Copenhagen conference must produce global, ambitious and comprehensive agreement to avert dangerous climate change.

The European Commission today underlined the crucial importance of reaching a global, ambitious and comprehensive climate agreement at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen on 7-18 December. The European Union will be working to achieve maximum progress towards finalisation of an ambitious and legally binding global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2013.

The conference must settle the key political elements of the treaty and set up a process and mid-2010 deadline for completing the full text. The Copenhagen agreement must also incorporate a ‘fast start’ deal allowing for immediate implementation or preparation of certain actions, including financial assistance to least developed countries. Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas will both participate in the conference, as will some 90 other world leaders.

President Barroso said: “In Copenhagen world leaders must take the bold decisions needed to stop climate change from reaching the dangerous and potentially catastrophic levels projected by the scientific community. We must seize this chance to keep global warming below 2°C before it is too late. But Copenhagen is also an historic opportunity to draw the roadmap to a global low-carbon society, and in so doing unleash a wave of innovation that can revitalise our economies through the creation of new, sustainable growth sectors and “green collar” jobs. The European Union has set the pace with our unilateral commitment to cut emissions 20% by 2020 and our climate financing proposals for developing countries. We will be ready to scale up our emission reduction to 30% provided our partners in both the developed and the developing world take on their fair share of the global effort.”

Commissioner Dimas added: “I very much welcome that several major partners including the US and China have recently put concrete emission targets or actions on the table. The scientific evidence tells us that to keep global warming below 2°C, industrialised countries must cut their emissions to 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 while developing countries need to hold their emissions growth at some 15-30% below projected levels in 2020. However, the aggregate offers from developed countries still fall well short of the level of ambition needed, so I urge those countries with weak targets to improve them. Moreover a number of provisions in the current negotiating texts would have the effect of reducing developed countries’ targets in practice. These provisions must be tightened up in Copenhagen. Ensuring the environmental integrity of the future treaty is of paramount importance to the EU.”

International negotiations

International negotiations were launched at the end of 2007 to draw up a United Nations agreement on tackling climate change for the period after 2012, when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. For the European Union, these negotiations must result in a comprehensive, ambitious, fair, science-based and legally binding global treaty.

Given the slow progress made in the negotiations to date, and a lack of consensus about the shape of the eventual agreement, it is now unlikely that the treaty can be finalised in Copenhagen as originally planned.

The EU’s goal at the conference is therefore to make as much progress as possible towards a full treaty and to reach an ambitious and comprehensive political agreement covering all its key elements as well as a ‘fast start’ deal (see MEMO/09/534 ).

Copenhagen programme

For just over the first week of the conference, until 15 December, the negotiations will take place at official level. These will be followed, from 16 December until the end of the conference on 18 December, by a high-level segment. This will initially involve ministers and Commissioner Dimas, but from 17 December world leaders are invited to join them. More than 90 have already accepted, including President Barroso.

Commissioner Dimas will arrive in Copenhagen on 12 December to participate in an informal international ministerial meeting the next day hosted by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who will also chair the UN conference. Ms Hedegaard has been designated Commissioner for climate action in the next European Commission.

EU representation

The Swedish EU Presidency and the European Commission will be jointly responsible for negotiating on behalf of the EU in Copenhagen.

The EU ‘Troika’, comprising Sweden, the Commission and Spain (as the next EU Presidency), will hold daily press briefings at 1400. These will be streamed live and on demand on the website of the UN climate change convention at www.unfccc.int .

Further information:

The Copenhagen climate conference: key EU objectives: MEMO/09/534

Climate Action website : www.ec.europa.eu/climateaction

DG Environment Copenhagen page: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/copenhagen_09.htm

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – Physicians for Social Responsibility today released a groundbreaking medical report, “Coal’s Assault on Human Health,” which takes a new look at the devastating impacts of coal on the human body. By examining the impact of coal pollution on the major organ systems of the human body, the report concludes that coal contributes to four of the top five causes of mortality in the U.S. and is responsible for increasing the incidence of major diseases already affecting large portions of the U.S. population. A copy of the full report can be found at http://www.psr.org/coalreport.

“The findings of this report are clear: while the U.S. relies heavily on coal for its energy needs, the consequences of that reliance for our health are grave,” said Alan H. Lockwood, MD FAAN, a principal author of the report and a professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo.

“These stark conclusions leave no room for doubt or delay,” said Kristen Welker-Hood, SCD MSN RN, PSR’s director of environment and health programs. “The time has come for our nation to establish a health-driven energy policy that replaces our dependence on coal with clean, safe alternatives. Business as usual is extracting a deadly price on our health. Coal is no longer an option.”

Also participating in the report’s release were the American Lung Association and the American Nurses Association.

Coal combustion releases mercury, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health. This report looks at the cumulative harm inflicted by those pollutants on three major body organ systems: the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system, and the nervous system. The report also considers coal’s contribution to global warming, and the health implications of global warming.

Viewed in this way, the totality of coal’s impact on health becomes clear. Coal pollutants affect all major body organ systems and contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

• Respiratory Effects: Air pollutants produced by coal combustion act on the respiratory system, contributing to serious health effects including asthma, lung disease and lung cancer, and adversely affect normal lung development in children.
• Cardiovascular Effects: Pollutants produced by coal combustion lead to cardiovascular disease, such as arterial occlusion (artery blockages, leading to heart attacks) and infarct formation (tissue death due to oxygen deprivation, leading to permanent heart damage), as well as cardiac arrhythmias and congestive heart failure. Exposure to chronic air pollution over many years increases cardiovascular mortality.
• Nervous System Effects: Studies show a correlation between coal-related air pollutants and stroke. Coal pollutants also act on the nervous system to cause loss of intellectual capacity, primarily through mercury. Researchers estimate that between 317,000 and 631,000 children are born in the U.S. each year with blood mercury levels high enough to reduce IQ scores and cause lifelong loss of intelligence.
• Global Warming: Even people who do not develop illnesses from coal pollutants will find their health and wellbeing impacted due to coal’s contribution to global warming. The discharge of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere associated with burning coal is a major contributor to global warming and its adverse effects on health and wellbeing worldwide, such as heat stroke, malaria, declining food production, scarce water supplies, social conflict and starvation.

In addition to the impacts from pollutants emitted during coal combustion, the report pinpoints negative health consequences at each step of the coal life cycle. Coal mining leads U.S. industries in fatal injuries and is associated with chronic health problems among miners. In addition to the miners themselves, communities near coal mines may be adversely affected by mining operations due to the effects of blasting, washing, leakage from “slurry ponds,” the collapse of abandoned mines, damage done to streams and waterways, and the dispersal of dust from coal trucks during transportation. Slurry injected underground can release arsenic, barium, lead and manganese into nearby wells, contaminating local drinking water supplies. The storage of post-combustion wastes from coal plants also threatens human health. There are 584 coal ash dump sites in the U.S., and toxic residues have migrated into water supplies at dozens of sites. While every stage of the coal life cycle impacts human health, the combustion phase exacts the greatest toll.

Given the disease burden associated with coal as well as its contribution to global warming, it is essential that we establish energy policies based on a fundamental commitment to human health and the health of generations to come,” said Peter Wilk, MD, the Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Based on the report’s findings, PSR issued five policy recommendations:

• Cut emissions of carbon dioxide as deeply and as swiftly as possible, with the objective of reducing atmospheric carbon levels to 350 parts per million, through 1) strong climate and energy legislation that establishes hard caps on global warming pollution coming from coal power plants, and 2) strict enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
• Reduce fossil fuel power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides so that all localities are in attainment for national ambient air quality standards.
• Establish a standard, based on Maximum Achievable Control Technology, for mercury and other hazardous air pollutant emissions from electrical generation.
• End all new construction of coal-fired power plants, so as to avoid increasing health-endangering emissions of carbon dioxide, as well as criteria pollutants and hazardous air pollutants.
• Develop the capacity to generate electricity from clean, safe, renewable sources so that existing coal-fired power plants may be phased out without compromising the nation’s ability to meet its energy needs.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (PSR)

Founded in 1961 by physicians concerned about the impact of nuclear proliferation, PSR shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War for building public pressure to end the nuclear arms race. Since 1991, when PSR formally expanded its work by creating its environment and health program, PSR has addressed the issues of global warming and the toxic degradation of our environment. PSR educates and advocates for policies to curb global warming, ensure clean air, generate a sustainable energy future, prevent human exposures to toxic substances, and minimize toxic pollution of air, food, and drinking water. More information is available at www.psr.org/coalreport.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.

Alan Lockwood

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=92059

Kristen Welker-Hood

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=92060

    CONTACT:
    Aric Caplan 301-998-6592
    aric@caplancommunications.com

SOURCE Physicians for Social Responsibility

Technology should improve lives on a personal level, or on a professional level. In the current time, technological advanced solutions are often used to simple human problems, best solved by practical, mechanical or human ’soft’ solutions.

One symptom of this is increasing engagement with screens in front of you, and reduced engagement with people. This is symptomatic of the younger Creative Generation.

If you are managing, working with or teaching this younger Creative Generation, it can seem they are difficult to reach.

Continuous Partial Attention

The article that piqued my attention this last week, regarding this, was the LA Times article that reported a number of Silicon Valley tech firms had dropped laptops, blackberry’s, phones and all manner of gadgets from meetings.

“All of our meetings got a lot more productive,” Wilkens said.

It’s not exactly attention deficit. Linda Stone, a software executive who worked for Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp., calls it “continuous partial attention.” It stems from an intense desire to connect and be connected all of the time, or, in her words, to be “a live node on the network.”

LA Times, 31st March 2008

Generation Z & Y people I meet, and many of my own Generation X, do constitute the Creative Generation. But their attention is a multi-tasking, unfocused, continual partial attention. An attention drawn to a screen.

The Creative Generation is a term invented by 2thinknow in 2007, that we have noted has been taken up via various schools in creative programs. One such program is here – Creative Generation Queensland.

Symptoms of Creative Generation

Creative Generation is represented by generations increased lateral and creative approaches to complex problems or issues. Conversely, often this valuable creativity is reflected in a lack of focus.

Gadgets with wireless tend to mean that people can interact with others who are not in the room, or the matter in front of them.

This generation also think in terms of lateral ideas and connections, networks and nodes. Aristotlean structures of modernism is not them, it is more a web than a grid.

I am one of this Creative Generation, a transition member being only 33, but with training and skills in what is considered process and process design. Grid and Web, if you like.

However, for a majority of this Creative Generation, their lateral creativity is symptomatic of a lack of process.

Like many ‘older’ leaders of this Creative Generation, I will form the leadership group and set directions for younger members of the Creative Generation, a bridge between an aging society and a society in transition.

What the Creative Generation means…

This means we will need to devise new ways to work, and examine older ways to work in order to deal with this emerging lack of process.

We will also need to revive forgotten methods of learning. We will need to redress learning priorities.

And we will also need to examine the assumption that technological improvement leads to societal improvement, as years of industrialization have polluted our planet, and new information technology enables increased control methods for creativity.

As the transition from an industrial process and mechanical society to a post-industrial society, we will need to create new working methods, in tune with the zeitgeist of the times.

Keeping some gains, within a new paradigm

A large part of that will be examining real outcomes, and retaining some of the efficiency gains of Taylor-ism and Ford-ism, whilst embracing the new paradigm.

So we will need to give younger employees, and the new entrants to the workforce practical skills and tools to embrace the Creative Society that is the next paradigm of work, arts and culture.

Contact 2thinknow if you would like to know more about skills for a Creative Generation.

An open letter to visiting President Bush.

Mr Bush is in Sydney Australia at current for the APEC summit, this was written just after his joint speech with Mr Howard today.

Dear Mr President,

You spoke at the APEC Summit with our Prime Minister, Mr Howard.

I agreed with your remarks Sir, about freedom and human rights being critical to the world’s future.

But the Oil War is not the way to spread freedom.

This war is deeply unpopular because the people ‘get’ it was not an honest war.

Another’s freedom is not won by burning your own.

The USA and Australia are Great & Loyal Friends

We as citizens both still believe in and honor our great military and brave soldiers.

All Australians as a majority support the strong US & Australian alliances, with Australia’s great friends and traditional ‘big brother’ the USA.

If you ask Australia to war, Australia will always join the US, not because it is right, but because you are a friend of the Australian people.

History Teaches us

Multi-nation international relations with world powers are far more important.

We are in the Middle East mainly for our dependency on cheap oil. Cheap oil in a future world of Peak Oil & oil shortage.

We need to reduce our reliance on Mid-East Oil, and the best way is to reduce consumption of energy.

There is an Alternative to a March to War

Moderating and scaling back wasteful consumption is far more useful alternative to oil over-consumption.

But can you imagine a world with less oil?

You may have to.

Even if your future, your friend’s and your families future is tied to oil.

The world economy can survive and thrive in a world with far less oil.

Humans are creatures of ideas

Automobiles were just an idea in a long ago age. Now motor cars are ubiquitous.

We humans are persistent with making our ideas real. We Americans are persistent with making our ideas real.

Oil is just a tool, used because we stopped looking for other ideas.

At the time we selected oil as a fuel, and plastic as a tool we did not know the consequences how large our dependence on oil would become.

The French Eurostar today made Paris to London possible in around 2 hours, with 10% of the greenhouse gas emissions of airplanes, on average.

Indeed we are people of ideas.

Our peoples are smart enough to use ideas to solve threats.

So you think your personal future is tied to Oil? Still?

Wars are uncertain events, and a war does not necessarily lead to power for those in the established order.

More likely a new order arises.

The government of France changed after World War II.

The German government changed after World War I and II.

In 1941 the rational business person in full possession of the facts believed Hitler had won, and would likely remain in power.

Instead all throughout the 1950s collaborators with the Hitler government were tried in France and other countries. The trials continued until 1959.

Others were tried by our loyal friends the Israelis.

Rational minds would have backed Petain & Vichy in France, not the great De Gaulle.

All De Gaulle had was ideas and persistence to be the voice of a Free France. At the beginning he was a lonely clear voice. That is how innovation happens.

War rarely leads to safety

Wars are the least predictable way to ensure security for any nation.

No matter how big or strong. In 1900 Britain ruled the World.

Britain believed it would be a quick war.

Millions dead and many more scarred for life, who in turn scarred their families as their mental wounds never healed.

If the US government start wars over Oil Supply then they may not be the dominant power in the world at the end of that war, and all the resulting wars.

The USA has more to lose than it has to gain by war. Unilateralism rarely lasts.

The world has already started re-arming after the USA got a case of itchy trigger finger.

Why War is a Tool of Last Resort

Again, wars are uncertain.

Wars generally are unresolved and lead to more wars.

Wars are infectious when used as a tool of diplomacy or State, even when our country is a unilateral super power on paper.

Russia and China might beg to differ on that point and deserve our respect.

Worst yet, sometimes wars lead to Balkan generational conflicts like those of the former Yugoslavia.

We should never be scared of war, but in the modern world wars are rarely limited.

Large wars should be a tool of defence, not of aggressive foreign policy.

Often small wars of aggression become total wars with lasting effects. Both World Wars started this way in part.

History doesn’t lie.

There’s an alternative to Oil Wars

How about instead of this we temper our consumption, initially?

Whom does it hurt? Change what we consume away from disposable goods.

You said, “we need to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.”

To do so, we need to hasten the movement towards the Creative Age.

We need to leave our modernist-manufacture-more-consume-more thinking behind.

We need to remember we are ideas people first in a digital age where all is possible.

That is the key choice.

Again, Wars are uncertain.

Chances are those in power at the beginning of a war will be so exhausted by the end they will no longer be in power.

Britain was the global power at 1900. A few decades later they were not.

USA was the global power at 2000. A few decades later they may not be.

And the world deserves the USA as a beacon on the hill.

The USA had the courage to work to end the scourge of communism in Europe, when Europe itself did not.

The Europeans I have spoke with, ordinary citizens from many countries in East & West Europe; are frustrated.

Europeans still like America, but they want America as a beacon on the hill again.

France bankrupted its own country fighting for a free America in the 1770s, and they have been our loyal allies in every war ever since.

Sometimes we need to listen to our friends.

America can again become the respected land of the free.

History rarely lies.

Wise counsel would advise to avoid making the mistake of the establishment, that of always assuming the war will favor those in power.

When instead wars favor the unknowns and stir up forces of various kinds that invariably leads to overthrows of the status quo.

Sometimes for good, and more often for bad.

Stalin came to power after the Bolshevik Revolution. The French Terror of the 1790s occurred after the 1789 revolution. Hitler assumed power as a result of the World War I reparations and global economic conditions.

The United States of America itself is a beacon of light on the hill in these dark times. Or it should be.

We dare not give up being a beacon of light for being a voice of fear.

We create the world

History may be unpredictable, but is often a monotonously accurate predictor of the future.

I hope this future that you have created does us no harm.

But I suspect that the war-march and global arms race that preceded previous global conflicts has started.

There is an alternative sir

People are bright. We need to trust the brightest of our own people.

We need the best and brightest of our young Americans to solve these problems.

But in a global world we need France, we need Russia, we need China, Germany and broader Europe, and of course, Australia.

We cannot afford to ignore ideas.

Ideas don’t create global warming but they can stop it.

Ideas don’t create wars but they can stop them.

Ideas create democracies, but mistakes can stop ideas.

Ideas can repair mistakes we all make.

Thank you for your time sir.

Respectfully yours,

Christopher Hire

Rather than reduce use of oil we go into a war using oil to fight for more oil supplies so we can have more plastic goods made from oil.

This itself increases global oil consumption further reducing oil supply.

Huh?

Does that Sound rational? Read it out aloud. No.

Economically it is not rational. Common sense tells you it is not rational.

Sounds like a panic because we might run out of oil to:

a) drive our big cars/SUVs/motor homes

b) manufacture more plastic cr*p we don’t need

c) drive to the mall in our SUV and buy plastic cr*p we don’t need

But there are other ways forward.

It doesn’t need to mean the end of the world. Even if your world is the mall…

The answer is about our choices.

One simple answer. Which company is doing better?

Who is doing better Toyota or GM?

Toyota. And their cars generally use less fuel than GM gas-guzzlers.

GM in the USA is just being stubborn. They do not want to change.

I’d like to think there was an alternative to a spiraling war being waged to secure future Oil Supplies. And there is.

So where IS the innovation here?

Use less energy and water.

That would mean consume less.

Turn off lights in big office towers

Plant lots of trees of the right sort to be a carbon-sink.
Anecdotally, each tree soaks up one-ton of emissions over its life.

Stop buying plastic cr*p

Stop purchasing Chinese made goods we do not need that travel huge distances to reach us

Walk to the shops don’t drive

Walk or bicycle where you can

Buy goods that last

Travel by public transport where it is efficient to do so

I am not saying to stop living our lives.

Start with the easy stuff.

Offices use a lot of electricity

There was a recent report suggesting a few key major uses of energy are:

a) Electric lights in Office Blocks (especially after hours).

b) Add to that desktop computers and monitors left on 24/7.

c) Then add the mobile phone and other chargers that have no phone attached

A device that is plugged in still draws power.

Turn them all off at the end of the day.

Computer. Monitor. Lights. Chargers.

Unplug or switch off  at the wall all electric appliances. Have the cleaners turn off all lights.

Simple. No impact on operations.

Massive reduction in energy consumption.

If you’re a manager, you can make this policy. Create a policy manual for your team.

It is the waste we should start with before the clever tricky means of energy reduction.

And Get personal with products:

And I am not saying to stop buying your favorite chocolate bar.

But think before you consume.

Reward companies that make responsible decisions.

Rewards companies that use local produce. Companies who reduce packaging.

Who allow you to supply your own containers rather than over-packaged disposables. 

Buy from local markets who support local producers. 

We can act. Today.

The time of waste for wastes sake is over.

Learn to live with less waste before supply-side constraints forces massive price rises.

Take care

Christopher 

But someone forgot to tell those 1950s-loving industrialist neo-cons.

The innovation zeitgeist is with the Creative Age.

Let’s look at where that innovation is for a moment.

So I don’t yet get it: what is innovation again?

It is not coolhunting — looking for the next plastic disposable item.

Innovation is ideas leading to positive change.

Positive change in business. And in society.

Right now our big-wigs in the White house and in Detroit are stuck in a big funk.

It’s a funk-up really. Iraq’s not going well.

We don’t need some modernist, oil and chemical-fueled economy for the next 50 years. We are smarter than that.

But we also don’t need to go around running around with starting fires and living in caves. We can solve this problem.

Here’s a starting point: Ideas don’t pollute.

And unlike the Neo-Cons I actually believe mankind is fundamentally creative.

We all hate what the Bush White-House has done

The withered stump of a shrivelled vision held up by the Neo-Conservatives is that mankind is too stupid to be trusted and brute force must be used to secure mankinds future by securing oil supplies.

That’s a vision not even fit for a postage stamp.

I don’t hate Bush himself, I hate the fact that he was foisted on us as a president.

Let me translate the Neo-Con vision:

“We’ll destroy the world, melt the ice-caps, but by-golly we’ll have a lot of plastic cr*p and a great-big car to drive around in. Pass the Pretzels…”

I’d rather be happy and have clean air and not make work the centre of my life.

And is playing office politics, selling more plastic cr*p or food-in-a-can really living?

European leadership – La Dolce Vita

In Europe, people know how to live.

And increasingly in managing the environment we must look to Europe, but also Silicon Valley, Boston, and all those places innovation lives and breathes.

Places where bright ideas get sowed as seeds that grow to trees.

And now we get to the point: the ultimate place.

The Internet. The Borderless Country.The Frontier!

Good things always happen on the Frontier.

Where even if you live in the smallest two-horse town, as long as you get an internet connection you can find like-minds.

Why is all this important? Why do we need innovation?

We as a people can solve problems.

We can be intelligent, and solve global warming, and other issues.

We can create positive social change.

In other words, we can innovate.

So this will be different to the Web 2.0 you’ve seen. We’re here (very soon).

Take care,

Christopher

This is because our modernist global economic system in English-speaking countries largely runs on the manufacture and mass consumption of cheap low-priced goods made from oil-based plastics.

Think about that for a second. What really happens?

The following chain of events was loosely based on media reports of the China pet food story, Fisher Price scandal, and recent other events.

Here is one average scenario:

A company in your city anywhere in the world gets an idea for a new product.

The company fly an award-winning designer over to design the product to be produced in a Chinese factory.

The Chinese factory signs a contract negotiated at the lowest possible cost. They have to, as the large company can always find a cheaper manufacturer.

To make or increase their profit, the factory owner in the distant Chinese factory substitutes paint or other ingredients to lower the cost.

The workers in the Chinese factory get small wages, and become sick from the toxic substances used (the human body does not like petroleum by-products, chemicals like formaldehyde or metals like lead.)

The designed goods are mass-produced and packaged in cardboard crates made by clear-felling forests and polluting pulp mills.

Via shipping containers on massive tankers, the goods finally arrive in the USA and western markets where they are shipped to their final destinations via road transport (because the governments won’t invest in railways).

The big company launches a huge marketing campaign with massive media-buys to market the new product to it’s core 15-19 y.o. female demographic at a price-point of USD $3.50 for which the factory gets 7c per unit.

In the local Walmart distracted ‘tween female consumers discuss whether the latest new betty-boo-thingamebob they do not need is worth $3.50 USD.

Walmart forces the company to initiate a promotional price-drop after they are not selling, to a new price of $1.99

The company re-negotiates its price even lower with the Chinese factory to around 4c per unit.

The factory increases the length of shifts and figures out new and unsafe production techniques to increase production.

At $1.99 the products walk off the shelves. And everybody congratulates themselves.

Postscript or how it ends:

The designer wins an award for innovative ‘tween design.

The big company executives vote themselves a bonus for ‘their’ product.

Walmart sets up a new store shutting down ‘main-street’ shops selling local products.

A few Chinese workers become sick. A father dies in an accident.

The Chinese factory owner buys a BMW.

More oil is imported by the Chinese to meet massive factory demand further driving up oil prices and forcing peak oil situation. (Plastics use oil)

The teenage consumer, taking the whole supply chain for granted throws away the product after the week.

After a few weeks betty-boo-thingamebob’s are broken everywhere.

By the end of the year 1 Million betty-boo-thingamebob’s are in landfill.
Being made of plastic they never decompose.

So that’s it. Depressing isn’t it?

Consider then this whole process happens every minute or more often. How many products are over-produced globally?

Too often we feel powerless. What can we do? You? Me?

Plenty.

Change the Rules… it has already started

Well global business is something humans designed. And we can change the rules.

Fact is Web 2.0 and the Creative Age are already changing the rules.

The Phone changed the rules. the Internet is changing the rules.

Steam powered industrial thinking changed the rules in 19th century England. Modernism changed the rules. But we are still stuck in modernism. or reacting against it (post-modernism).

The zeitgeist is with a creative age.

Here’s a starting point on how to join in, feel free to add your own ways.

First things first:

1. Stop buying plastic cr*p you do not need. Educate your children to do the same. Talk about it with your online and real world friends.

2. Go to local markets. Buy handmade goods of quality from local producers.

3. Don’t shop at Walmart, Coles, Woolworths, K-mart or Target for everything.

4. Do not buy bulk purchases of intensive production products such as meat, unless you actually eat them. Buy smaller portions. Buy from markets or butchers so you can know where the meat is from.

If you can’t see the cow then don’t eat it.

5. Food does not come in a packet. It grows in or on the ground. Food walks around.

6. Make sure your kids understand how much work goes into plastic cr*p and cheap clothing.

7. Don’t buy cheap clothing or other items because they are cheap. Buy something of quality that lasts.

This chain of events relies on US. Our Families.

The fact is companies manufacture cr*p we buy. They may use advertising to manipulate us to buy.

But you say, what about the economy?

I am not saying don’t buy or don’t shop. I am say Buy to Last!

But if you work as a cog in the chain of a big company manufacturing rubbish, and you are miserable, why not quit?

A number of friends and colleagues have done this. Not every one is cut out for a lifetime of politics, back-stabbing and crawling over broken bodies.

Earn less perhaps, spend less for sure. Coporate paypackets require expensive expenditure to maintain a lifestyle.

The new status symbol in the creative age will be the artist. So get a head start. Even corporates will want the corporate innovator. Corporates must co-opt innovation agents as they are vehicles for implementation, not inspiration. People create inspiration.

People have started already. It’s called downshifting or tree-changing and is part of a broader trend.

We as people are not the problem, it’s the systems people work in that are. but we have a small part to play in keeping an old system going.

We need to transition to a creative economy based less on manufacturing and consuming wasteful plastic cr*p.

So if you’re an innovator start out about designing a new system. You won’t be alone.

Second steps: be educated.

Read the book by David Bosshart “Cheap”.

Watch or read “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore.

Read “The Ethics of What We Eat”.

We don’t do something because we think we can’t.

We can. We do. We wrote the rules. We can change them.

Creative production and output in Western countries is ahead of industrial output.

Creative products don’t pollute the Earth as much as 1 million pieces of plastic cr*p.

Become part of the global innovation.

I hear there is still a market for a great buggy whip.

If you think not yet, remember the bell tolls for thee.

Take care,

Christopher

Myspace is an obvious one. Telephones an older example. The internet a modern-ish example. Airports.

Anything where building more users/locations/access points or effectively nodes, increases the value of the network.

Network goods: the concept that explains the value of your life

The web of interrelationships that is your or my life, is a web of intersecting networks. In our published research to be released soon, we will be discussing this in more detail.

Let’s expand the term ‘network good’. Let’s look at the environment.

The environment is a good all of us enjoy. Clean air. Water. To use another principle it is a ‘commons’ – named after the common farming land of earlier times. Like the Boston Common.

There is a principle that is used to justify private ownership, called the tragedy of the commons. In short, when an asset is owned by all no one is accountable.

Network Goods – pricing pollution

So when they talk about pricing the environment, and discuss it as a good, there are a variety of sound economic and rational reasons for pricing models.

So when they talk about a market for carbon, they are choosing how much to allow, and presumably if you output more, you will pay a greater ‘tax’ (purchase more offsets).

This creates an incentive for profit-maximizing companies to minimize pollution (avoidance of tax).

It gets around the community problem by creating individual incentives. Which is a noble, workable ‘big picture’ idea. This is probably the simplest explanation.

Communities are an innovation

However, there is also a simple answer, or at least additional step.

If we simply created local communities (like we used to have) where everyone contributes to the commons for mutual happiness.

When you know your neighbours well, you don’t dump rubbish in their pool.

Virtual communities are a part of this as well in many cases. Web 2.0 is interactive website communities by and large.

That’s a thought. Small towns have this. I have visited many all over the world. No litter. Nice safe streets. Maybe that’s because of community.

Network goods work well where people share values and have shame.

Take care and hug a community

Christopher

Food supply important to innovation?

Yes. Definitely. Community and food (never eat alone) are crucial to the development of ideas, and understanding the point of life.

Community and food are a large part of life. French people don’t view food as ‘fuel’ this is an English-speaking (largely big city) definition.

Food and company are to be savoured an enjoyed.

In the community conversation, good ideas grow, bad ideas may be weeded out, and the best ideas pruned and shaped like topiary. Food is a vital component of inspiration.

The McLaren Vale wine region, the oldest in South Australia, is among the best of the new world producers. Today we headed to D’Arenberg, and tasted some of their best, including some great fortifieds. (formerly known as Port!)

Loved the Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, but also some of the French, Italian and Portuguese style varietals.

Inspiration comes from love

This deep and lasting love, that is wine-making certainly enriches the soil, each year and vintage building on the year before, but t also ripens and adds layers to the people.

Invariably a love of food, is a love of life, and a love of the things the earth brings us.

To harm the environment after such love, is as to slap the face of the lover after unforgettable passion, something that is unforgivable.

We need a closer connection to nature and the food of nature. The tomatoes we ate last night were real tomatoes. Not watery rot. The olives the best I have had anywhere.

It is this love, this care, that is true cultural innovation.

The Italians, French and Austrians know it. This region, SA and coastal Vic have the moderate temperate climates to be world class food regions. McLaren Vale is part of Australia’s Tuscan region, the local south of France.

Victoria, where I live, has similar excellent regions such as Rutherglen & Gippsland.

When we create change, we need to ask what is that change for?

Is our change: positive social change? Is it innovation?

Or is it just more slapped together fried chicken and chips, more plastic disposable rubbish, more mass-produced thinking? More fried chicken innovation – useless, pointless, tasteless unsatisfying change?

So… What are you aiming for?

Take care, go drink some red & hug a cat,

Christopher.

This means, governments, business, people and their communities need to act. And to varying degrees each of them are.

The Big Innovation Guerrilla/Gorilla in the Room – Our Environment

Your beliefs on Climate Change don’t matter, nor mine. Our environment is the issue.

A reasonable person would agree beyond reasonable doubt that there is evidence of harm to human and animal life attributable to environmental damage.

That is the standard of proof in a court of law, in broad terms.

Further, we could agree that pollution outcomes such as consuming chemical toxins, increased rates of asthma, insect plagues, and dead wild animals are not positive… Examples: Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, European rivers and Chinese coal plants; as well as vast tracts of marine areas surrounding North America.

The effects of major pollution on lives are numerous and independently documented.

An Environmental innovation: cut pollution

Therefore, it would be a positive social change, an innovation, to drastically slash pollution. Whether that be coal-fired, chemical, industrial, metals, nuclear waste, carbon or other forms.

Is there any debate on this point? If so, don’t read any further. Go polish some chrome.

To not say pollution is a bad thing, is a lie. It’s that simple. End story.

Cut pollution means cut consumption of useless goods

The solution is also simple: cut-back on pointless consumption and activity.

This doesn’t mean living like a hippie, it means consuming that which is important to us and leaving that which is not. It means reducing our consumption of cheap goods. We need to stop thinking ‘disposable’ and ‘cheap’.

In the coming age, where after the Industrial then the Information Age, we are entering the Creativity Age, a new way of consuming is possible, even practical.

In broad public policy innovation terms It could mean factoring in what economists call externalities into price of goods, so the environmental cost is included in the sale price.

Carbon markets/trading are one innovation there. There are more economic pricing signal innovations as well.

But let’s start with the people: and their innovation on pollution.

One response has been from popular blog, GreenAsaThistle, where Vanessa ( a journalist from Canada newspaper) writes a blog, as she tries to ‘make one green change a day’

It’s the big things that count in her personal quest, and Vanessa gave up her car. That’s an innovation, as a positive social change. It takes a lot in today’s car culture, as many people obsess with their car, and belittle those who don’t drive.

Go and read Vanessa’s blog. There are others. Start with Vanessa’s Blogroll or search technorati.com (blogs) or digg.com (news) or good old google.com.

Consumer Icons

A car is the ultimate consumerist icon, all gleaming metal and flash. It’s a very hard thing to give up. And getting a hybrid may not be better, given the extra effort that goes into making them (recent RACV ‘RoyalAuto’ article on CNW study in 2005).

Personally, I haven’t driven for years. We live near the city and use public transport, which inconveniences my wife no end. I ran a business this way, which inconvenienced me no end. But it’s not something I normally share. Why? People with 4WDS / SUVs or even just old deathtrap cars will make fun of you for it. I hire a car & driver rarely when I really need to get around for work.

For me I just never saw a car as that important.

But to give up a car is to give up a status symbol. For many youth, it’s freedom from parental control. For many young men, it’s the best hope of getting married or even a date! For many executives it is a sign of the size of the pay-packet. For night-clubbers it’s a sign of how ‘cool’ you are. It’s a symbol, an avatar if you will.

Why innovation in changing our personal life is hard

Most real innovation requires social change. Vanessa made that change. How long will it take us to adjust? I still see idiots charging along in a V8 sports car pleased about how ‘important’ they are. That’s their symbol, their avatar.

Finally on a personal level many of us have noticed increased rates of eczema, asthma and other responses to an environment of pollution. There are large up-trends in asthma, rashes and the like in babies in countries including Australia, and the USA.

When I was a child I got sick from fumes, constant headaches and respiratory problems. I can’t be sure but I lived near 4 coal burning power-plants, and in a largely industrial town of coal & steel. When I moved to Tasmania I got better.

But whenever I breathe car exhausts and highway fumes I get a headache. You may be the same. Maybe that’s why I dislike petrol and oil-based cars.

But I am a fortunate westerner; now look at the documented proof of birth deformities as a result of chemical accidents, nuclear accidents and illegal dumping or skirting safety in the developing world. Look at the UN reports on developing countries.

There’s enough in Google to fill a few encyclopedias, and that is just from BBC, CNN, Reuters, think-tanks, researchers and reputable sites. Or alternately go to the physical library and read. This either, is not in dispute. Here’s a start at BBC

People as Environmental Innovators, where to from here

So all of this change is cultural (mind-set)not technological. And humans are basically good people, and we are very well-educated these days with vast information at our finger-tips.

Bottom line: Once we adjust to the ideas and changes, people will start to change. It’s about adjusting to the idea, and human beings always take awhile to do that.

Start with Vanessa’s blog & links for ideas:

http://greenasathistle.com/

Or start with the easy lists on Al Gores’ website for ‘An Inconvenient Truth’:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/

I think the real change is limiting consumption of mass-produced disposable goods, as these have a compound effect. Resources, capital, manufacturing, labour, shipping, more freight, warehousing, delivery, stock, purchase, delivery, use. All for a $1.00 plastic container largely made out of petroleum plastics. Then throw away.

There is often contradictory advice on the safest environmental option (eg disposable cups, dishwasher, wash by hand) – but I basically put stock in reducing consumption of throwaway goods as the only sure-fire method.

One simple idea for innovation: Start with the food:

The point is, start giving up the easy stuff. The throwaway plastic rubbish. Buy loose fruit & vegetables not pre-packed meals. Look into organics. Buy local where you can and ask shops so they know it is important to customers.

Start going to a market, not a supermarket. Go in small trips on the way home then use public transport, or go once a week and get it delivered.

Support local small stores like butchers, fruit shops and small grocers. Don’t go to supermarkets. Don’t buy disposable plastic rubbish.

Buy a water filter. Drink tap water where you can (it’s not really drinkable in all cities I have found, possibly because consumers are signalling to government it is less of a priority by buiying bottled water enmasse.)
The Government Response – limited innovation on pollution

Governments lag people. There are good ideas, but government in countries who are developed like Australia should be leaders. Whether they are or not, is open to debate.

Australia’s PM is a climate change skeptic now ‘convert’. Our environment minister is a former Investment banker.

However, one of the leaders in climate change thinking is an Australian, Professor Warwick McKibbin, working at Lowy Institute (Sydney) & Brooking Institute (Washington DC). His two-tiered pricing system has a solid theoretical basis.

In Canada I am less aware of government action, http://www.ec.gc.ca is the official site.

However, I can say, that the complaints of Australian’s over high petrol prices indicates where our priorities lie. And it will take some time for the discord between idea (let’s consume less) and reality (that means less driving, more expensive electricity/water) is a reality.

And as a people, the government govern for us. That is democracy. And we are sending mixed signals. Yes we care about climate change, but we’d like cheap petrol and cheap plastic goods from China please.

The key failing of State Government in driving innovation

When governments make a decision to reduce journey times and make public transport safe, then a car becomes less important, except as a ’status’ symbol.

In Australia public transport is reasonable inside cities, but one reason leading Europeans countries are better environmentally than Australians is that they have public transport that is clean & safe, by & large has more extensive routes.

In Australia the various State governments all moan on about how difficult it is, whilst govt people get paid for no outcomes. They basically shirk and announce enquiries until the heat dies down. They say it is ‘private company X’s fault.

Our study of globally innovative cities, the Global Innovation Review 2007, as well as all the other studies we looked at public transport as a key factor in implementing innovation in a city (the ability to move easily around the city) and inspiration (ie. the annoyance and time factor of cities where transport does not work).

Business leaders on Environmental Innovation

Michael Hawker, leader of IAG, has regular interviews on climate change. In his professional capacity as boss of an insurance company (reducing environmental risk) he has been at the forefront of speaking on the topic.

There are many business ventures being started with green at the centre of their development, and many businesses are moving into green headquarters.

Even BMW is looking at hydrogen cars to ‘go green’. Chevron has made overtures. BP has been expanding it’s profile.

But hard real change is up to citizens voting with their wallet. And that once again is up to people.

Before you decry this, having worked in hundreds of organizations: corporates, government and not-for-profits, there is one thing I know for sure.

Businesses are made up of people. Governments are made up of people. people like you and me. US.

Too often we talk about ‘them’, when in reality they are us. But a large business or a government is like a huge ship, it does not turn on a dime. It takes time.

So for environmental innovation to occur: we need to clearly signal business leaders that we mean business and there is a market for this new environmentally friendly outcome.

And we need to signal government that as voters environment is priority number one. When we complain about petrol prices, and global warming that is mixed signals to any democratic government.

‘We wan’t a clean environment, but please give us cheap petrol and cheap goods.‘

So it looks like it is down to people after all. All of US, not them.

Take care,

Christopher