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Journal: December, 2009
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Democracy: Not yet a killer app for China
But a necessary condition for enduring prosperity?
28 December 2009
Democracy is at the heart of the new agenda of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (FDSD), which I chair, previously The Environment Foundation. In this context, a reflection by Niall Ferguson in today's Financial Times on the meaning of the past decade struck me as particularly apt and insightful. He explores the reasons behind the astonishing - and accelerating - shift to the east in the world's economic (and, ultimately, political) centre of gravity. In the process, he asks what it was that gave the West its "ascendancy", through the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the ensuing race around the world, as far as the Antipodes? ... more >
Christmas at Hill House
A time of gifts
25 December 2009
Bridge on which a memorable battle was fought
We drove down to Little Rissington this morning, early, with very little traffic on the road - for Christmas Day at Hill House. The countryside beyond Oxford was still white with snow and illuminated by a low sun in the most spectacular way. Elaine and I took a walk up to St Peter's Church before lunch, passing the tiny bridge across which almost 50 years ago a legendary battle was fought out - between one of our young friends with a branch and one of the Misses Le Marchant, whose garden I suspect we had somewhat invaded, who was armed with her walking stick - and who must have been well into her eighties at the time. I think honour was maintained on both sides.... more >
SustainAbility and Volans Christmas Lunch
Followed by snowball mayhem
21 December 2009
Elaine, Peter, Coreen, Gary and Charmian
A delightful gathering of the London ends (plus Peter Zollinger from Zurich) of the SustainAbility and Volans tribes at The Waterhouse Restaurant today, though with one of my dishes turning out to be disconcertingly full of human hair. The restaurant provided some sort of alcoholic compensation, which four of us then plunged into with multi-coloured straws. Later, as we were leaving, a snowball fight broke out in the courtyard and then spilled into the street, eventually involving local boys. I may have started it. Great fun, perfect snowball snow.... more >
COP15: The Politics of the Liferaft
The focus must switch from Top Down to Bottom Up
20 December 2009
"Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight," said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, "with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport." Increasingly, the take on COP15 is that it failed in almost every department, aside from the rhetoric about keeping the rise in average temperatures below 2 degrees C.... more >
Like Gabriel Orozco ...
... I get bored easily
20 December 2009
In the midst of all the autopsies on the Copenhagen COP15 summit, which I have been ploughing through this morning in the papers, I came across a nice article on artist Gabriel Orozco, whose 'Mobile Matrix' - a whale skeleton decorated with graphite from 6,000 pencils - I encountered in New York's MoMA a couple of weeks back. (See it during installed here.) At the end of the article, in the New York Times section that is now my favourite bit of The Observer, he admits that he "gets bored easily" - something I have often said against myself. But he then goes on to explain:... more >
Cannibals With Forks Makes It Into Top 50
49 books I rub shoulders with on the sustainability bookshelf
16 December 2009
Cannibals with Forks, published in 1997, has made it into a new Top 50 Sustainability Books ranking by Wayne Visser of the Cambridge University Programme for Sustainability Leadership.... more >
Up We Went
My first 3-D film
14 December 2009
Elaine, Sam and I went to see Pixar's Up in 3-D this afternoon, Elaine for the second time in a week. Can't recall when I last enjoyed a film so much - probably it was either Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars, way back in the mists of time. Uplifting and moving, in almost equal measure.... more >
Stewart Brand Was God
Reading Whole Earth Discipline over Atlantic
13 December 2009
At the time when London was splattered with 'Clapton is God', around about 1967, one of my gods was about to be Stewart Brand, whose Whole Earth Catalog series ran from 1968 through to 1985. I read it almost religiously, despite my antibodies to religion more generally. Steve Jobs, apparently, has called it the forerunner of the World Wide Web, which makes sense to me.... more >
Whale of a Time at MOMA
Whistlestop tour of New York
13 December 2009
As I prepare 5th Avenue to the Apple Store
Back this morning from New York, where I had spent Friday with the Nestle Creating Shared Value Advisory Board. Some of the time was spent on developing a CSV paper by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, some on a new CSV Prize, to be announced next year, and part on a major CSV event, again for next year. Yesterday, I spent a fair few hours out and about, including a visit to MOMA, where I loved the Gabriel Orozco whale. But, for me at least, the runaway highlight was spending time in the Monet gallery, where the sheer scale and ambition of his water lily paintings really drew me in. Wonderful how the fingerlings and larger fish flit below the surface of the paint.... more >
SustainAbility at COP15
Geoff and Gary take the Road to Copenhagen
13 December 2009
Geoff Lye and Gary Kendall are filing regular blogs from COP15 in Copenhagen on the SustainAbility website.... more >
Jim et Jed
Do salmon and spring onions count as ecosystem services?
06 December 2009
Part of lunch snapped as I passed
Delightful weekend, with Jim Salzman staying over the weekend and Jed Emerson coming to lunch today. The two of them hadn't met before. Magic moment when I - rather belatedly - realised that Jim would be a wonderful resource for the new Volans project on ecosystem services, newly funded by Tellus Mater, given that this has been his field since the late 1990s. I may be slow, but I get there in the end.... more >
One Facet Missed By Jared Diamond
How confident can we be that business will "save the Earth"
06 December 2009
One of my favourite writers on environmental themes, particularly with his book Collapse, is Jared Diamond. He has an interesting Op-Ed in today's New York Times, on the question whether big business can save the Earth? "There is a widespread view, he begins, "particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know - because I used to share that view."... more >
Thinking globally, acting virally
Another Eureka! moment
06 December 2009
The 'Think globally, act locally' was the mantra of my early years in the environmental and sustainability movements - but I always had a slight unease with the second bit. Partly, perhaps, because I got involved in some of the early alternative technology communities that attempted to practice a grassroots approach to global challenges.... more >
The Road to Ecotopia
Looking way beyond Copenhagen
04 December 2009
Cineforum mapping of the Road to Ecotopia
Spent the day at Cineforum's 'Road to Ecotopia' event at the old St Luke's office building, 22 Duke's Road, just across the road from Euston Station - and literally round the corner from where, pretty much exactly 35 years ago, I walked out of the UCL School of Environmental Studies, having completed my M.Phil., and into my first real job, with TEST. Wonderful gathering of tribes - and a strange sense of more great wheels of fortune turning and starting out on new cycles.... more >
2BP Hums
The joys of conversation
03 December 2009
John Grant through the keyhole
A remarkable day at 2 Bloomsbury Place, with a constant stream of visitors, including Andrea Spencer-Cooke (Henwood), who I worked with years ago - and who was instrumental in my coming up with the triple bottom line concept. We also had James Parr and a film crew from Cineforum for tomorrow's 'Road to Ecotopia' event, with John Grant also coming in to be filmed. Sam shot a nice picture of him through a keyhole while he was being filmed.... more >
Living Well With Climate Change?
Liberal Jewish Synagogue
02 December 2009
Took part in a very lively and enjoyable debate this evening at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood - on the subject of climate change. Edward Stourton of the BBC chaired, with the panel composed of Paul Dickinson of the Carbon Disclosure Project, John Grant (who was a key figure in the St Luke's advertising agency and with whom I sit on the 2degrees Advisory Board) and myself. Event was organised by Laura Mazur and Louella Miles, co-authors of Green Gurus.... more >
Honky Tonked
Bill Wyman & The Rhythm Kings
01 December 2009
Just in from phenomenal concert by Bill Wyman and The Rhythm Kings at Cadogan Hall. Gaia and Hania came, too. We sat perhaps 10 rows from the front, Elaine with cotton wool stuffed in her ears, in a highly convivial with the likes of John Hurt (the seat behind), Jerry Hall and Ben Kingsley. A bit like a family reunion in terms of the band/audience interface. Albert Lee and Beverley Skeete did a ravishing 'Crying in the Rain' and the reworking of 'Johnny B. Goode' was outlandishly good. 'Honky Tonk Woman', too. Joy unconfined.... more >
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