The world needs saving because the climate is changing. This is impacting on the way we as humans currently live and we are all worried.
Being agnostic I find I just don’t know what the truth of the situation is. There is so much conflicting information out there that seems to be so complicated and with so many compelling reasons for it to be presented in a particular way that I can’t trust what I see or hear.
But nobody likes a fence sitter. You have to decide.
Anyone could be forgiven for deciding that this is where you concentrate your efforts to Save the World.
Our planet is under attack, and it’s under attack by us.
Seas are rising, ice is melting, floods are massive, droughts are long, hurricanes are bigger and more frequent; and that’s just the start. We are also going to freeze to death. As individuals we must all do our bit, right? Rah rah rah speeches, social media campaigns, politics, advertising.
- How do we keep everyone on track?
- How does everyone stay engaged?
You can generally get everyone on the same page for a short period of time when in a time of war. Define an enemy, generate some hate by laying blame, tell everyone what to do. If they don’t do it, kill them. Unfortunately the enemy seems to have been defined as all of us. If we use the same strategy we’ll legitimise killing our neighbour simply because they don’t car pool.
The generation of an enemy to accelerate change unfortunately works but it is wrong, when the enemy is us, it is really really wrong and self-destructive.
If Deming was right and over 90% of the problem is due to the system not the people we must look at the system.
Regardless of the debate over climate change; and there is still significant debate, moving around the proportion of responsibility for action is simply an elaborate dance.
Business for better or worse is always going to be the main change agent. Inventing the light bulb didn’t change the world, commercialisation of the light bulb did.
A seemingly forgotten base principle of business needs to be revived. “More with Less” (See Buckminster Fuller Institute, Deming Institute, Excellerated Business Schools)
Following that fundamental principle in combination with following the principle of, “Think Global act Local” would render the debate redundant. There would be no reason to debate if the climate was changing or what was causing it. The consequence of following sound first principles simply because they are the right thing to do puts us on the right track and eliminates the need for an enemy.
Furthermore the original reasons for incorporation of a business needs to be remembered. The law was originally written to produce entities to serve the people. “Us”. Build roads, bridges, railways etc. Through a succession of bastardisations of that original law do we get the entities we have today. (see the movie “The Corporation”)
We also need to remember that it’s not that the climate is changing it’s the speed of predicted change that is the problem.
Assuming the climate will follow these predictions how do we get our biggest most powerful change agent to respond quickly enough?
Thats all I can remember that we should remember. I’m sure there are other things, I just can’t remember.
Love, Peace, Bellbeads 🙂
P.S. This is not the solution but it is related. Read on.