Soluuutions

I just watched the last episode of Michael Smith’s Drivetime, on BBC4. I loved the whole series but the last episode in particular really struck a chord. Michael really captures the emotional rollercoaster of hitching, and the joy of being on the road and journeying.

I also love his disdain for the language of corporate “solutions”, and the way the word rolls out of his accent with such contempt. Catch the whole series while it’s on the BBC Iplayer.

Bankrupt Stock

Tut, roll your eyes to the sky, shrug and sigh with me “the credit crunch”.

Two, yes TWO, of the companies that had agreed to support the expedition have gone into liquidation since Christmas, despite both being companies at the sharp end of the “green economy”.

One in particular has gone down the pan because of Boris Johnson’s decision to scrap the Low Emission Zone for smaller vans.

Obama’s talking about an economic renaissance driven by green businesses. And I heard Zac Goldsmith presenting the same argument at the New Energy Awards, but I don’t see how this is playing out in practice, with practical initiatives.

I can’t post more details about the companies because in both cases my contacts there have promised to try to sneak out the bits I need before the liquidator gets to do a stock check.

Please note; these bankruptcies are no reflection of the benefits available to sponsors supporting the expedition. In fact to find out about the massive exposure, visibility, brand association and sponsorship activation programme sponsors can expect from Mission:Emissions Expedition, contact me today.

Eco-Prefix

Every time I see the word “eco” used as a prefix, I brace myself with the thought that it's going to be utter crap. A lot of the time it is too. For instance I have regularly been described as an “eco-adventurer”.

When it’s used to describe products “Eco” tends to mean this version is less damaging than the non-eco one. I always jump to the assumption that the non-eco one must therefore be shamefully bad, and the Eco one can at best boast that it’s not as horrific.

The other thing that annoys me about the Eco prefix is when it’s used as a catch-all simplistic way of summing up complicated issues and totally blurring them in the process. For instance, an “Eco-Coal Fired power station” doesn’t produce harmful spent uranium rods. It’s a trite example but the point is that while some aspects of the eco-solution might be great, the prefix often ignores a whole realm of un-eco facets.

“Harmful” is another one. When I worked as a tour guide and I didn’t know the date of some battle or church I’d say it was from the olden days. It was a very effective fudge. Harmful how? Is it one of the harms we should be worried about, or is one of the trivial harms we can live with.

Anyway, I guess the fact that I’ve got to get back to working on my “Eco-Bus”, makes me an Eco-hypocrite, so far less harmful than a normal hypocrite.

Eco-Driving

I have this recurring thought when I get pulled up by a traffic light just as it changes. If I went through that light, there would be one less car in the queue at that light, and one less engine idling away. If the traffic is so bad that there is a perpetual queue at that traffic light, there will be one more engine idling at that light all day because the traffic queue will always have one extra car in it, until the queue at that light drops to zero.

I’m not saying I should run the light, but each time I hold up traffic at a busy junction it’s equivalent to leaving yet another engine idling all day.

Also I was thinking that more polluting cars, and Lorries should get right of way so they can get to where they are going and switch their engines off sooner.

Perversely this thought experiment means I should buy a Hummer to have the moral right of way.

Eco-Justification

I’m really interested in the psychological justifications we all come up to justify behaviour we think is not sustainable. I’ve got energy saving bulbs which means I am less likely to run upstairs to turn one off now. I never remember to unplug the mobile phone charger, though I’m quite good about turning the telly off standby. It all feels like my personal actions have such a trivial impact, but none the less I dwell on the “good” things I do using them to forgive myself the “bad” things.

The premise of this journey is that to make an impact everyone on the planet will have to change their behaviour. But short of holding your breath in a cold dark room, it’s hard to do anything that doesn’t emit greenhouse gasses.

I was at a conference with Nick Stern last month and he explained the logic behind needing an 80% cut in emissions. I can’t picture how my personal life either as a rufty-tufty expedition leader, or as a London suburban commuter, looks when it’s constrained to just 20% of its emissions. Being smug about buying UK grown food in the supermarket isn’t going to cover it, let alone make up for my flight to Perugia to speak at a conference. And I don’t think I can sit back and expect Business or Government to provide solutions that do it all for me.

For the population (global and national) to make the sort of dramatic changes needed, people businesses and government have to motivated by having their lives made considerably easier when they behave sustainably compared with when they don’t. In practice this means either financial or regulatory encouragement.

There are no easy fixes, or we’d be doing them already. Education campaigns are great but they only change the behaviour the educated and the wealthy (how is someone that lives on a dollar a day going to cut their carbon footprint by 80%), and I even then only partly. It’s no good the yummy mummies of Clapham recycling yogurt pots to mentally justify their Chelsea tractor for the school run.

At the moment the debate seems to be culturally stagnating into a bit of which hunt. I’m going to try to use this blog to fess up to my personal hypocrisies, not because I want to provide an environment where hypocrisy is acceptable, but because keeping problems a secret, means you can’t solve them (just like the rust on my truck).

There’s something quite empowering about confessionals. Anyone out there want to confess, wipe the slate clean and start again?

CAS

As some of you know I am working as for the Catlin Arctic Survey and I have a responsibility to coordinate the scientific use of the data collected by the team.

So I was incensed by this blog entry, so rammed with misrepresentation and unchecked “facts”. Anyway now that I have a Blog too, I thought I’d put it to good use by venting about this muppet. It’s astounding an intelligent man can get it so wrong. I am referring to the editor of the Telegraph that publishes the crap that Booker writes, full of half-researched inaccuracies. He’s a great example of a writer that stops looking critically when they get to a snippet of information that suits their argument. That’s what separates bigotry (masquerading under the badge of “a polemic”) from journalism Christopher. How do you get space in the newspaper?

You get bigots on both side of the climate change debate, but really it’s not much of debate these days. Scientifically, climate change is so widely accepted the debate is now about how fast and how bad is climate change going to be for humankind, and what if anything can we do about it. I don’t have anything against Booker personally; I’d give any pompous moron the same contempt. And I did find this which made me laugh.

To be clear, the views expressed here are my own (it’s a blog) and do not represent the position of the Catlin Arctic Survey (CAS). I did suggest getting a dartboard for the office I could pin his picture too and it was rejected as it would be hard to justify it as a business expense. (For legal purposes I should point out, that was a joke and I have never discussed dartboards, darts or any pointed projectile with any members of the CAS team. Your home is at risk if you liable someone, even on a blog Christopher.)

Blue Peter Badge

I’ve been wearing my Blue Peter Badge in bed. Sod it. If you had just been awarded a Blue Peter badge, you’d be wearing it in bed too. I was trying to explain what it means to Belgian friends, and the best explanation is that it’s like an award from the queen, or an honorary degree from the University of Life. OK I’m overstating it a little bit, but it’s still a big deal. The last time I was given a badge I was in the cub scouts.

Last week I got a call from Nikki at the BBC who was organising a race across London for the presenters of the 50 year old kids TV programme and asked me to help with my veg powered rally car. To my surprise (based on a long love-hate personal history with the BBC), Nikki turned out to be really lovely, very genuine and professional (and really cute too).

To start with, Helen, the presenter I was helping, and I had to scavenge some grease from restaurants along Wanstead high Street, while Andy, another presenter, had to find somewhere to charge up his electric car, before we raced across London to the BBC.

It was a really close call with only 4 car lengths in it at the finishing line, and we had a sprint finish into the Blue Peter garden, but importantly Helen and I won!!! The programme goes out on the 14^th of April on BBC1. Watch out for my wonder-woman spin.