CCS is okay but it's not a silver bullet

Life is full of difficult decisions. Idealism has it's place but on its own it cannot save the world.
As much as I would always want to see a shift to renewable energy as the preferred approach to solving our climate change problems I also acknowledge that we need to consider all the solutions we have at our disposal.


Carbon Capture & Storage
In the past I have thought of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a false solution that does nothing more than kick the problem under the bed in an attempt to make the room look clean. This is not necessarily the case. If we treated CCS as our only 'solution' and did nothing else then that analogy would ring true. In looking for a 'solution' half the battle lies in understanding and defining the 'problem' in the first place.

However, if CCS is used as a way of temporarily solving an atmospheric emissions problem and buying us the time to step back from a precipice so that we can address the issues that need our attention then avoiding CCS would be irresponsible. Applying CCS and doing nothing else is equally irresponsible.

Sustainability as a form of emergence
Using CCS in the long run is not sustainable and is therefore not a solution to our sustainability challenges. It is, however, a way of managing the sustainability challenge in the short term. It raises the theoretical possibility that sustainable management requires a sequence of activities, which when considered as discrete stand alone actions are fundamentally unsustainable on their own, but when aggregated together result in a sustainable continuum over time. In this way sustainability emerges as an effect from a system of unsustainable parts.

Getting the balance right
The risk of thinking this way is that one may be tempted to believe that short-term unsustainability is tolerable and that there is no need to work at developing more sustainable solutions. What we actually need are two groups who think differently and have the freedom to work on their own approach. We need the person who is developing the next sustainable solution, but we also need the person who is making the current interim solution work despite the fact that it is not the ultimate solution. This balance between idealism and pragmatism is essential for the longer term sustainability effect to have a chance to emerge from the combined effort.

Homogeneity invites risk while diversity fosters balance
We need diversity of thought to be able to give us a point of balance. We need the conflict of ideologies to explore new solutions that enable us to adapt to change. If everyone thinks the same way and behaves the same way then we loose that balance. If we are all clones then we will allow our social system to gravitate towards a survival boundary and burst with traumatic consequences. Our financial systems have taught us these lessons. Take the property market as an example. If we all think that property is the best investment for spare cash then everyone invests in property, we get inflated property prices and we end up with a bubble in the property market. So it seems as though diversity is the key to maintaining a healthy balance.

No silver bullet
Ironically it appears that Silver bullets have a higher probability of killing you than they do of saving you. This makes me think there is no such thing as a silver bullet solution. On the contrary, if something looks like a silver bullet solution it should be a warning.

Heisenberg uncertainty Not knowing exactly what the "right" solution is appears to be a blessing in disguise. It gives us the necessary space we need within which to move. It gives us the freedom to adopt different positions, which are essential to establish some sort of balance. Whether that balance can be maintained and whether it is stable is a different matter. Uncertainty, however uncomfortable it may be, appears to be good and healthy for us.

Debt is not sustainable

The Party is nearly over.

Economic bubbles seem to be normal and some hurt more than others. The banking crisis was a nasty one but there are more out there lurking in the back waters of the board rooms. Occasionally they raise their dorsal fins in the press.

Bailing out banks is one thing. Bailing out entire countries is entirely different. The very nature of the way we do things on a large scale is that these things operate as highly integrated and interconnected systems. We know from systems theory that co-systems co-create other systems and that one system collapse can precipitate another.

I ask myself: can governments collapse financially? The answer is simply "yes". Can it happen again? Yes. Will it happen soon? Well as a futurist we look for early warning signs, trend breaks and things we call "weak signals". So here's a weak signal to consider:

"The markets remain sceptical that Greece will be able to pay its debts, and speculation is rife that the EU is preparing to bail the country out."

It's a weak signal because it only refers to one country and creates the impression that it is an isolated problem and the big boys and girls in Europe will be able to manage. Looking at it systemically it is a symptom of a much problem that is much more widely manifested.

People have been warning about the dangers of operating large deficits and there seems to be lots of it around: The deterioration in UK public finances is unprecedented, US deficit hits record since world war II, EU deficits, Japan's worst deficit on record, IMF has been concerned about the India deficit for several years, while China seems to be running a small deficit, but this is set to grow a lot in 2010. Everyone seems to be borrowing from everyone else - and just how stable is that after we saw what happened to the banks?

This could potentially lead to a shift in economic power or global melt down. Things an economist should be able to tell us: Who has deficits. How do they compare historically (E.g. The US deficit history)? Can the books be balanced by those who don't have deficits? If not then a global "market correction" is in store.

If it does all come down like a pack of cards or a string of dominoes then it's going to get dark. It may be possible to plug the holes on the leaking ship and coast a little while longer but the resource shortage that will hit us around 2020 is probably going to be the final straw before a real back to basics correction steps in. That's when several places will feel the pinch because of a shortage of water (which indirectly means food) and the world's oil supply would have peaked. There will be absolutely no reason to believe in any growth after that and the economic paradigm of today will collapse. It won't be the end of the world because people are incredibly resilient. It will however be very different to the place we know now.

The party is nearly over... should we enjoy it while we can, or start putting some stratgeically important sustainable investments? I wonder how bad the hang-over is going to be?

The A,B,C of COP15: Abortions, Blamestorming & Copenhagen

The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the UNFCCC arrived pregnant with anticipation for the conclusion of a much needed and long awaited binding agreement to address the global problem of Climate Change following a road-map that had been put together two years before in Bali. COP15 left us with an abortion, followed by a last minute emergency Caesarean section, a dying UN mother and an illegitimate child that is expected to save the world but will either die prematurely or become an unwanted orphan in a world driven by greed and apathy.

I had the audacity to invent a new word for the climate change dictionary, which I also posted to Twitter: Cockenhaven (vb.) To cock up the climate change talks and then find a safe haven to hide from taking responsibility for having done so #cop15. There was no response, but that's no surprise because everyone was still plugged into real time reporting, digesting the first of the flowery speeches (although some spoke from the heart - Lula da Silva/Brasil) and the #cop15 tag was racking up about 50 tweets a minute - too fast to actually keep up with everyone's sentiments and thoughts. A friend of mine was calling COP15 a joke: "JOK15 in JOKENHAGEN"

The world expected an agreement, and a clear consolidated commitment to a solution. It didn't happen. COP15 was a resounding failure. The ramifications are pretty clear. I started joining the dots and scetched the first strokes into my facebook status on the evening of 18 Dec: COP15 has failed. International cooperation has once again failed (last time it was the WTO). WTO & Kyoto are now two monuments in history signaling the need for structural change.

At last the world is waking up to the fact that it is economics that drives climate change. A BBC article claimed: "Despite many expressions of concern about projections of climate change, finance has emerged as an issue more likely to make or break a deal than emission pledges."

The real underlying issues are poverty, inequality and a capitalist system that exploits unfairly and leaves a trail of destruction in it's wake. I believe that the bigger the need for change the more traumatic it will be when it comes, and that's bad news for our climate change future.

The blamestorming has begun. It's inevitable when people who are in positions of authority have a mandate and a moral responsibility to deliver on their commitment to finalise a deal and they fail to do so. Not only are the UK and China pointing fingers at each other but the process and procedures involved in the negotiations are also being blamed. Lots of people are playing the Blame Game.

One analyst described Obama's efforts as follows: "Obama decided a comprehensive treaty was a bridge too far. And he pulled off a deft political maneuver. He circumvented the UN process (ticking off less powerful nations), screwed his European allies (by cutting them out of the real talks), and reached out to his top opponent in the negotiations: China." One of the people I was following on Twitter said "This is the end of the UN as we know it".

But the "deal" is a tepid one to say the least. The details are nebulous. Reports state that some form of progress has been achieved: the US has "roped China and other major developing nations into a system in which they're going to have to commit to some form of emissions limits (even if those obligations are not binding under international law)." This is quite amorphous fluffy stuff, a bit like snow that melts after a few days, weeks or months. It lacks the commitment we expected to see and is not even very clear or specific. Have these people never heard of SMART goals?

This is not a "deal". It's more of a take-away food wrapper dripping in the oily residue of something that tasted good at the time but wasn't actually good for our health in the long run. There's also the guilty new year's resolution to go back to gym for some more exercise in Mexico City at COP16.

Two day before the end of the conference a report was saying: 'Obama and other world leaders recently said they will reach a "politically binding agreement" in Copenhagen, which is fancy diplomatic speak for, “We’ll hunker down in our Danish study hall and bang out as much homework as we can, but there’s no way we’re getting this project turned in before next semester.”'

There is no doubt in my mind that a fundamentally different paradigm is required. Einstein said something about having to shift paradigm gears when trying to solve a problem. Something like this (although few of his quotes are captured exactly word for word): 'We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.'

Grass-roots Sustainability Initiatives

The basic foundation of sustainability is the ability to survive in the long term. The key question to me is 'for how long', and my favourite idealistic answer is 'indefinitely'. I am, however, interested in the point where idealism meets reality. How practical are these ideas? Show me sustainability in practice. I have specifically become interested in grass-roots initiatives which consider an alternative way of living. If the proverbial s%$!T really hit the fan - what would the response look like? So I have started looking at people who are trying to live in this way. Let's take the first step in this new direction and have a look at a humble, and yet ambitious project in London called "Kew Eco Village"

Kew Bridge Eco Village is a grass-roots sustainability initiative in London. They have been on site for six months and have made some stunning progress. The facilities are functional and offer an alternative way of living.

The basic philosophy is an attempt to get away from any form of financial support, so everything is either donated, or reclaimed and reused from waste streams. The site is run with an open door policy, which is admirable and probably comes with it's own inevitable difficulties of trying to make space for many different social, political and religious ideologies.

Personally I am interested in the functioning systems: clean water, hygienic waste disposal and or treatment, heating, cooking, hot water, power generation and food production. I want to take my engineering knowledge and apply it in this new type of setting. Doing this without cash is going to be a challenge. It offers an opportunity to learn about what works and what doesn't.

I see these types of initiatives as an insurance policy that everyone could be helping to fund. What happens if the unthinkable happens? What happens if service delivery stops and the super-market supply chains break down? How does a city, or pockets within a city actually survive? Is it possible? Can it be done? These types of pilot projects can be invaluable in providing answers. If the unthinkable happens it will be much easier to turn to these projects and say 'teach us', 'help us' - you guys have the practical hands-on experience that we desperately need. Without this the cost of errors, mistakes and adapting may be higher than what we would like.

Money talks, chop, chop, chop

So here's a novel idea - pay us to not chop down the rainforest. Great idea in principle. It's easy to take money today and do the right thing. The problem arises when the next recession bites or demand gets so great that prices become too good to ignore. If the government is in trouble and can't balance it's books or needs a boost to it's coffers or gets a different leader who has pals in business (nudge nudge bush bush) then the temptation may be too great. When it's convenient money will talk and exploitation will set in. I remain a sceptic - we need a fundamental change in the rules of business and in the attitudes and expectations of people who are trapped in the vicious cycle that ever increasing growth demands.

The oil plot thickens

A few days ago I wrote about the oil leak on the Australian owned West Atlas oil rig in the Timor Sea. It turns out the rig has caught fire and has been abandoned. This is the Bloomberg report, which has more detail. The company, PTTEP has their own media release webpage.

I would be very interested to see the detailed report on what really happened here.
Could it be that the problem was easier to solve by getting the insurance companies to cover the costs (or part thereof) of shutting the facility down? Is this a case of a convenient accident? I sincerely hope not. Checks and balances in a properly functioning world: 1. The insurance companies don't want to get taken for a ride. 2. The HSE authorities will want to see that everything was done to prevent something like this happening.

The environmental impact is now even greater than before. Now that it is out of control I wonder how much worse it's going to get?

Follow up Review:
4 Dec 2009: First assessment and insurance action.
The investigation is being lead by David Borthwick (power and authority of a Royal Commission) and is due at the end of April 2010.

Other similar stories:
21 April 2010: Oil rig blaze off Louisiana leaves at least 11 missing

Birds, Technology and Destruction

What is it in the nature of people to kill birds even when it's illegal?

"I have a gun,
I will go out and kill,
because it is fun."

The unfortunate truth about technology is that not everyone will use it responsibly. I wonder what proportion of the world's population has the moral, emotional and intellectual maturity to use the technologies that humans produce responsibly? Can we get it right or will it destroy everything around us and ultimately ourselves too?

It happens in America too, as this article indicates: Last successful breeding whooping crane shot and killed.