Making Wiser Decisions in This Time of Great Uncertainty

Having the opportunity to work with Dr. Mark Trexler of the Climatographer on this blogpost really expanded my awareness of climate change risk. If there ever was one major risk to our planet, people, and prosperity this is it. Mark is an expert in this field and we were connected by Kirsi Jansa a documentary filmmaker who is creating the series, Sustainability Pioneers, which we feature here on our search engine, EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability.

Dr. Trexler and his teammate, Laura Kosloff are indeed pioneers and voices of sustainability.

Why Risk Analysis?

As we move off of debating the science of climate change, but given that we’ve been largely ineffectual thus far at slowing global climate change, it’s time to focus on how organizations can make wiser decisions in this time of great uncertainty. Complicating the move forward for organizations is uncertainty regarding which C-suite or Board level executive should be leading the charge. Climate risks may affect corporate operations, investment decisions and supply chain management. Further complicating  things is there is no “right or wrong” when it comes to assessing corporate climate risk; however, as Dr. Trexler points out, in the aggregate, poorly supported risk assumptions may leave considerable risk on the table. And since opportunity is the flip-side of risk, climate-related opportunities may also be left on the table. 

Where to Start?

As one uniquely qualified to help with advancing climate and sustainability agendas in the face of uncertainty, Dr. Trexler offers some recommendations while cautioning there is “no one size fits all.” 

• Don’t get hung up on “mitigation vs. adaptation”; at the corporate level risk mitigation often involves adapting to changing physical and policy circumstances.

• Start by carrying out a “business materiality assessment,” that pulls in representatives from a range of business functions and initiatives.

• If the materiality assessment referred to in the prior bullet suggests climate change is a material business issue, the next step is to think through what the climate risk scenarios are that the company should be using for strategic planning purposes and risk management purposes. 

• With the appropriate internal team develop and maintain a climate change risk-based strategy that is incorporated into your organization’s advocacy and sustainability initiative(s).

• Because we can “see” some distance into the future, keep your strategy flexible and responsive.  As the metaphor goes, you don’t have to outrun the bear to stay competitive, you only need to outrun the person next to you. 

The Climate Web™ an antidote to #ClimateNoise

Laura Kosloff

The Climate Web, which we will cover in more detail in my next blogpost, is a knowledge solution developed by Mark and Laura to help users find  the information they need to identify and track the climate risk issues of most importance to them. The Climate Web organizes thousands of reports, news stories, blogs, and other materials, often extracting and linking critical information for easy access.

Here I am reminded of the quote by E.O. Wilson.

“We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

The Climate Web addresses this situation we find ourselves in with information overload and limited access to curated, relevant content making informed decisions difficult – at times impossible – especially when it comes to the goal of sustainability and the reality of global climate change. This problem is one we here at EarthSayers.tv also address by curating the voices (all video) of hundreds of thought leaders and practitioners from all walks of life so that thought leaders and experts such as Mark and Laura rise to the top of search results and can be found in the sea of information.

Having worked in large manufacturing, distribution and marketing organizations, I know one of the pitfalls to decision-making is the assumptions we bring to the table. Thankfully in this regard Mark identifies for decision makers seven fairly common assumptions that need to be challenged based on their over twenty-five years experience advising a wide range of clients, worldwide, on climate change risk and analysis.

Seven Not So Helpful Assumptions

• Climate risks are really no different than other business risks; they’re not.

• The future of climate policy will look like the past; unlikely.

• Focus only on the obvious climate risks; in practice it’s the 2^nd and 3^rd order risks that will be the biggest problem for many companies.

• Physical and policy climate risks will evolve slowly and linearly; in both cases sudden shifts are actually more likely.

• Climate change won’t be business material within a relevant timeframe; more and more companies are already finding that’s not true.

• We should stick with “expected” levels of change for risk management; in reality most of the risk is in the  “fat tail” of the risk distribution. We routinely recognize this in all kinds of risk decision-making, e.g. insurance.

Mark has also served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and holds graduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. To take advantage of his expertise in both the public and private sectors, contact him at: mark@climatographer.com.

Time is of the essence.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, April 20, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

“The definition of ethics from the Greek means customary or habitual and what’s customary or habitual with Americans regarding water use is that it’s plentiful and it’s clean and we don’t have to think about it. We just use as much as we want until some conflict arises.”

– Rick Kyte, D.B. Reinhard Institute for Ethics in Leadership

If you think technology is going to be the big fix for issues and problems associated with the  availability, use, and conservation of water, especially in the context of global warming, you might want to balance that view with a better understanding of how important is the ethic of water by listening to seven thoughtful leaders from the Center for Humans and Nature as part of their project,  Fostering a Water Ethic.

In this Humans and Nature video, The Importance of a Water Ethic, their contributors contemplate the many compelling reasons why a water ethic is essential for helping us do the right thing by each other, by the generations that follow us, and by the whole community of life.

The video (12:39) features these EarthSayers addressing a water ethic and who are “thinking creatively about how people can make better decisions — in relationship with each other and the whole community of life.”

• Dorene Day Midewaunnikwe (Water Woman);
• Jane Elder, Executive Director, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters;
• Cynthia Barnett, Environmental Journalist and Author;
• Jeremy Schmidt, Assistant professor, Carlton University;
• Rick Kyte, Director, D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership;
• Christiana Peppard, Associate Professor, Fordham University; and
• Josephine Mandamin (Ojibwe), Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve.

It’s World Water Day and the perfect day to take twelve minutes out of your busy schedule to listen (here) to these seven bright minds and soulful thinkers.

You might also subscribe to their YouTube channel (check the box to receive an email notification when new videos are posted).

The Volume 9, Number 1, January 2016 issue of their journal, Minding Nature, is available as a PDF here on the Humans and Nature Website.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, March 22, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

If we are going to pursue sustainability as an operating principle of our planet, then it can’t remain business as usual when it comes to the buying and selling of oil as we are denying and acting against the basic principle that a country belongs to its people.  An especially treacherous situation made worse when coupled with the bad, old rule, ‘Might Makes Right.’

I found Professor Wenar’s speech given in Seattle, Washington last week (January 27th) educational and realistic, yet hopeful in our ability to retire dysfunctional rules and embrace our principles when it comes to the buying and selling of oil and other natural resources.  Yes, the going will be tough, but this is one of the major ‘somethings’ that has got to give. This post is a summary of his hour long teaching and includes two video excerpts (1) The Hope for Change: Ending ‘Might Makes Right’ and (2) the Second Ground for Hope.

Leif Wenar author of the book, Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules That Run the World holds the Chair of Philosophy & Law at King’s College London. After earning his Bachelor’s degree from Stanford, he went to Harvard to study with John Rawls, and wrote his doctoral thesis on property rights with Robert Nozick and T.M. Scanlon. He has worked in the UK since 1997.

Might Makes Right: A bad, old rule

“Because we have this bad old rule oil is the largest source of unaccountable power in our world. Because we use this rule of might makes right, it’s like there are these giant reservoirs of cash underground and whoever can dig down and keep control over the holes in the ground will generate a tremendous amount of cash with which they can buy arms and security and torture chambers. The money is almost entirely unaccountable. Basically it goes to whoever has the most guns. Unlike foreign aid, oil money comes with no strings attached and unlike foreign loans it never has to be paid back. And the people of the country have no chance to control the resources of their country. They just have to watch while the natural wealth of their country is sold off beyond their control.

So all of this means that we are in a bad place. For over forty years our worst crises have come from oil states from the Soviet Union to the Middle East and Africa. Our money has been funding conflict and oppression and intolerant ideologies. And I’m sad to say our problems may really get worse.

Arc of Oil

What we’ve seen for the past three decades is bad but there’s this arc of oil running from Siberia through the Middle East and Africa. In the red you see failed states and authoritarian states and as you can tell from reading the news for the past few years that arc of oil is getting more and more unstable. Green revolution, Arab Spring, now the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Libya and Yemen and the cold war between Saudi and Iran heating up that Arc of Oil is already getting more unstable and experts in Washington say that’s just the area that is now going to become hotter, more crowded, hungrier and thirstier which means it will probably be even less stable than it has been so if we thought that the last forty years were bloody and scary the next 15 years may be really terrifying.

Is there any hope for change? So after all that you are going to be surprised to hear, that I’m extremely optimistic that we can make this change.The hope for change comes from two big picture facts about our world its history and where we are now. The first great hope that we can overcome ‘might makes right’ for resources is that throughout history humanity has overcome ‘might makes right’ in other areas many times before. (video clip) And in fact these are some of the greatest moral milestones in human history, the kinds of things you would teach to a child, the high points of our achievements.”  The second great hope is included on this video clip of Professor Wenar’s presentation.

Being on the right side of history.

Listen to Leif Wenar in this video of his hour long presentation, a teaching, as he makes the case for our ability to overcome the rule of “might makes right” and offers a plan for how we can still end up on the right side of history with regards to the issue of buying and selling of natural resources. There is an opportunity for America to take the lead and stop buying authoritarian oil, convince others to do the same, all while reaffirming the American principle, articulated by Lincoln and adopted pretty much worldwide, that a country belongs to its people and that includes the oil and natural resources.

If someone is selling off the natural resources of a country without approval of the people, then what they are selling is stolen and we are not going to buy from them. Can we do that? Yes, the window of opportunity is now.

Read the book, listen to his January 27th speech published by the Talking StickTV channel on Youtube, January 30, 2016 and included in the special collection, Transforming Our Economy, on EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability.

With Leif’s help, be better able as a proponent of sustainability to recount the Big Picture of oil, discuss the upgrade called for, and continue to champion the sustainability path as a way to move to the right side of history when it comes to buying and selling oil and other natural resources.

There are over 2,000 curated voices of sustainability accessible through EarthSayers.tv, a search engine advancing sustainability leaders who are citizens from all walks of life addressing the needs of our children and the future seven generations.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability, February 1, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

On Friday I published a post entitled, Sustainability: Cows, Sage Grouses, and Grasslands. It included reference to a newly released environmental documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret and two video interviews, one with Jeff Goebel and another with Allan Savory.  Jeff wrote me back and emphasized the relationship of cows and grasslands to the central issue he sees as “to pull carbon and water vapor back to the soils of our earth.”  Cowspiracy, like other documentaries such as Meatrix and the Lie We Tell Ourselves or Back to the Start sponsored by Chipotle drive home the costs of corporate farming to Mother Earth, her ecosystem, animals, and people.  This, however, is just one part of the story.

Here is Jeff’s message to me (and you) that deserves your attention.

Dear Ruth Ann:

The message in this film (Cowspiracy) is good, from the standpoint of the problems with the conventional system of cattle production and consumption.  Unfortunately, the message completely misses the point of the need for ungulates (hoofed animals) on grass and savanna lands, and sets up the condition “to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”  This is very serious to solving our climate change issues.

Our greatest opportunity to pull atmospheric carbon and water vapor back to the soils of our earth are through migrating ungulates.  If we still had the bison and antelope populations (and other ungulate species globally) with the associated predator behavior, we would be fine.  However, this is not the case.

Jeff Goebel

If we have 10-15 years (and I am not sure we have that), we need to throw everything that we can are reversing the issues of excess carbon in the atmosphere.  Anything that takes away from this mission is very challenging.  These massive forest fires (with carbon pouring into the atmosphere, damaged soil productivity, and lost photosynthesis abilities); massive clear cutting of forests and poor management of forest lands; poor carbon intensive cropland management; and overgrazing and over-resting of grass and savanna lands are major opportunities for us to reverse the trends to our atmosphere.

There is a very significant difference between grain-fed beef (and other livestock) and grass-fed beef.  Usually those who management for grass-fed beef are doing things that are very healthy for our landscape and our well being.  Better land management changes succession of the landscape so you end up with species that are healthier for higher life forms, like humans, and returns water back into stabilized soils.

While I agree that conventional livestock production is very destructive, there are many producers that are doing very beneficial things for the earth and the people on this earth.

With respect and gratitude,

Jeff

One action you can take is to buy grass-fed beef which if you are on a budget will mean eating less beef as it is more expensive but, on the positive side, most likely locally sourced and found increasingly in grocery stores and restaurants as part of their sustainable sourcing practices. There are programs such as Ecotrust’s Food and Farms Program as well as articles detailing potential health benefits.

Resources:

Video Interviews

Jeff Goebel, Grasslands, Carbon, and Climate Change

Allan Savory, How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change

and Capital Institute‘s John Fullerton, Grasslands and Carbon

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, July 28, 2014, Portland, Oregon.