"Tom, I know why you're so optimistic. It's because you're short! So you can only see up until the glass is half-full."
Went for the LKYSPP Thomas Friedman lecture @ UCC on Monday. Jio-ed Eliza but she was busy nurturing one unit of Singapore's future workforce. How could I interfere in with the grand systematic plan of the mighty men in white right? So there I was, alone in an auditorium full of people.
Lecture notes:
Book motivated by deep concern that America was losing it's "groove" - billboard in Africa: "German engineering, Swiss innovation, American nothing." <- reflects attitude towards the US. Solve "groove" loss through tackling the biggest global problem today - Hot Flat Crowded.
The economic crisis and the environmental crisis are flipsides of the same coin. Loop of Consumerism. Growth pattern that is both ecologically and financially costly. Reason: same accounting used. We're underpricing risk, privatizing gains and socializing losses. Same 2 principles of win-lose - IBG or YBG (i'll be gone / you'll be gone) - used in both the market and nature.
Underlying those principles are changing values: from sustainable to situational values over the generations (baby boomers situational). Market and nature are the 2 most unemotional forces, uncontrollable by us. If we don't find a more sustainable way to manage them, they will impose on us and severely limit our freedom.
Hot: global warming,
Flat: metaphor for the world being able to be like Americans i.e. live the consumerist american lifestyle,
Crowded: population growth.
Together, they are driving 5 global mega trends:
1.Energy and natural resources supply and demand,
Emerging developing countries and cities driving this.
2. Petrodictatorship,
1st law of petropolitics: as the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom in oil-dependent countries goes up, and vice versa. Bahrain. Lebanon: non-oil, also most "democratic" Arab state.
3.Climate change,
Global "weirding", not "warming". If there's even a 1% chance we're causing irreversible climate change, we need to take action - "buy insurance" (pay the premium now to avoid future devastation).
4.Energy poverty,
1.6bn people , a quarter of humanity, don't have access to electrical grids. Energy poverty. They will fall behind exponentially.
5.Biodiversity loss,
Mass biodiversity loss globally. Age of Noah. "Later" will be too late; later is officially over. Whatever you will save, save now. List of incredible opportunities masquerading.
1 solution for the world's 5 biggest problems: abundant clean reliable electrons. Not just moral, but economic power. Clean tech is the next big industry. The country that does this will be powerful and respected. Green is geo-economic.
A revolution is required whereas what's happening is a green "party". i.e. not serious, "easy" "solutions". A "revolution" is: do or die. We'll have had a green revolution when: 1. Companies have to change or die, and 2. The word 'green' disappears (for instance, there'll no longer be a "green" building; there'll just be a building because every building will be fully equipped with sustainable clean technology). It's not easy; it's monumental beyond anything we've had to encounter before.
2 approaches: Innovation and Regulation. He believes in innovation over regulation.
Key: Price matters. Differs from the IT revolution: then, every innovation changed you life, such that price doesn't matter. In a Green revolution price matters because it won't translate into increased function. You'll still have the same lighting you already have etc.
Oil gas coal are commodities: higher demand, higher price.
But with technology: higher demand, lower price.
What's needed is a PRICE SIGNAL. Change your leaders, not your life. They make the decisions. Matter of politics to get this system to take off. America's option: be a democratic China (i.e. get their democracy to work) or be a banana republic - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
Optimism. Do we have enough time? We have exactly enough time, starting now. From eulogy at end of book - People: seem intelligent individually but not collectively. Putting people together puts the earth together. There is no planet B, so plan A better work.
Q&A:
Q1. key word he used is politics. How did Al Gore transform politics to this cause?
A: good: alerted the world. Unfortunate: climate issue turned from a scientific issue to a political dispute, as if it mattered whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, whether the earth is hurting.
Q2. Does the political distraction esp. in the US frustrate you?
A: Optimistically. Down to naming and framing and connecting to people. China is taking the lead in solar energy, America is moving in the right direction but not at the rate and on the scale that is required.
Q3: carbon footprint.
A: smaller footprint to do more things.
Q4. Is America, given it's current deficits economically and politically, the really the right country to lead this for the world?
A: We'll do it but only after learning the hard way which is not optimal but is what's happening.
Q5: green equity funds for investors
Q6: transition from sustainable to situational values; would developing countries be willing to participate in a green revolution?
A: This is what i told the Chinese: If you'd like to give America a lead in clean tech, sure, be as "dirty" as you want. When we have a few years lead, we'll be selling the clean tech to you. China has decided to go green out of necessity, the mother of invention. If America doesn't step up it will end up importing a generation of clean tech.
Q7: regulation in driving innovation
A: As always happens in innovation, once it gets going the price goes down and it becomes more effective. Problem with American partisan politics. But we'll get there... Because we're running out of money :P
Q8: expectations-actual gap for clean tech in the US
A: Dream team of energy in the Obama administration are endangered species. A political decision. economic climate.
Q9: role of small island states like singapore and Bahamas in the green revolution & how to counter-act the mindset that it'll be costly
A: developed countries need to play the lead
Q10: greed, not innovation that will take over eg. corn as biofuel
A: substituting food for coal is stupid, especially given the marginal benefits.
Q11: education in the green revolution
A: you need to see it to know it. No child left indoors. Whenever you see an ecosystem that's working, pulling the community together, you know it's really hard. You need a Noah and in schools a great education leader.
Like the space race, now we need the earth race. Competition. Green America -> Green world. America needs to step up. But it's troubling that the current Congress is going in the wrong direction.
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