Since I spend a lot of my professional life working with environmental and other non-profits to improve their communications, their campaigns, and their fundraising, I get to see up close the way that many of them are captured by the received wisdeom of the marketing profession - circa 1980. What I'm referring to is the commitment that most of our NGOs have to branding and market differentiation, both factors that lie behind successful fundraising.
But these factors do NOT lie behind successful social change, or at least they do not necessarily contribute to it. Instead, what makes effective campaigns and movements that change the world is a vibrant, rich, and dynamic relationship with the people who are affected by your cause and who support you the most. It's not about whether you are differentiated in the marketplace, but whether you offer a believable response to the oldest question in political discourse, 'what is to be done?', and that you engage those people in doing what you say should be done.
How credible is a movement whose main direct communication with its consituency is fundraising appeals packaged in myriad competing brands rather than a united program to change teh world?
Some individual organizations are doing a better job than others (see, for example, FarmStart, an important innovator in the sustainable food movement), but the lack of what most people in most eras of the modern industrialized world would recognize as a coordinated program with political, legal, and social dimensions hampers our efforts.
But this griping on my part isn't getting me very far with my green friends. Most of them are worrying about revenue shortfalls as a result of the recession, which is making them redouble their efforts in what I consider a secondary direction.
So, as part of my quest to see things in a new light, I offer here a perspective labeled 'radical collaboration' which I found in a post by Adele Peters on worldchanging.org. This approach offers insights from big business on how collaboration between organizations can be made to work even when competition remains an important context in which they must operate.
A recent initiative of Creative Commons is a case n point -- Green Xchange brings together a number of major consumer products corporations (including Nike and BestBuy) to share research and practice in energy efficiency, waste management, and 'greening' their supply chains. This field -- referred to incorrectly as 'sustainability' in the corporate world -- is now seen by some mainstream analysts (see July/09 issue of the Harvard Business Review) as the most important driver of technological and business process innovation in market economies today, so there is evidence that some of the biggest economic entities on the planet are moving past greenwashing to actual behaviour modification.
A certain amount of cross-pollination goes on between the larger environmental groups, obviously, and grassroots groups are always flowing into and out of one another. But a systematic effort to collaborate through matching competencies for a more powerful agenda of social change? I don't see it, I'm afraid.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
21 September 2009
10 March 2009
The Coming Change in Climate
During the US election, novelist Ian McEwan mused in The Guardian that Barack Obama may be our world’s last hope for significant action to avoid catastrophic climate change. But Obama’s powers are fleeting, McEwan says, because they rest on a sort of ‘collective dreaming’ by millions of hopeful citizens in America and around the world: ‘Obama may succeed in tipping the nations [involved in climate change negotiations] toward a low-carbon future simply because people think he can... Having persuaded everybody else, he may be doubly persuaded himself. This aura will be his empowerment, as numinous as good luck, as permanent as spring snow.’
McEwan concludes that Obama must ‘move decisively’, lest our collective dream of his immense power end, and we awaken to find our civilization already pitching forward into a deep chasm.
We would go further here at NC: if Obama is to succeed there must be a determined application of practical wisdom from other governments, including Canada’s. And for that to happen there must be widespread engagement of citizens, both politically and in daily life, and a ‘revaluation’ away from consumerism and endless accumulation of material wealth towards collective fulfillment and happiness even when that means lower growth or fewer luxuries for the wealthiest among us.
Unfortunately, our recent federal election threw into high relief just how disconnected our national institutions are from the imperatives we face. Dion's 'green shift' debacle, the worst communictions effort since Joe Clark tried to sell higher gas taxes, put carbon taxes off the agenda for years to come.
Focusing the mind of our bankers, CEOs, and politicians is no small task, but it is not just a matter of reaching them with 'better information' (as our mainstream environmentalists have preached for too long). This challenge is fundamentally political: The concentration of power at the top of our social pyramid is a key reason that the ecological crisis continues to deepen. As archaeologist/novelist Ronald Wright notes of every civilization’s top dogs: ‘They continue to prosper in darkening times, long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer.’ (A Short History of Progress, House of Anansi Press)
As for our ‘creative class’, on whom so much of our practical future depends, many artists, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, planners, and designers are fascinated by the challenge of finding a sustainable way to live. It appeals to their moral code and requires great things of them, so it naturally feels like a 'fit'. See, for example, Massive Change ("it's not about the world of design, it's about the design of the world").
But, for this all-important caste, solidarity with the powerless and with future generations vies with 'top dog-ism', the well-known tendency of people who have priveleges, but little power, to think of themselves as brethren of the really influential Masters of the Universe.
A lot will hinge on the credibility of whatever economic ideology emerges from the wreckage that Wall St. has brought upon us -- if American Republicans and their ilk succeed, we will dive deeply back into the one-dimensional 'new economy' in which winners take all and being poor is a sure sign of moral weakness. In that world, we only measure success by the size of your bank account, and ignore the clearcuts and wasted oceans like we ignore street people outside the Metro. If NC and it's ilk get their way, we will take a much richer view of what progress is, using measures such as those outlined by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing or the Happy Planet Index. In that world, equity and ecological sustainability will underpin a society bent on the welfare of its children and grandchildren.
So keep dreaming the dream of Obama's power, but look forward to big changes in your waking life too.
McEwan concludes that Obama must ‘move decisively’, lest our collective dream of his immense power end, and we awaken to find our civilization already pitching forward into a deep chasm.
We would go further here at NC: if Obama is to succeed there must be a determined application of practical wisdom from other governments, including Canada’s. And for that to happen there must be widespread engagement of citizens, both politically and in daily life, and a ‘revaluation’ away from consumerism and endless accumulation of material wealth towards collective fulfillment and happiness even when that means lower growth or fewer luxuries for the wealthiest among us.
Unfortunately, our recent federal election threw into high relief just how disconnected our national institutions are from the imperatives we face. Dion's 'green shift' debacle, the worst communictions effort since Joe Clark tried to sell higher gas taxes, put carbon taxes off the agenda for years to come.
Focusing the mind of our bankers, CEOs, and politicians is no small task, but it is not just a matter of reaching them with 'better information' (as our mainstream environmentalists have preached for too long). This challenge is fundamentally political: The concentration of power at the top of our social pyramid is a key reason that the ecological crisis continues to deepen. As archaeologist/novelist Ronald Wright notes of every civilization’s top dogs: ‘They continue to prosper in darkening times, long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer.’ (A Short History of Progress, House of Anansi Press)
As for our ‘creative class’, on whom so much of our practical future depends, many artists, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, planners, and designers are fascinated by the challenge of finding a sustainable way to live. It appeals to their moral code and requires great things of them, so it naturally feels like a 'fit'. See, for example, Massive Change ("it's not about the world of design, it's about the design of the world").
But, for this all-important caste, solidarity with the powerless and with future generations vies with 'top dog-ism', the well-known tendency of people who have priveleges, but little power, to think of themselves as brethren of the really influential Masters of the Universe.
A lot will hinge on the credibility of whatever economic ideology emerges from the wreckage that Wall St. has brought upon us -- if American Republicans and their ilk succeed, we will dive deeply back into the one-dimensional 'new economy' in which winners take all and being poor is a sure sign of moral weakness. In that world, we only measure success by the size of your bank account, and ignore the clearcuts and wasted oceans like we ignore street people outside the Metro. If NC and it's ilk get their way, we will take a much richer view of what progress is, using measures such as those outlined by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing or the Happy Planet Index. In that world, equity and ecological sustainability will underpin a society bent on the welfare of its children and grandchildren.
So keep dreaming the dream of Obama's power, but look forward to big changes in your waking life too.
19 February 2009
Carbon Capture Sucks the Big One
Everyone loses with carbon capture.
First, you and me Joe Taxpayer lose because Stephen Harper just announced he's going to plough millions into this speculative technology (for sucking CO2 out of fossil combustion) without bothering to give any economic value to carbon emissions. Duh. Without cap-and-trade or a national carbon tax, carbon emissions are still free, so how can carbon capture move from being an interesting lab experiment to a scaled-up, economically viable technology? It won't (see economist Mark Jaccard on this point). So research divisions of the fossil fuel companies, floating on fat public grants, win big, and... uh... you lose.
Meanwhile green groups like Greenpeace rail against carbon capture as the 'new nuclear debacle' -- by which they mean a pointless exercise in expensive technology when efficiency and renewables would do a better job. They happen to be right -- a coal-fired power plant outfitted with carbon capture would, for example, use up 30 to 40 percent of its energy output just to run the damn carbon capture process, so this technology actually has the potential to pointlessly increase carbon emissions. But.. I can't help thinking that a) Harper and his friends in Alberta (and, sigh... Washington) are going to fund experimental gizmos in this direction no matter what, and b) the world really needs Greenpeace to be focusing on the main event. Hello! You've got the tarsands in the bull's-eye in Canada and coal exports on the agenda in Australia, and you've got Barack Obama using the words 'carbon footprint' -- FOCUS my friends! FOCUS! Press the case for pricing carbon -- which every intelligent economist and policy wonk agrees with -- because it's the single most efficient, effective, and rapid way to stop carbon emissions from growing and start the necessary reductions.
But note: when we finally win policies to put a price on carbon, there is bound to be a plethora of viable ways to reduce emissions -- and that may just include carbon capture, which makes it even harder to stop because the very policies we need to protect our fragile atmosphere will give it the logic it needs to succeed. So there is very little mileage in building up public angst about it right now.
So to my friends in the green movement: Stick with actions to hurt the biggest, baddest, climate horrors, but don't get sidetracked by the built-in capitalist impulse to pour our wealth into new technology - after all, that's the impulse we want to harness for renewables, which are far more interesting to the public anyway.
First, you and me Joe Taxpayer lose because Stephen Harper just announced he's going to plough millions into this speculative technology (for sucking CO2 out of fossil combustion) without bothering to give any economic value to carbon emissions. Duh. Without cap-and-trade or a national carbon tax, carbon emissions are still free, so how can carbon capture move from being an interesting lab experiment to a scaled-up, economically viable technology? It won't (see economist Mark Jaccard on this point). So research divisions of the fossil fuel companies, floating on fat public grants, win big, and... uh... you lose.
Meanwhile green groups like Greenpeace rail against carbon capture as the 'new nuclear debacle' -- by which they mean a pointless exercise in expensive technology when efficiency and renewables would do a better job. They happen to be right -- a coal-fired power plant outfitted with carbon capture would, for example, use up 30 to 40 percent of its energy output just to run the damn carbon capture process, so this technology actually has the potential to pointlessly increase carbon emissions. But.. I can't help thinking that a) Harper and his friends in Alberta (and, sigh... Washington) are going to fund experimental gizmos in this direction no matter what, and b) the world really needs Greenpeace to be focusing on the main event. Hello! You've got the tarsands in the bull's-eye in Canada and coal exports on the agenda in Australia, and you've got Barack Obama using the words 'carbon footprint' -- FOCUS my friends! FOCUS! Press the case for pricing carbon -- which every intelligent economist and policy wonk agrees with -- because it's the single most efficient, effective, and rapid way to stop carbon emissions from growing and start the necessary reductions.
But note: when we finally win policies to put a price on carbon, there is bound to be a plethora of viable ways to reduce emissions -- and that may just include carbon capture, which makes it even harder to stop because the very policies we need to protect our fragile atmosphere will give it the logic it needs to succeed. So there is very little mileage in building up public angst about it right now.
So to my friends in the green movement: Stick with actions to hurt the biggest, baddest, climate horrors, but don't get sidetracked by the built-in capitalist impulse to pour our wealth into new technology - after all, that's the impulse we want to harness for renewables, which are far more interesting to the public anyway.
15 February 2009
The upside of global catastrophe: A long-term strategy?
The people of the United States now own more than a third of the world's largest bank, Citigroup, and the shrinkage of the US GDP was revealed to be near an an believable 7% in 2008. The Dow-Jones index is now hovering below 7,000 -- half the value it had only two years ago -- the possibility of all-out collapse of the US stock market is on some minds, I kid you not.
And here I thought that the collapse of global fisheries within the next 30 years, coupled with catastrophic climate change that will flood a third of the world's cities and cut European food production by more than half, was a serious threat to our way of life. Now I know the real problem is that our money is disappearing.
Just ask Labour MP Ed Balls in the UK. He caused a political stir when he said on February 10th that the global economic downturn is "the most serious global recession for over 100 years." Harkening back to 1909 is indeed strong stuff, considering that this period encompasses the British recession after WWI, the German crisis of 1920s, and the Great Depression. According to The Guardian, he warned that events were moving at a "speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before" and banks were losing cash on a "scale that nobody believed possible".
This international crisis may not be the end of free-market capitalism, but it sure as hell is a pause in the action. And it will be the political frame of reference for at least the next 15 years, maybe 20. Is this a problem for those of us who are pushing for climate policies that would see the total 'decarbonization' of OECD energy systems by 2040? Is environmental concern now a thing of the past?
Hardly. Fifteen years of economic downturn is enough time to move ahead with 'sweeping change' (as Barack Obama termed it) -- to 'revalue' what is 'normal' for our society, both in domestic and foreign policy. And the backside of a financial crisis is a good moment to be questioning the real value of consumption in wealthy societies -- just the kind of debate that deep ecology has implied but that environmentalists themselves have eschewed for fear of being shut out of government roundtables and industry consultations.
In short, this crisis will last long enough to allow a whole new way of thinking to take root, making equity and sustainability the touchstones of progress, and 'gross domestic happiness' the measuring stick of civilization. It isn't long enough to achieve all of what we strive for, but it is enough to lay healthy soil for new developments to take root.
Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin puts it this way:
But do we have the skills or the guts to plan and implement a strategy over that timeframe?
Many of the 'progressive' advocacy groups in Canada, whose job is to dramatically change our frame of public discourse on key issues, have resolutely stuck to the lessons of the 1980s, focusing inordinate resources and energy on their organizational capacity and reputational capital. This may be a good strategy for reactionary times, but with everything to play for now, it can only be described as the 'feet of clay' approach -- 'we'll get there eventually'.
No, actually, you won't. Without significant rethinking by the leadership of popular groups, and much more alliance building across a broad front of social, economic, and institutional reform, Canada will remain a laggard in progressive politics.
More to come in future posts, including some points on how the US situation is more hopeful.
And here I thought that the collapse of global fisheries within the next 30 years, coupled with catastrophic climate change that will flood a third of the world's cities and cut European food production by more than half, was a serious threat to our way of life. Now I know the real problem is that our money is disappearing.
Just ask Labour MP Ed Balls in the UK. He caused a political stir when he said on February 10th that the global economic downturn is "the most serious global recession for over 100 years." Harkening back to 1909 is indeed strong stuff, considering that this period encompasses the British recession after WWI, the German crisis of 1920s, and the Great Depression. According to The Guardian, he warned that events were moving at a "speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before" and banks were losing cash on a "scale that nobody believed possible".
This international crisis may not be the end of free-market capitalism, but it sure as hell is a pause in the action. And it will be the political frame of reference for at least the next 15 years, maybe 20. Is this a problem for those of us who are pushing for climate policies that would see the total 'decarbonization' of OECD energy systems by 2040? Is environmental concern now a thing of the past?
Hardly. Fifteen years of economic downturn is enough time to move ahead with 'sweeping change' (as Barack Obama termed it) -- to 'revalue' what is 'normal' for our society, both in domestic and foreign policy. And the backside of a financial crisis is a good moment to be questioning the real value of consumption in wealthy societies -- just the kind of debate that deep ecology has implied but that environmentalists themselves have eschewed for fear of being shut out of government roundtables and industry consultations.
In short, this crisis will last long enough to allow a whole new way of thinking to take root, making equity and sustainability the touchstones of progress, and 'gross domestic happiness' the measuring stick of civilization. It isn't long enough to achieve all of what we strive for, but it is enough to lay healthy soil for new developments to take root.
Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin puts it this way:
“We should be practicing a sustainable approach to economics that takes advantage of the ability of markets to allocate scarce resources while explicitly recognizing that our economy is dependent on the broader ecosystem that contains it.”
But do we have the skills or the guts to plan and implement a strategy over that timeframe?
Many of the 'progressive' advocacy groups in Canada, whose job is to dramatically change our frame of public discourse on key issues, have resolutely stuck to the lessons of the 1980s, focusing inordinate resources and energy on their organizational capacity and reputational capital. This may be a good strategy for reactionary times, but with everything to play for now, it can only be described as the 'feet of clay' approach -- 'we'll get there eventually'.
No, actually, you won't. Without significant rethinking by the leadership of popular groups, and much more alliance building across a broad front of social, economic, and institutional reform, Canada will remain a laggard in progressive politics.
More to come in future posts, including some points on how the US situation is more hopeful.
02 February 2009
Goodie 2 News for February
This should cheer you up:
Seattle, San Francisco, January 29, 2009. The toxic trade watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN) declared victory today after a U.S business involved in sending hundreds of ships to the infamous shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh and India was forced to pay $518,500 and certify that they would not undertake such actions again. BAN warned, however, that there was still ample opportunity for unscrupulous operators to exploit loopholes to export very toxic U.S. ships to the South Asian beaches where some of the worlds poorest laborers are forced to toil without adequate protections against toxic substances, asbestos, explosions and accidents. BAN is a member organization of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, an international coalition seeking to ban beaching and unsustainable ship scrapping.
In February of last year, BAN and the Save the Classic Liners Campaign tipped-off the United States Environmental Protection Agency when they discovered that Global Marketing Systems, Inc. (GMS), headed up by a world famous cash-buyer of obsolete ships, Mr. Anil Sharma, had taken ownership of the SS Oceanic (former SS Independence) and had the old passenger liner towed out of San Francisco Bay with the intent of scrapping the vessel on the beaches of South Asia. BAN demanded that the U.S. government take action to have the ship returned to a U.S. port, but the EPA claimed they lacked the authority to have the ship recalled. Nevertheless, the EPA took legal action against GMS for violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law which prohibits the exportation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a persistent toxic pollutant used in the paints, insulation and gasketry in older ships.
For more info, Basel Action Network
See the EPA News Release from January 29, 2009.
Seattle, San Francisco, January 29, 2009. The toxic trade watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN) declared victory today after a U.S business involved in sending hundreds of ships to the infamous shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh and India was forced to pay $518,500 and certify that they would not undertake such actions again. BAN warned, however, that there was still ample opportunity for unscrupulous operators to exploit loopholes to export very toxic U.S. ships to the South Asian beaches where some of the worlds poorest laborers are forced to toil without adequate protections against toxic substances, asbestos, explosions and accidents. BAN is a member organization of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, an international coalition seeking to ban beaching and unsustainable ship scrapping.
In February of last year, BAN and the Save the Classic Liners Campaign tipped-off the United States Environmental Protection Agency when they discovered that Global Marketing Systems, Inc. (GMS), headed up by a world famous cash-buyer of obsolete ships, Mr. Anil Sharma, had taken ownership of the SS Oceanic (former SS Independence) and had the old passenger liner towed out of San Francisco Bay with the intent of scrapping the vessel on the beaches of South Asia. BAN demanded that the U.S. government take action to have the ship returned to a U.S. port, but the EPA claimed they lacked the authority to have the ship recalled. Nevertheless, the EPA took legal action against GMS for violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law which prohibits the exportation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a persistent toxic pollutant used in the paints, insulation and gasketry in older ships.
For more info, Basel Action Network
See the EPA News Release from January 29, 2009.
23 January 2009
Arctic Sovereignty -- But Why?
After the ignominious failure of the Liberals' 'Green Shift' under former leader Stephane Dion, we should expect the party to take a step to the right as new leader Michael Ignatieff waltzes onto the dance floor with intentions to cut into the Harper Tories' centrist positioning. How else to dispel the down-market leftist Eau d'Ion that clung to the party during the fall election campaign?
Right on cue, and with Barack Obama still only President-elect, Ignatieff polished up his tough guy credentials by assuring a hooting, cheering audience of more than a hundred Young Liberal that he will keep Yankee hands off our beloved Arctic regions.
"This is sovereign Canadian territory, okay?" he told his audience, referring to the Northwest Passage.
"And let me remind you, Mr Obama, that Canada exports more petroleum to the United States than Saudi Arabia [does] -- so I suggest respectfully that you listen very, very carefully when the Canadian Prime Minister soeaks."So from Dion's embrace of a significant new economic policy (carbon tax coupled with broad income tax reductsions) the party is poised to embrace the dramatic loss of sea-ice in the high Arctic as a segue to preserving the old petroleum economy and the bellicose rhetoric that goes along with it. Take that, Stephen Harper.
The metaphorical temperature ins the Arctic has been rising dramatically eve since it became clear around 2005 that the actual temperature is rising so fast, as a result of global climate change, that the whole vast region is turning from impenetrable ice sheet to open water. Again this year, scientists report record-breaking open water where there should be cool, sunlight-eflecting ice. Not only does this phenomena create a positive feedback that accelerates global warming, it also stirs the aquisitive spirit of every nation encircling the Arctic because it raises the possibility of a huge mineral and oil bonanza.
The Americans touched a nerve with Canadians (who fantasize that they really do care about the Arctic as a kind of 'missing child' of Confederation) when they sailed an icebreaker through the Northwest Passage in 2005 without asking Canada's permission. The Danes pissed us off with their assertion of sovereignty over an obscure island off of Greenland.
But it is the Russian government that has made many in the diplomatic community nervous. Grandstanding events like the 2007 planting of a Russian flag at the North Pole are one thing, but Germany's Der Spiegel mag reports this week that the most recent iteration of the country's National Security Strategy states that
"It cannot be ruled out that the battle for raw materials [in the Arctic] will be waged with military means."But it is precisely such a confrontation that we must rule out, and soon. Hunger for raw materials is driven by economic growth and competition, two forces that humanity must get to grips with if we hope to stop the global slide into the ecological trashbin. Mr Ignatieff is hardly helping the situation.
There are more sensible voices speaking up to give the Arctic a fighting chance at sustainable co-existence with human beings - especially that made by aboriginal activist and Nobel Prize nominee Shiela Watt-Cloutier:
"We [Inuit and other northern aboriginal people] are Canadians, and we can continue to assert sovereignty for Canada if Canada would build sustainable communities here."That's the catch - what is sovereignty for? What end is served by one country or another controlling a vast part of the Earth's lands and seas?
That's the question we must ask and answer, together, internationally. Luckily we have international law and we have civil society organizations ready to take up the challenge, and to those actors we will return in future posts.
See the latest detailed map of the disputed territories, drawn up by UK researchers.
See a recent CBC documentary 'Battle for the Arctic'.
(with thanks to Remi Parmentier - chezremi.blogspot.com)
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