Whenever I hear about global warming my first reaction is to shake my head and smile a little. It may be that the temperature of our atmosphere is rising but it remains difficult to prove because of the complexity of what it is that we are trying to model. There are those, generally in the majority that say it is indisputable and there are those who dispute that, perhaps out of principle and perhaps for reasons connected to secret swiss bank accounts. However, this argument is a good one since it increases public awareness of what is happening. However, it’s also wrong for several reasons.
My first problem with this is that it’s symptom reduction. It’s rather like a doctor looking at a patient with smallpox and saying “Ok, we have a skin problem, let’s see about getting rid of these sores shall we?” It’s taking pictures of shrinking glaciers, of skiers standing looking puzzled on grass, of predominantly poor black people sitting inside a sport’s stadium in New Orleans. It generates a lot of press and this in itself is better than nothing, but it’s a whole lot less than ideal.
You see global warming is merely one symptom of many, all of which point to a larger illness which is being ignored for the most part. You see global warming, if it exists, is about human beings changing atmospheric chemistry, in other words atmospheric pollution, but doesn’t it seems myopic to only look at chimneys and ignore sewer pipes, algal blooms, brown sites, heavy metal contamination etc?
Climate change also seems to me to be overly focussed on the discussion about effects and then speculating on the causes. Now since the effects are disputed, and the numbers vary, it’s rather difficult to determine and then rank the causes in order of priority. Once again I think the whole debate about this is a good thing, but it’s only the beginning. Any discussion about global warming generally starts talking about carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases like methane. And once you start down that road you’re picking and choosing your pollutants rather than trying to solve the problem of pollution in general. What you get then is the band aid solution of catalytic convertors and sulphur reduction technology in power station chimneys, sure it’s better than nothing but it remains nothing more than a stopgap because its not dealing with the core problem.
The heart of the problem is pollution you might say, but to that I would say pollution is only the symptom not the problem. I would then say you would need to think about pollution and ask why. That thinking would probably take you to thinking about how we manage resources, at which point I would say ‘now we’re getting somewhere’. You see resources are intimately connected to the provision of services – we dig stuff up, we process it inefficiently, we often put it on ships and steam it around the world, we use it once (the service) and we then we burn it or bury it, and hope that it goes away, after which we express dismay should someone have the effrontery to describe how it doesn’t. Following that logic we could say that the problem is the manner by which business provide services. Further still and we start to focus on our buying habits; yours and mine.
But the thing is that even should we consider all pollution we would still only be considering a symptom, not the actual disease. We have to think a little harder and dig a little deeper. For really we need to look at why the manner in which we are provided with services could lead us to this. So we ask why do businesses provide us services in a manner which causes so much damage? Which is why we start to focus on our buying habits; yours and mine.
What I think is that the reasons for global warming boil down to a few things.
It’s not seeing the big picture; basically not thinking about the consequences of our actions, not saying to ourselves ‘If everyone on the planet did it this way, what would would happen?” We see things in relation to ourselves but we don’t multiply it by billions. Which leads me to repetition.
Repetition turns a discrete action into a habit, it takes a one off action and turns it into a machine, working endlessly over and over. Do something once and it’s probably inconsequential, do something as a habit and we’re looking at something akin to compound interest, what Einstein referred to as ‘the most powerful force in the universe’.
Then there is the concepts of services as ownership and fashion which are implicitly designed to promote what every business is chasing – the repeat customer, which connects back directly to the most powerful force in the universe. You see repeat business is all about trying to get the customer to come back again and again to pay for the same product, not the service, but the product. There is a problem here though that if the customer has to come back too often they might start thinking they’re not getting value for money, but sadly most consumers don’t think this far. I’ll give you an example.
I have a can of Nivea for men shaving foam. As a dispenser it truly sucks. If I’m half asleep and bleary eyed I press on the trigger without considering the carefully thought out design flaw and get enough foam to shave a viking longboat crew. Tell me how difficult would it be to redesign the trigger so that it pushes out enough foam for a single shave? Not difficult at all think I. That’s been around for decades, but it’s not being used for this. Now take that reality and overlay it over every service you need and every product you buy.
Now stop and think about the implications of that. It’s horrifying isn’t it?
Now instead of paying to own a product that provides a service how about just paying for the service and getting rid of the ownership. If Nivea provided skin care services instead of skin care products wouldn’t they then be more concerned about the efficiency by which that service is provided? You see what concerns me most is that I’m clean shaven rather than how much foam I’m buying. If Nivea told me they were charging me the same price but reducing the amount of foam I used by making it better and more efficient for environmental protection then I would probably think “My what a great company!” But we’re still stuck with owning products which provide us with services instead of missing out that one step and going straight to services. There’s no interest in making things go further. The name of the game is accelerated disposability.
When you put those three together this is what you get….
[Every person in the world x population] x repetition x [accelerated disposability]= Pollution = Added costs to everything we do individually, as business, as nations….
That’s my model and I think you’ll agree it’s simpler than the one for climate change. Doing this you get one seriously screwed up planet and not just the climate. It affects every aspect of our lives.
Isn’t it about time we took off our blinkers and saw the big picture?
However turning this all around and heading in the other direction would mean GDP goes down. When you consider the kind of effort it would take to wrest us away from the golden calf of GDP growth you could be mistaken for thinking that it might be easy to air filter the entire planet. A project of that size would certainly increase GDP. On the other hand if you can get Consumers to demand services rather than products and Businesses to see how they could wipe out their product focussed competitors by switching to services then governments will have no choice but to follow.
The great hope lies with change from the bottom, you and me. The greatest journey starts with a single step. Saving the planet starts with a single purchasing decision.
That’s why global warming is the diversion.
