February 2009 - Are we a nation of liars?

In terms of ‘doing your bit’, it’s hardly a bold statement. But most of us have managed to get our heads around re-useable bags. They’re stronger! They’re slightly nicer to hold! Whether its 100 % cotton sophistication or basket-woven chic you’re after, no-one wants to be caught holding the plastic bag.

The only problem is that plastic bag use is barely down. The Waste and Resources Action Programme claim that businesses distributed 8% fewer bags in 2008 than 2007, but Defra estimates that about 88% of shoppers currently put all their shopping into free carrier bags, taking 3-4 bags at every shopping trip.

That our meagre environmental actions don’t always match up to our ambitious words is hardly breaking news – when 500 people were interviewed in the 1970s regarding their personal responsibility for picking up litter, 94% acknowledged responsibility. After leaving the interview room, however, only 2% of the people picked up the litter that the researchers had planted near outside the door. Tackling environmental behaviour is more important now than it ever was. Why don’t people do the things they say they do?

Perhaps we are simply a nation of liars. Alternatively, we may be deluded – deluded, but honest. Psychologists have shown that married couples systematically overestimate their own contribution to household chores, while simultaneously underestimating the effort that their other half puts in (the ‘ego-centric’ bias). So, we may be naturally inclined to believe our own distorted memory of how much we recycle, how little we drive, or how often we turn the thermostat on the heating down.

In addition, we tend to think about ourselves and others’ failures in different ways. When something goes wrong – an increase in the quarterly heating bill for example – we do not conclude that our clever new strategy of thermostat monitoring hasn’t worked after all. When things go awry, there are always situational factors to help explain it away. The cold weather, a new-found leak in the bathroom window, or an absent-minded family member are all viable alternatives to accepting responsibility, yet when other people fail, the blame falls squarely on them. In short, we seem psychologically programmed to misperceive our own behaviour. And when it comes to changing our environmental habits, we’re all guilty of a bit of creative accounting.

Worse still, short term commercial interests and fossil fuelled policy-making frequently collude to exacerbate our plight. In the past twelve months, we have been prescribed airport expansion, cheap flights and a new generation of coal-fired power stations for our carbon habit. Like a group of recovering alcoholics we need help staying on the wagon. But dangling carbon-temptations in front of our noses makes it next to impossible for us to change – even if we wanted to.

So what can be done? First and foremost, the non-psychological barriers have to be removed so that it’s easy for people to change if they want to. Public transport is more expensive than private travel. Our bosses expect us to fly to Holland for training at Head Office. Our cities are designed for car owning suburbanites rather than city dwellers on public transport. There are very real limits on what individuals can do – so while transformative power lies in every single one of us, our hands are tied until the structural constraints on our behaviour are removed.

We must also move ‘beyond information’. Switching the TV off standby doesn’t justify an extra flight to the Canary Isles, but most lists of tips for saving the planet don’t distinguish between important and inconsequential ways of reducing emissions. Information is necessary, but not sufficient to bring about change. We are not passive learning machines, and our behaviours will not change until we decide that we want them to. It isn’t enough to take a few plastic bags out of circulation – we have to start asking tougher questions about what the causes and the consequences of our unsustainable patterns of behaviour are.

Happily, decades of social and psychological research has furnished us with a detailed understanding of many aspects of human behaviour. But while Defra have commissioned multiple reviews of sustainable behaviour change, they have primarily relied on advertising agencies, environmental consultancies and social marketing teams. Correspondingly, the government seem unwilling or unable to move beyond meekly reminding us to buy energy efficient light bulbs. The discrepancy between the magnitude of the problem and the timidity of the solution would be funny if the stakes weren’t so high.

We desperately need some evidence-based leadership on changing our environmental habits and behaviours. There is now a solid scientific basis for understanding climate change, but what we really need is a social-scientific basis for understanding the cause of climate change – namely, us.

February 2009 - What are legitimate actions in the (public) face of climate change?

In December Ed Miliband said there needed to be a New Social Movement behind climate change:

"When you think about all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes, to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had popular mobilisation," said Miliband. "There will be some people saying 'we can't go ahead with an agreement on climate change, it's not the biggest priority'. And, therefore, what you need is countervailing forces. Some of those countervailing forces come from popular mobilisation."

Ok then, Ed suggests that it is hard for elected politicians (even the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) to make tough decisions when there isn’t popular support to legitimate them.

In January Geoff Hoon also revealed this line of thinking in his public slanging match with Emma Thompson over the third runway at Heaththrow, he said: "I worry about people who I assume travel by air quite a lot and don't see the logic of their position, not least because the reason we have got this problem in relation to Heathrow is that more and more people want to travel more and more.” Interesting that Geoff calls the heathrow issue in these comments “the problem” a departure in language from his usual line about it being a wealth consolidating/creating opportunity for Britain. Also Geoff is, in actual fact, wrong to suggest the public are tacitly legitimating the governments action because a Government Consultation reported back to him a vast majority are against it. (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/hoon-accused-of-ignoring-public-with-unpopular-heathrow-plans-1418247.html)

Thompson for her part came up with the baffling line, right back at Hoon “Get a grip Geoff this is not about Flying”!

To add to this heady mix, as the heathrow issue was debated John McDonnell took an action deemed unjustified (by his fellow MPs) in the course of his arguments against the runway (on behalf of his constituents who are directly affected) and FOR a vote on the issue picked up the ceremonial mace in protest (Heseltine style) and was told he had “Conducted himself in a grossly disorderly manner” and was suspended from parliament for 5 days. (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090115/video/vuk-rebel-mp-john-mcdonnell-grabs-mace-49bfa63.html)

Meanwhile in January while the Government implored and then ignored the public the majority of the scientific community was reportedly set to do the very same. The Independent ran a front page saying that scientists (including James Lovelock) were ready to prepare a “Plan B” a geo-engineering solution to use if the political and social effort to reduce emissions doesn’t show results soon. (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-scientists-its-time-for-plan-b-1221092.html)

We know science can act unilaterally and take extraordinary risks on behalf of people that are not always aware or in agreement with scientific actions - the Atomic Bomb for instance! Also right now Richard Posner senior US judge believes this is the case in respect of the Large Hadron Collider experiment, in relation to the (disputed) claim that the experiment has a 1 in 50 million chance of creating a black hole that could swallow the universe! The ‘Plan B’ response to Climate Change may lead us more frequently down this risky road.

In January the Japanese launched a CLIMATE CHANGE ROCKET!(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_sc/as_japan_rocket)

There has been continued consideration of the legitimacy of direct action on climate change especially following the Plane Stupid action at Stanstead in December and of course the ground breaking (public!) jury decision on the Kingsnorth protestors. Shockingly in December the Attorney General Baroness Scotland was reported to be looking at barring public juries from climate change protest cases and appealing against the kingsnorth protestors. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2008/dec/18/1)

Lets take Ed at his word and UP the participation of the general public... to continue to have public Jury trials for principled climate change protestors - what better way to judge the legitimacy of the protests. And for those Plan B experiments let us use citizen referenda to decide on the legitimacy of those actions which may be of massive benefit but may also present massive risk. In any case if politicians and scientists show faith in the citizen then a New Social Movement may grow UP that starts to tackle Plan A.

TF

January 2009 - God's Green Earth

As the dishevelled figure of George W Bush was helicoptered off the White house lawn on January 20th, 2009, the world breathed a sigh of relief. With outgoing approval ratings of less than 22%, this was truly a failed President. Famously simplistic in his rhetoric and policy, George Bush had overseen a period of American history that began with an illegal war and ended in an economic crisis that enveloped the world. Nestling between these two bastardised bookends was regular torture of 'foreign combatants', the aggressive undermining of the UN, and a complete disregard for national or international climate policy. Bush had many undesirable traits, but his stubborn commitment to an authoritarian Christian sense of 'right and wrong' must rank among them. The oppressive, sexist and brutal principles of Iranian Ayatollahs, or the fundamentalist fervour of violent Islamic movements such as Al Qaeda are roundly and deservedly condemned. But here, in charge of the United States of America, was a man who believed he was carrying out God's will on earth (and frequently said as much in speeches). Combine this with a political ideology that favoured pre-emptive military action over multilateral negotiation, and it isn't difficult to understand why so many in the Arab world perceive George Bush as having led an Imperialist Crusade against Islam in the name of Christianity.

His religious zeal impacted on more than his approach to the Middle East, however. His distrust of 'science' was often cited as one of the reasons that he clung so doggedly to a belief that climate change was not America's problem to deal with. It is well documented that many on the Christian Right in America believe Darwin's Theory of Evolution should be taught 'alongside' Creationism in school science classes. Bush was one of them. Infamously refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, Bush can reasonably be said to have put the fight against climate change back by about a decade.

But if Bush's disregard for evolutionary science stemmed from his religious upbringing, it seems unfair to blame his unwillingness to engage with climate change on his Christianity. In the UK at least, NGOs like Christian Aid have been at the forefront of the environmental movement, holding high-profile demos and events (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/issues/climatechange/march/index.aspx) and endorsing models for international climate change mitigation that blow the EU's farcical Emissions Trading System (essentially a cap-and-trade market with no cap) out of the water (http://www.ecoequity.org/GDRs/).

We are even seeing the emergence of organisations like 'Operation Noah', a faith-based organisation which campaigns exclusively on the climate change issue. In Cardiff, a boat owned by one of Cardiff's Christian groups is being transformed into a 'Noah's Ark'. Under the slogan: "Save Creation At Copenhagen", local children will process on to the 'Ark' wearing animal masks, costumes and bearing images of human communities who will be most at risk from climate change. Intriguingly, Operation Noah manages to seamlessly combine a rejection of evolutionary science with a forthright conviction for securing the Earth's future based on climate science:

"It is more than fitting that Cardiff's young children are at the
forefront of this event. The decisions taken this year at Copenhagen
will determine whether the Earth , their home, will be a safe place or
not in the decades ahead. We have an obligation to them, to worldwide
humanity and to God's marvellously complex and diverse creation to act
now. We need nothing less than an industrial revolution for
sustainability and we look to our leaders to act like Noah – to listen
and to lead." (Mark Dowd, Operation Noah Campaign Strategist)

While many climate change campaigners would probably rather jump on board the Atheist Bus than the Creationism Boat, environmentalism is also a movement that takes its supporters where it can find 'em. "Tackle climate change first - and argue about Creationism another day" captures the prevailing sentiment.

It isn't clear, however, whether Operation Noah's admirable commitment to preventing dangerous climate change is matched by the practicality of their proposed solutions:

"Good for Noah, the first Biblical environmentalist, who read the
signs of the times and inspired by God, found a way to save humanity
and all creatures. As the real significance of climate change is
appreciated, jump aboard Operation Noah's climate campaign as together
we seek to be an ark to the future!" (Minister David Pickering, Chair of Operation Noah)

Whether a big wooden boat ends up being the most appropriate means of tackling climate change of not, the underlying message is clear: In the eyes of evangelical Christians, Creationism and Environmentalism are not incompatible. George W's Christian dogma is implicated in many of his worst policies - but his disregard for climate science probably wasn't one of them.

AC

January 2009 - Smash the system! (or just vote Tory)

On 15th January, 2009, some five months into the one hundred month countdown, Geoff Hoon made the announcement no-one was surprised to hear: there will be a third runway built at Heathrow. The runway will require the demolition of seven hundred houses and a primary school, and will expand the capacity of what is already the busiest airport in Europe by a third. Despite years of campaigning and direct action from local residents and environmentalists, the expansion will go ahead - the stupidity of the decision matched only by the hypocrisy of Labour environmental policy, which claims to be aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It doesn't take a genius to realise that building a new runway at Heathrow cannot possibly be commensurate with this goal.

So, is this the end of the story? Clearly, the people whose houses are to be knocked down, the children whose school is to be razed to the ground, and campaigners across the world who want to see climate change taken seriously will not stop fighting. But reversing a decision of this magnitude becomes increasingly difficult once the legislative cogs start turning. One remaining option, voiced by the increasingly exasperated John Stewart, Chair of the anti-runway action group Hacan Clearskies, is to ensure that the cogs don't actually get the chance to clunk into action:

"The people of west London will be very angry indeed and their anger could spill over into direct action. Despite today's decision, we do not believe ultimately that this is a done deal. Unless Labour wins the next election these plans will never see the light of day"

Stewart's admission that even 'normal' people (like the Sispon residents) could be provoked to take part in direct action reflects a wider trend across the country in 2008. From Plane Stupid's well-to-do members reaching the roof of the Houses of Parliament, to the Greenpeace protesters who were not prosecuted for spray-painting 'Gordon' on the Kingsnorth power station smokestack, green direct action has been high profile and generally well received.

It also suggests that wherever the 'support' for building a third runway at Heathrow is coming from, it isn't primarily from the electorate. Other than BAA bods with an obvious investment in seeing the runway built, has there been any public support for the runway? Of course, ask people whether they like cheap flights and they will say yes. One of the key tactics used by proponents of the runway has been to position the third runway as the 'people's runway', where all the bargain flights will take off from. How dare we oppose the expansion of poor people's foreign fun?

As George Monbiot recently pointed out, however, the majority of cheap flights are taken not by people on low incomes, but by richer folk keen to get away for the weekend (airlines handily collect demographic information on their customers, for the purposes of 'market research'). The product of their market research is their advertising budget: no Ryanair adverts in The Sun, or The Mirror, plenty in The Telegraph .

Sadly, despite the increasing support for green direct action, the second half of John Stewart's suggestion is likely to be more prescient: the most reliable way of preventing the runway, would be to boot Labour out at the next election, and hope they haven't managed to get the ball rolling by then. Enticing as this sounds, the alternative is scarcely a reason to be cheerful - the return of a Conservative government.

David Cameron has vocally opposed the runway, in an attempt to curry favour with those who perceive Labour's environmental policy to be irrevocably rotten. And shadow transport secretary Theresa Villers, claimed that the Heathrow plans would be scrapped under a Conservative government:


"If a Conservative government is elected at the next general election there will not be a third runway at Heathrow. There is no chance of the planning process being completed before the date of the next election."

Perhaps the Conservatives truly believe that climate change is more important than short term economic gain for the South East - but is it just possible that the strength of Tory opposition might have been linked to the inevitability of the decision? No-one, not even the most committed anti-runway campaigner, seriously believed that Hoon would opt-out of a project this profitable. Might Cameron just be gambling on the possibility that as-and-when he gets his crack at the whip, the cogs will have started to clunk anyway? He would then find himself in the win-win position of presiding over the economic benefits of a project he opposed.

We all hope that there is still more to be done to derail the third runway. But pinning our hopes on a change of face at No 10 is unlikely to be the way to achieve it.

AC

December 2008 - Overselling their models, or underselling our values?

As the UN climate change negotiations kicked off in Poznan, the New Scientist ran an attention grabbing headline asking whether climate scientists were “over-selling their models”. In an interview with the weekly science magazine, Lenny Smith, a statistician at the London School of Economics claimed that some climate scientists were too hasty in making firm and detailed predictions about the precise nature of the future climate (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026851.900-are-climate-scientists-overselling-their-models.html?full=true).

While clearly designed to be provocative, a thorough reading of the interview reveals not a climate change sceptic, but a statistician extolling that most cherished of scientific values: conservatism and caution in the face of uncertainty. In expressing his concern that climate scientists should not over-sell their data, Smith was careful not to over-sell his own claim, suggesting that the picture that climate models paint is a broadly accurate one. But while over-interpreting data can never be a sensible path for a scientist to take, is it really true that scientists too often get ahead of themselves?

A consideration of the rather timid relationship between science and policy in the UK would suggest otherwise. The standard approach to maintaining scientific integrity is loosely based on the legal concept of a ‘separation of powers’ – where judges don’t legislate and legislators do not judge. In theory, scientists do not get embroiled in policy making, and policy makers don’t meddle in the science. The intended benefits of this split are clear: scientific data are not moulded by partisan interests, and the credibility of independent research is ensured.

In practice, however, this scientific separation of powers is a somewhat one-way affair. Research councils, the primary providers of University research funding, are public sector bodies. The projects the research councils fund (and perhaps more importantly, the ones that they don’t) inevitably reflect the prevailing political winds – and rightly so, given that university academics are ultimately providing a public service. While some climate sceptics have insinuated that climate change has been cooked up by researchers eager to cash in on a wave of climate change research grants, figures from the reform group Scientists for Global Responsibility tell a different story. In the industrialised nations, the budget for government-funded military research is twice that for health and environmental issues combined, and nearly 100 times bigger than the budget for research into renewable energy. If climate scientists are over-selling their research with a view to being awarded extra funding, then it clearly isn’t working.

Of course, science can be immensely profitable – its just that it typically isn’t the scientists that pick up the big bucks. And, perhaps more importantly, the trajectory of scientific innovation is often guided primarily by commercial profit. New scientific findings are funnelled into a socio-economic system that is radically skewed in favour of acute concentrations of corporate wealth, where the interests of the rich and the powerful are inevitably privileged over the needs of the poor and the weak.

The emerging discipline of nanotechnology, where scientists are able to manufacture tiny particles with novel physical and chemical properties, provides a good example. Sun creams containing ultra-fine nanoparticles that are transparent but block ultraviolet light are profitable. Mass water purification programmes using nano-filters, for rural communities in central Africa are not. No prizes for guessing which application has been commercially realised, and which has been left to gather dust in the pages of academic journals. Nanoscience may be the study of the very small, but nanotechnology is already big business.

In fact, the powerful influence of commercialisation, and the institutionalised reluctance of scientists to ‘speak out’ about the applications of their research risks creating what ethicist Geoffrey Hunt refers to as a ‘nano-divide’ between the scientific ‘haves’ and the scientific ‘have-nots’. Rather than saving the world, the transformational power of this new technology could simply buttress existing socioeconomic inequality.

But from the researchers at the frontier of this leading-edge science there is a deafening silence – a silence that is replicated across scientific disciplines. Save for medically oriented NGOs such as Medicins Sans Frontieres, or the reform group Scientists for Global Responsibility, practising scientists keep a fairly low profile about what happens to their research once it has left the ivory tower. Why? Because scientists are discouraged from stepping outside of their remit as value-neutral, apolitical, knowledge gatherers. With values safely banned from the scientific arena, and few incentives for becoming involved in public engagement work, scientists must watch from the sidelines as sun cream becomes ever more translucent.

It is patents and profit margins, not a lack of medical expertise, which prevents essential medical treatments from reaching the people who need them most. Similarly, it is political feasibility, rather than scientific reality that dominates climate policy.

Climate scientists are likely to be concerned about climate change as much if not more than other people – hardly surprising given that they are on the frontline of climate change research. It’s scary stuff. Should they be prevented from expressing their worries in public?

Lenny Smith is right that scientists shouldn’t over-interpret their data. Science occupies its privileged position in the world precisely because of its softly-softly approach to fact finding. But while over-selling models might be a scientific sin, the underselling of ethical values in the application of science is a far greater concern.

AC

December 2008 - Re-branding Christmas

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/07/greenchristmas-greenbusiness

(Published on Comment is Free, 07/12/08)

December 2008 - Don’t stop for the Green Cross Code Man

In the UK in November there was a debate on the Internet and Video Games in the House of Commons, to give you a flavour of the debate I quote MP John Hayes concluding remarks “We will all be brutalised, because those who are malign or malevolent have access to a different kind of media” - Yeah pretty strong stuff. Actually the point of agreement among MP’s arising out of the discussion was a suggestion that the Green Cross Code Man, the road safety character from 1975, should be used to warn people about dangerous Video Games. Yes looking at Hansard on what was said in Parliament on this issue leaves the impression that the dialogue was largely backwards looking (Green Cross Code Man!) and negative about an area that should be treated more as opportunity than threat by our politicians.
Compare this conservative attitude by UK MP’s with American Congressman Ed Markey who in order to save fuel emissions spoke to delegates of the 2007 United Nations climate change conference in Bali using his avatar from the Virtual World Second Life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ZFBu31Dho&feature=related

Makey’s intervention, however effective, sure shows willingness to embrace new media and use it positively in particular in connection with climate change. A key sign to people in the UK parliament that confident steps into virtual worlds can help communication and leadership on real world climate change issues.
Second Life is an example of a Collaborative Virtual Environment and another example of what they can do in respect of social issues is provided by Jim Purbrick’s Carbon Goggles initiative which allows avatars to view the emissions they would be emitting in the real world as they go about their virtual day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbX_6NE7To
Carbon Goggles aims to deliver information about emissions from AMEE (http://www.amee.cc/about) in a different way and projects like this – another example is the BBC game Climate Challenge, there are many more - have the potential be educative on climate change with added accessibility and participation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/aboutgame.shtml

The “other reality” media I discuss here can be seen to have three functions in relation to the 100 month effort to avoid dangerous climate change: Firstly education and changing real world behaviour (see Carbon Goggles), secondly Makey’s Second Life foray is about discharging real world tasks by virtual means, in this case communication other examples are planning and prototyping. The third function is other reality as fantasy outlet, doing what is unsustainable in the real world. The video games MPs are concerned about because they don’t reflect real life values, thought about from a different perspective, may be useful as virtual outlets for stuff you can know longer do… not Grand but Green Theft Auto!
Virtual reality is perhaps most conspicuously connected with climate change through the laptop presentations of people like Al Gore and Mark Lynas showing the consequences of not doing enough. It would be nice for other reality media to be used more, in these 100 months, to do what is necessary to avoid those consequences.

TF