Truthieness

The Al gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, opens in my country this week. The news feeds are full of it. The man has made the usual TV and radio appearances and the news organisations ask the usual questions. The sadly predictable thing is that the politicians from the two major parties are neatly following the party line – you know the right say bullshit and the left grant cautious acceptance. It is time to break this argument out of politics – this is about survival.

So we have then usual responses to the most important issue facing humanity. The science is done and dusted, consensus has been reached, there are no more arguments to be had. The only hold outs are a handful of non-climatologists funded by the carbon levy. The outstanding question is how bad it will be and even there the consensus is very strong. On our current trajectory the range is ‘end of civilisation as we know it’ through to ‘extinction’ of humans. By taking action now, and I mean now, there is a chance that our species and hopefully our civilisation can survive.

I have been convinced, but that wasn’t hard. It is easy for me to understand scientific and technological arguments and I have been reading those arguments and counter arguments for twenty years. I accept the evidence for human induced global warming. Even though I have a vested interest in the hydrocarbon economy I have an even bigger stake in ensuring the world is a good place to live. My DNA demands a future where it can continue to exist long after I am gone.

So the real question is how to convince the world leaders, the Bill Gates, Rupert Murdochs’ and the like, that with out change their achievements will be meaningless and that a world of low carbon emissions does not mean the end of making bucket full’s of cash. These are smart people with their own self interest at heart. These are the ones that need to be convinced, the ones with the power to change the world. Lobbying politicians is a waste of time and resources. The green groups need to get the mega capitalists on the team. This is where the game will be won or lost.

In Europe the CEOs of BP, Shell, BASF and others are in the game. That is why Europe is so much further down the path. This example needs to be emulated in the rest of the world.

The time to act is now. If you know any rich people pass on the word. Present the argument in terms of NPV, diminishing returns, succession and legacy. It is pointless sitting around with people who already agree wringing your hands, talking to politicians or getting on the local news media. This will achieve nothing without the agreement of capital.

Go direct to the leadership - talk to CEOs and other wealthy individuals.