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CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE CHANGE IN CALIFORNIA
Data points for dryness and heat in California from circa 1900 to 2014
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I think it was Al Gore who wrote a book and made a film called 'The Inconvenient Truth'.
I am not well known, nor am I particularly well informed given the massive amount of knowledge that now exists and is accessible to almost anyone with an interest in knowledge and a willingness to put in some modest effort.
I was born in the UK in 1940 in the early days of WWII. I remember bits of my childhood ... and wish I had a recollection of more of that time.
I think it was in 1953 ... MacMillan was Prime Minister ... and the whole of the UK was blanketted in what was referred to as a 'killer smog', a toxic mix of conventional climate fog and the smoke from industrial smokestacks and millions of fireplaces burning sulpherous coal to keep everyone warm.
Thousands of people died.
To everyones surprise, the MacMillan government passed landmark legislation in just a few weeks to address the causes of this killer smog, and the air quality in the UK has gone from disastrous to quite good since that time ... now about 70 years on. Prior to that 'killer smog' the conventional thinking was that people had to choose between economic prosperity or a clean environment ... having both is impossible. 1053 showed that better is possible, when there is enough committment.
I am appalled at more recent political and business leaders who have chosen to be 'climate deniers' going back as much as 40 years. Certainly, many companies would have had some challenges to maintain the maximum of profit were they to address their role in contributing to the environmental degradation that was enabling climate change and extreme weather. These business leaders had a cynical disregard for the damage for which their companies were responsible.
Though things are changing ... the pace is way too slow ... and in many ways the changes are also way too limited.
It is now about 30 years since the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was articulated as a better way for corporate performance to be computed and reported ... performance in three dimensions: (1) People, (2) Profit and (3) Planet. There has been some progress ... but in truth, not very much.
I have become increasingly concerned that ESG has become a more fashionable alternative to the TBL. ESG stands for (1) Environment. (2) Society and (3) Governance. ESG has been promoted as being 'all encompassing, but, in my view is anything but. ESG stands alone with profits remaining in their separate space. To me, this is a convenient nonsense that serves profitable companies that pollute and companies that have poor social behaviors.
The biggest single sector that gets benefit from ESG relative to TBL is the energy (producing) industry as well as the big energy using sectors (for example: cement, transportation, agriculture ...)
I see accountancy is a very powerful management tool, but it really is dangerously out-dated. It has a long lineage ... perhaps going back to the ancient Greeks ... and it still works very well for money profit related performance. I argue, however, that something better is needed for the 21st century, something that builds on conventional financial accountancy but adds in everything that is important for the success of society and everything that is needed for a sustainable environment.
To put the urgency to do this in some sort of perspective, I always remind myself that there have been some big changes in the last century and a half. In 1900 the global population was 1.7 billion people ... by around 2014 the global population had grown to 7.1 billion people. That growth in population is pretty big ... but the true situation is way more of a challenge because very one of this big population is doing all it can to consume more and more and more, aided an abetted by an economic ecosystem that rewards growth without taking into account any of the negative consequences of growth. With this thinking ... a future crisis cannot be avoided.
What to do??????? Is TrueValueMetrics the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Burgess
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