead into a roiling mess of argument that churns onward and achieves nothing. Or more accurately, it achieves the maintenance of the status quo.

Which brings us naturally to the topic of peak oil (this as my old friend George Watt would say, is a “neat little seque”). The connection here is twofold and less tenuous than you might think. Firstly, oil provides the energy that enables modern health care. Secondly, and more directly relevant to the main point here is that the debate over the timing of peak oil has been allowed to overshadow the necessary debate over the future of (petroleum based) energy prices.

The truth of the matter is that we will only definitively know when global oil supplies have peaked once we’re well down the slope of decline. Far enough down perhaps to have put behind us a few (more) instances of supply having insufficient scope of growth to meet real demand. There is much evidence to suggest that we’re already basically at the peak point, or just beyond. However arguing this point tends to just around in circles. It is very easy for peak-deniers to point to the status quo and argue that “Providers report significant reserves as they have in the past. They didn’t stop pumping last year. So they won’t stop pumping this year. And anyway, we can just drill a few more holes in the Alaskan tundra if we need more.” Such drill-baby-drill responses are the peak-oil equivalent of the pinko-communist-death-panel responses in the US healthcare debate. The main purpose, intentional or otherwise, is to maintain the direction and rate of the status quo and delay or prevent structural change and improvement.

The real discussion that needs to be taking place concerning oil is whether cheap oil will continue to be available. “Cheap” is of course a relative term. Ignoring for a moment that (not insignificant) fact of the infamous US$147 p/bl price peak, by “cheap” means “the median price of oil over the period during which it has fuelled the development and growth of the current economic model.” Furthermore, given that the maintenance of the social/economic/world-balance-of-power status quo relies on the oil price remaining somewhat near that median price, what are the implications for the economic decisions that are made countless times every day, that are based on the price of oil?

The outlook is such that it is almost certain, on balance, that anything but the status quo will result. For example, OPEC has for some time now called for a price range of between US$70 and US$80 p/bl as being the minimum that can support the necessary infrastructure and exploration investments required to maintain supply levels. Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer stated in June of this year that “(All this) points to new price spikes and volatility further down the road.” The same Kuala Lumpur hosted Asian Oil and Gas conference heard BP CEO Tony Hayward state that a target price of US$60 to $80 p/bl is also in BP’s sights in order to pay for required investments.

A per barrel target price of between US$70 and $80 p/bl is a very interesting one for a number of reasons.

For a start, it represents the upward slope of prices for petroleum and oil-derived products (fertilizer and plastics feed stocks) that are felt downstream by consumers and industry. The Wall Street Journal reports that petroleum prices as a percentage of disposable income more than doubled between 1981 and 2008. This is enough to change consumer behaviour, and certainly enough to alter the balance of cost calculations for heavily oil dependent industries.

Secondly, it is worth looking at the 2006 study performed by the US Department of Commerce titled “Macroeconomic and Industrial Effects Of Higher Oil and Natural Gas Prices”. The D.O.C. study was designed to predict the effects on the US economy (and by extrapolation all other developed economies) of an oil price that is maintained in the range of US$70.00 to $80 p/bl for two years or more. Not surprisingly, the study found depressive effects on GDP, industrial output, consumer disposable income levels and more. All other things being equal such a price would also result in an additional 500,000 people becoming unemployed due to cross sector job losses, compared to an oil price range in the US$50 to $60 p/bl range.

Those resulting changes occur for a very simple reason: as oil prices increase (and therefore the prices of products derived directly and indirectly from oil increase) the decisions made by individuals whether acting as individual consumers or in their capacity as business decision makers changes too. Spend less, invest elsewhere, carry less employees, locate and manufacture elsewhere. Scaling upwards to the strategic and structural as oil prices continue to go upward from US70+ we eventually reach a point where airlines downsize and go out of business en masse, and where commuters desert their SUVs and catch a train or a bus instead. Jeff Rubin, former Chief Economist of CIBC Worldmarkets is quoted as saying “I think we’ll see a return to triple digit prices (per barrel oil prices) very early into an economic recovery”. His book titled “Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: What the Price of Oil Means for the Way We Live” is worth a read as a basic outline of his thinking.

This therefore is the discussion we ought to be having - how do we achieve a soft landing for society as oil prices increase, and the associated economic decisions are reworked? Sure, there are clearly some, like Mr. Rubin who are sounding the drum. However the majority of individual and corporate decision makers continue with the assumption that energy prices will remain roughly in line with those enjoyed during the past 50 years, and that therefore the same structural economic system will continue. All the rest have either not noticed at all, or have been distracted by the circular debate regarding peak oil.

All of which is a segue if I ever seen one. And a sick one at that.

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.

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 Monkchips caught my eye; “good question from @tomraftery. regarding smartgrid resilience how will we defend against electro magnetic pulses?”.
Having recently written about smart grids the question of potential security risks is a good one in my view. I got to thinking that the question of whether the vendor spokespeople had anything scripted to say was interesting, and perhaps indicative in a small sample way of the lack of strategic risk analysis in the vendor community. But the really interesting question is the other one; are smart grids inherently more at risk from an EMP incident?

“Compared to what?” is the first response. Compared to the status quo of national and international grids powered by baseload and demand plants fueled mostly by fossil fuels? Compared to individual off-the-grid power generation by the likes of smal PV and wind based renewables? Smart grids and the status quo approaches rely on networked generation, so they both carry the added risk of a cascaded failure, where a failure in one part of the grid unbalances neighbouring zones. Individual power generation failures cannot cascade; all failures are local failures.

Meanwhile smart grids share the same generation methods and technologies that are used in individual off-the-grid generation. A mix of renewable generation techniques including PV, wind, wave, water, thermal tower and the like would be used, as suited to the local environmental conditions. Is such equipment especially vulnerable to EMP? If the vendors Monkchips spoke with are indicative it might be safe to say that EMP shielding is unlikely to be a current design feature on standard, commercially available installations. There is inherently more electronics distributed throughout a smart grid than in the status quo grid, therefore it is fair to say that on a component basis the equipment used in smart grids is damaged more easily by EMP.

In a smart grid, some of those electronic components will be involved in managing the flow of electricity across the grid; controlling and measuring consumption and contribution whilst maintaining a baseload current. So a failure due to EMP would not only knock out local generation in the affected area, it would also knockout the controlling grid management nodes. There is in this case the potential for cascade failure flowing out from the area directly affected by the pulse.

In reality however, the status quo grid is today national and international structure of both radial and interconnected design. Switches between network branches control the flow of electricity, dictated by spot market price fluctuations and efforts to balance the grid to baseload demands. Switch changes are made both manually and automatically. The existing danger of cascade failure was famously demonstrated in the 2003 failure of the grid in the North East of the USA. This article (http://www.newsmax.com/weyrich/emp_radiation/2008/06/25/107194.html) holds the view that the existing grid is already gravely at risk from cascade failure.

Arguably, smart grids might actually be more resilient than the existing switch grid networks in two important ways. Firstly, the modern equipment may detect an up or downstream fault faster, make a decision faster, then enact a switch change faster than current systems. The difference may only be milliseconds, however that may be the difference between cascade or otherwise. Secondly, smart grids are intended to have a more granular switching capability, though they will likely share the same suburban and rural trunk and backbone transmission as is already used today. “Lower” down the food chain from the suburb level subgrid might be street level controlling nodes and so on. The greater granularity of such control nodes may also isolate a cascade faikure within a smaller zone.

So far its a fairly even match. The generation nodes in smart grids and local off-the-grid designs is likely to be less EMP resilient than a coal fired power station. On the other hand both the smart grid and the status quo share a risk of cascade failure. The smart grid design may even be a little more resilient to cascade failure.

But there’s one more thing worth considering; that is the question of whether there is a material risk of an EMP incident anyway. An EMP incident isn’t something that is likely to occur everyday; the detonation of a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere would do it. There are a few other ways, but all require nothing less than considerable money, skills, madness, and balls. A hostile EMP incident will either be an active of war launched by a nation state, or one of terrorism by an unallied group. There is also the possibility of friendly fire by way of an industrial accident, or the failure of one or another item of ill maintained national critical infrastructure (whether privately or publically managed).

If the EMP incident was as a result of friendly fire then it is highly unlikely that an atmospheric nuclear detonation would occur. If the attack was an act of terrorism then it is on the balance more likely that an EMP pulse could be generated locally to a generation plant or other critical element, and less likely that a nuclear bomb could be procured and exploded in an aeroplane or launched in a rocket to explode over the target company. Again, the affect would therefore be localised and unlikely to result in catastrophic cascade failure throughout the grid.

In the event that a nationwide EMP incident did occur, the country is probably at war. At that point all this discussion is perhaps interesting, but whether we have a smart grid or the status quo grid probably isn’t our biggest problem. Other than the fact of course that it is arguable that there will be more international conflict ahead of us if we continue the status quo approach, fuelled by resource shortages and social disruption resulting from the effects of climate change.