Transcript Impossible Futures - Part 1

Title “Win Win” – Impossible Futures
– Part 1
Speaker: Brian Davey (Feasta –
Foundation for the Economics of
Sustainability)
1
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality”
T S Eliot - Four Quartets
2
Questions to be addressed
Why don’t most people accept that the
environmental crisis represents a life threatening
global emergency for humanity?
How is it possible for a number of
ultimately futile corporate agendas to capture the
mass discourse about sustainability and turn it to
their short run advantage? (e.g. how do vested
interest coalitions persist that believe
themselves to be pursuing meaningful plans but
really wasting time and resources – so called
'Granfalloons'
4
“If we understand the mechanism
and motives of the group mind, is it
not possible to control and
regiment the masses according to
our will without their knowing about
it? The recent practice of
propaganda has proved that it is
possible, at least up to a certain
point and within certain limits.”
Edward Bernays, “Propoganda”
(1928)
Bernays drew on Freud's ideas, and
those of other psychologists interested
in group dynamics and crowd
psychology to establish the
propoganda industry. It was later
renamed “Public Relations” to
disassociate it from the success that
Dr Goebbels had had using the same
techniques
5
However, PR approaches can sometimes re-bound when they are too
obvious......
6
Ordinary Consciousness as “Consensus Trance”
“The idea of "normal
consciousness" is the kind of
convenient fiction illustrated by the
famous folktale of "the emperor's new
clothes." Together, human groups
agree on which of their perceptions
should be admitted to awareness
(hence, consensus), then they train
each other to see the world in that
way and only in that way (hence
trance).” (Howard Rheingold,
describing the psychology of Charles
Tart)
7
Why do we allow “consensus trance to happen?”
The fear of social ostracism is so great, we become
alienated from ourselves to keep our sense of
“belonging.”
Yet stress, depression, anxiety, worry, insomnia, or freefloating rage can tell us that something is wrong.
However, in the case of climate change the process is
slow and in the future – so we can easily not notice signs
that things are wrong.
Uncertainty in
information
sources
doesn’t help
Neo-classical
economic
textbooks
simplify by
assuming
“perfect
information”
or, at least,
“rational
expectations”
by politicaleconomic
actors........
but this is far
from the truth
Known unknowns – things/situations that you know you don’t
know;
delusions and wishful thinking – errors in which you (and perhaps
your group) have an emotional investment which are thus
difficult to shift
denials – things which are too painful to know so you ignore
information that confirms them
informational assymetry – unknowns for some people that are
known to others (vested interests blocking information flow);
costly information – situations where getting to know costs so
much so that that partial or innaccurate knowing or even
ignorance may be chosen instead
deception and secrecy – hiding knowns from others and/or
fostering errors or delusions
technical information – information that is difficult for lay people
without a specific competence to interpret
Taboos – things/situations that a peer group/the law/ company
business culture think you should not try to get to know
paranoias – hypotheses about the nature of unknowns that impute
motives by others that are to be feared
(Some things will be ‘unknown unknowns’ – but by definition we
cannot articulate them until ‘after the event’ as this information
emerges during the course of activity)
Conceptual Framing
The preceding ideas suggest a large element of
manipulation of mass opinion by vested interests – but
mass opinion is also formed by the taken for granted way
that the media and “experts” present discussions
discussions in conceptual frames.
Academic discourse is a powerful force for affecting the way
that issues are framed – and in the case of the environment
and climate change the issues are typically framed using
concepts adapted from mainstream economics.
A crucial element of framing is therefore that whatever is
done must be compatible with the really important priority –
economic growth.
Foundational Concepts that
frame current sustainability discourses



Current policy presumptions are that
market based mechanisms are the
appropriate approach to dealing with
environmental problems – eg the threats
of climate change, loss of particular
habitats, biodiversity loss etc.
Business and other “economic actors”
(eg consumers) must be incentivised to
behaviours that protect the environment.
This is achieved by “giving nature (or
its attributes like 'eco-system
services') a price” and “hardwiring it
into financial markets” (UNEP).
Means and Ends



'Incentivisations' by 'market based mechanisms' work
by structuring the ends-means relationship between
the economy and environment.
i.e. businesses, whose ends are profit maximisation,
achieve these ends by the means of appropriate
environmental behaviour which they do because
markets supposedly signal the worth of nature in a
market price (for carbon permits, biodiversity or
wetland credits/offsets etc)
Alternatively the state adjusts market prices with taxes
and/or subsidies to reflect notional prices for nature
and its attributes.
In summary


With markets adjusted to “give nature a price”
Good environmental business practices are a
means to the end of making money.

Environmental benign behaviour is the means

Money making is the end
Unfortunately with money making
as the end the better means to make
money are to game the policy
making process
Gaming the European Unions
Emissions Trading System
•
•
Gaming the ETS meant that emitters in Europe over-estimated the
amount of carbon that they used and asked for more permits than they
actually needed..
The policy administrators have consistently given them what they wanted
and the result was that the cap has never functioned and the carbon price
has always been too low to make much difference
Or simply to commit fraud
E.g. The Kyoto Protocol's “Clean
Development Mechanism” is
supposed to be “additional” to what
would happen anyway. However:
One estimate in 2007 was that more
than one third of 654 hydro-electric
projects that were recognised as
CDM projects were already
completed at the time of registration
and almost all were already under
construction.
(Barbara Haye “Failed Mechanism:
How the CDM is subsidising hydro
developers and harming the Kyoto
Mechanism” International Rivers
Report, 2007.)
Or to use climate policy as a “trojan
horse” for strategic corporate agendas
For example the so called “bio-economy” agenda of
chemical/pharmaceutical, GM, seed and bio-tech corporations like
Monsanto, Proctor and Gamble, Chevron and BASF.
This involves taking over and using the “green economy” strategy to
secure state sponsorship: public finance for R & D, support for
intellectual property protection etc.
For the corporations this is less about saving the world from climate
change – far more it is about gaining strategic control of entire value
chains – in genetic and technical information, and production
processes and resources in energy, biomass, water and land. Techoinnovation is to concentrate power in their hands as we reach and pass
the limits to growth.
“Granfalloons” - vested interest coalitions
formed around fruitless approaches
Ingredients for granfalloons:
Culture that believes in silver bullet techno fixes
Desire of politicians to re-assure the public
Information uncertainties/unknowns and very complicated
technical discourses
Path dependencies - difficulties of recognising,
acknowledging and writing off investment in unsuccessful
R and D strategies once started - “ these are just teething
troubles”, “generation two technologies will solve these
problems”
Source of subsidies for industries and academics
Bio-fuel as “granfalloon” example
No increase in energy security – energy in and out about the
same
Drives up food prices
Drives up fuel prices
When land use changes are included increases GHG emissions
One third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce
biofuels, enough water to feed the world – Maude Barlow
“Water as a Commons”
In spite of the evidence bio-fuels are still supported
WHY?