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james greyson
Ringmer, United Kingdom
Parent at Lewes New School, an innovative curiosity-led primary school.
My think-tank BlindSpot.org.uk researches and reveals the biggest opportunities for rapid global economic and ecological recovery. I work in the UK Sustainable Development Panel, NATO Science Programme and UN Climate Neutral Network and speak internationally on sustainable economic recovery, reversing climate change, reversing economic incentives for weapons spending and throwing away the whole idea of waste disposal.
Recent Activity
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james signed the petition | -
james commented on the article |Better to put the peace prize in the post. All the long distance distance flights to Copenhagen would be better made when there is an agreement on the table big enough to take on climate change, warfaring and all other indivisible global problems. These things can be fixed only with turn-around strategies, not with single-issue just-do-something policies. So far, humanity is trying to solve problems with the same mindsets that cause them. Think bigger, much bigger!
http://www.wiserearth.org/resource/view/2f007297ce994215d709c47f4c9230a1
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james commented on the article |Today's 389 ppm CO2 is already too much. 675 ppm CO2 equivalent (or whatever the CO2-only amount is) sounds like a pact for suicide not stabilisation.
John Sterman has done some cool work on people's confusion between flows (emissions) and stocks (concentrations). It would help when we're clear that 675 is a proposal for a concentration limit not an emissions limit. It would be fun if concentrations would fall if we just cut emissions but it's not quite that easy.
I reckon it is possible to shape up policies to cut concentrations by rethinking our scatty approach to global problem solving. So before we think about polar bears or energy efficiency we can take a moment to think about the thinking that got us into this mess.
Will do a talk on this stuff next week. Anyone interested can see and comment on the paper and slides here, http://www.wiserearth.org/resource/view/6cde9add775de8a2ead56e6234d9ec7a -
james commented on the article |Thanks, I did comment but didn't really find any of those qualities here. All the best.
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james commented on the article |
Sorry, I thought I'd started with a comment on how the debate is narrowed by sceptics. Sorry again if you think my comments were somehow about who's smartest. We're all smart but we curiously apply our intelligence in purposeless arguments like this one. You've neither expressed your curiosity nor responded to mine about the relevant projects/funding you may know of. My wider curiosity is whether there will come a time when the urgency of climate and other global problems triggers something more than just stronger defenses of what we already believe?
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james commented on the article |
Thanks for your comments Emily, you're not alone in finding this stuff to be challenging. I would happily respond to your complaints if I could sense that you were curious about the possibility of solutions with a hope of actually working, rather than just defending solutions-as-usual. Yes I've not described the detail of my work (and you've not asked me to) though if you or others are interested a good starting point is my wiser earth solutions page http://www.wiserearth.org/solution/view/fb62167e14809b30029768551d4135f6 This includes links to my academic work (which attracted a UNEP 'climate centurion' trophy), one of my keynote conference presentations and a book I contributed to. Comments are very welcome.
I've previously enjoyed the worldchanging website though it's a compendium, not any kind of guide to what I've discussed. If you do know of relevant projects and funding I would be very curious and grateful to know. -
james commented on the article |
OK, thanks. Most people have heard another quote from Einstein about not being able to solve problems with the same thinking that causes them, yet this is precisely what has happened for decades with climate. I'm no Einstein but if we're getting desperate enough to pursue science-fiction geo-engineering 'solutions' then perhaps it's also worth thinking about our thinking? By convention, problems are solved reductively; big problems are broken down into ever smaller pieces and some pieces are held up for special attention. This convention is so destructive of connections and creative options that everyone assumes the biggest problems, such as climate, are really tough to solve. So we lower expectations, asking just to 'mitigate' change not to reverse it, for cuts in emissions not atmospheric concentrations, for less-worse rather than better. As time passes without progress we propose ever tougher caps and constraints to be imposed by big brother government. Many seek solace in denial or fatalism. The projects and funding to rethink all this professionally don't exist SFAIK.
If such a project did exist I would want to help by looking for a climate solution within an overall global solution, to see climate as a squeaky wheel. Fix the machinery not the squeak, the system not the symptom. What switches can we flick that would change out relations with nature, with resources, with money and with each other? One example would be to switch the physical resource economy from linear to circular, from waste-making to resource-making. Take the practice of cradle-to-cradle design and apply it everywhere (and not just to carbon!). The Chinese have made 'circular economy' a national goal though they are attempting it via central planning rather than markets. I've designed a simple market-based correction that would provide sufficient incentives for all products to end up as new resources for people and nature, rather than as wastes in the air, water and land. This could combine economic, ecological and climate recovery. But it doesn't fit into a climate box. -
james commented on the article |
Yes, be more imaginative. Yet, as Einstein said, imagination is the servant of our instincts. Climate deniers are being 'imaginative' with the science, following their instinct for comfortable certainties. Climate journalists are imaginatively expressing an instinct to battle the deniers over the territory of climate science. This narrows the debate and the policy; it's like having one foot tangled in the minutiae of the science. Perhaps it would be more imaginative to go right ahead and lose interest in the deniers (who could be invited to go play on some blog set up for the purpose). If this was done we may see a surge of imagination in climate debates. Our imagination might be set free to follow new instincts, of survival and compassion and resurgence of the human spirit. Our thinking might be set free to seek climate solutions with a hope of actually working, not in cramped climate policy silos but amidst a reimagination of what's possible among people determined to make life more liveable for everyone. This only sounds Utopian because it hasn't happened. Afterwards it might seem obvious and simple.
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james commented on the article |
Yes, economic stimulus. It's fascinating how economics, in both boom and bust, tries to do whatever the prevailing culture says is 'constructive'. This ensures that society as a whole need not ever run out of money.
However this doesn't protect us against running out of planet. Which is what ultimately determines the value of our money and other more important questions.
Steady state economics lives in a charming parallel world where woolly wishes can come true. I figure its main effect in this world has been to scare away politicians from considering achievable sustainable growth. -
james commented on the article |
Some good stuff but...
I read support for both the fossil economy and the solar economy. Reaching a crossroads and trying to go both ways?
The investments map out a clear vision of science, technology, building things, and people rushing around more. What happened to all the other stuff needed to make anyplace sustainable? (eg non-technical innovation, low-energy closed-loop resource management, localisation and non-toxic low-energy wildlife-friendly agriculture)
I'm particularly concerned about the vain hope that climate might be restabilised by focussing on energy and neglecting the systematic loss of valuable resources as all kinds of dangerous wastes. Just wait to see if they start building incinerators, which are a reliable way to destroy tomorrow's resources and economic opportunities.
