My goal in life is to fabricate a global crisis, coerce almost every single one of my peers into supporting this by making up data and manipulate every day experience of extreme weather events to support the creation of a global socialist utopia. At least that is the general conclusion of a number of commentators about sustainability researchers. That or just an excuse to raise taxes.
At the Global Sustainability Institute our research explores issues from global resources and risk, to individual behaviours and change. We regularly look at when and how people change their everyday practice, what influences these changes and how to support people in achieving goals that they want to achieve. We also look at global trends like climate change, food security and energy availability and how this impacts on social and financial stability.
How people change is wrapped up in their identity. These identities change with time whether they are young or old, parents or not, working or unemployed, moving home or moving country.
How people respond to global crisis is also wrapped up in identity.
The responses to global crisis are interesting. They often, but not always, falls down a political divide. In the Anglo-Saxon world the left is, broadly, engaged in sustainability discourse and at least discussing solutions. The right is, broadly, not. This divide is most visible in the North America and Australia.
There are notable exceptions to this with former republican Governors of U.S. states having taken bold leadership after seeing the opportunities that tackling some of these global challenges can bring. Ministers in the UK Conservative party, and indeed the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have led bold initiatives on pollution targets, climate investments and solutions to ozone depletion.
Solving climate change can easily be framed as a perfect excuse to go all out for free market economics and unleash the power of business. I’m always puzzled that this hasn’t been embraced by the right. The technology fix for climate change needs huge investment in the private sector which could be used to speed up privatisation of global energy systems, deregulation of energy technologies and huge changes to planning laws. Transforming the global economy into a more competitive and efficient system should be the ideal platform for leaders of the right.
However, it is more often than not seen as a left wing drive to increase public sector responsibility and delivery. A drive to tax the rich that is anti-competitive.
If we were to have a debate about the best route to future economic stability within the context of the limited planet on which we live, that would at least engage in real issues. As it is, most debate is focussed on whether any of the things going on around us are real or not (or possible real but all in God’s plan). We are not really debating whether unleashing the power of private sector leadership could transform the energy-economic landscape of the world or whether we need a more public sector led transformation.
The world currently has a hugely unbalanced energy system. Large fossil based companies, and their infrastructure, exist because of huge public and private investment and subsidy over the past century. This is particularly true for research and development and in the underpinning of the infrastructure and security needed to find and transport fossil fuels around the world.
This investment has transformed the world and delivered huge benefit. However, that investment is now capturing our debate and we are looking at how to squeeze out every last penny of return rather than looking at where the next global transformation will come from. It is captured through the accumulation of capital into those companies and through the influence of those vested interests in our every day lives and decisions.
We attempt to paint a negative view of the future to spur action: climate change will cause many deaths, economic turmoil and biodiversity collapse. We attempt to paint a positive view of the future to spur action: the future low cost of renewable technologies allows for a massive green economy paradigm shift that will support jobs, investments and returns.
Arguably neither has really galvanised action at the scale it is needed in any sector. Certainly in business and politics we have become expert in talking about solutions and rewarding ‘greenwash’ as a great step forward. A company can win a sustainability prize on the same day it unveils a technology that will rapidly increase carbon emissions. This means they have a very effective marketing department – not that they have responded appropriately.
Those on the side of no action have ‘won’ the argument so far. Not because their case is stronger – but because it is very difficult to change our global identity. We are a society that has rapidly changed our individual prospects within a few generations so that we, on average, benefit from living on this planet more than we could have ever imagined. We put a man on the moon and just landed a probe on a small rock hurtling through space. Our ingenuity and sense of adventure has been unleashed. However, our sense of identity seems to be tied into the underpinning technologies and infrastructure that supported this change rather than having a sense of identity tied to ‘thinking outside the box’ and achieving the best we possibly can.
So those few on the ‘right’ who protest at a global conspiracy to unleash socialist ideologies do not have to try hard to keep the status quo.
At Anglia Ruskin University we run an annual student sustainability art prize. This always receives some fantastic entries exploring various aspects of the challenges we face today. In 2015 our choice of winner caused more controversy than usual. Ian Wolter’s monument to climate denial received a lot of attention in online blogs, newspapers and on Twitter.
The goal of a global socialist utopia is not the opposite of a business as usual denial of risks. It is more the opposite of a global utopia of liberalism. Both can deliver solutions to climate change and resource depletion. Both have their approach to poverty alleviation.
Climate change is real. Global resource scarcity is real. I personally believe we should also solve massive inequality as we re-engineer our economy. I don’t think any solution that does not address inequality provides economic stability as the availability of information and increasing access to visualising the identities of inequality are now just a touch of the button away. We can see inside people’s homes and lives on Facebook. We are in danger of global frustration linked to increasing unequal access to resources and climate impacts leading to social unrest. I am not sure we can contain that social unrest easily or pretend we are trying to tackle it without directly tackling it.
My sustainable identity is separate to my political identity. But then I would say that wouldn’t I – I’m a bit too far ‘left’ for those commentators on the ‘right’.
However I am happy to have that debate and to debate the best route to a solution that delivers this. The longer we wait and focus our debate on whether we face a challenge or not, the fewer choices we will have. It will no longer be possible to debate – we’ll be forced to act and will end up in a solution that probably no one wanted. I hope we have visionary leaders about to emerge on both the left and right that can help frame a national, regional and global debate on what sort of society we want. We are unfortunately lacking that visionary leadership today – on any side. Otherwise we will not have a choice – and we may not have a society.
I’ve recently been called Dr Apocalypse. I may get a t-shirt printed with that identity.
Dr Aled Jones is Director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. http://www.anglia.ac.uk/gsi
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