Planetary CFOs log stardate 2015-06-21 - my trip to Ikea. Mid-afternoon, Saturday. Had been on a trip to Luton, and swung by Ikea Bletchley after dropping off at MK Station.
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Well, it's here at last. My Renault Zoe. My EV. Fantastic to drive - the most brilliant thing about it is it looks, feels and drives like a "normal" car. Now for the travelog bit:
Planetary CFO's log. left home on full charge. Although my day's round trip should be well within the range without recharging, I wanted to test out some charging stations en-route. My first stop was AVDC in Aylesbury. Arrived about 07:40 but found that both charging points were in use by AVDC's own fleet vehicles (on slow charge - 3 pin plug). Before I realised I couldn't charge on a point where someone was already connected (even with an apparently available type 2 socket) , I also discovered that, because of the particular location and design of the bars on a protection railing around the charge point, it was very difficult to put my type 2 connector into the available socket. So, a couple of things to frustrate the EV user. Come on AVDC, you can do better than this. I suggest you: 1) Install a private charging point (or two) for your own fleet vehicles, so that the public charging points are truly for public use, and 2) redesign and modify the charging point protection barriers. Thank you Next stop was Welcome Break Services, junction of M40 and A40. Of the three charging points, it took me a little while, and some reparking, to work out that there was only one point I could use with my vehicle, but on the one bollard there were two type 2 connectors, and two car parking spaces next to it - can two EV users therefore charge on type 2 at the same time from the same bollard? Anyway, after that, with swipe of my Ecotricity card and simple instruction on the charge point's display, I plugged my type 2 lead in at the point and on my car and hey-presto, the car and the charge point did their thing. Took about 20 mins to charge from 75% to 97%. I did learn that, while the car is charging, there are things you can't do, like wind down the electronic windows or run the aircon or press the start button to get either of those going. I tried it early on and the charging stopped, so I had to go back to the beginning, disconnect as if about to drive away, then reswipe, reconnect etc. But, overall, it worked fine, and I could at least have the radio on while charging and play with the R-link functions including satnav settings etc. Next stop was Seacourt Park and Ride in Oxford. Only one EV parking space, between disabled places. Luckily, the space was free. I can see why there's only one space - only one charge point with a type 1 (3 pin) and a type 2 point on the same electronic 'bollard' as you might call them. Slightly frustrating that you have to swipe your card more than once - firstly to pull up type 1 connection authorisation on the screen, then (after a while) second swipe for type 2 authorisation. After that, plain sailing as with the previous stop. Went to work. When I got back, was back to full charge. Drove home. Plugged in at home for overnight charging from 75%, using granny cable because the home charging point being supplied free by British Gas hasn't been installed yet. I get the impression, from dealings with them by phone, that they are very busy. I take that as a good sign that there must be heavy demand. The Renault dealer also said that they're now taking orders for Zoes for delivery in October, whereas mine was delivered just over a month after being ordered. Distance travelled was about 70 miles in the day. Overall conclusion: Good driving. Feels like a normal car to drive. Really enjoying it. Worries: When there are more people like me, will the infrastructure providers lead with capacity ahead of demand, to avoid excessive probability of contention between EV drivers at the electric pumps, or will they wait for us users to have bad experiences, experience travel delays, get angry and complain bitterly before they act to catch up and install more charging points? Some key takeaways from yesterday's event:-
Divest-invest : Build on a growing movement. Lead by personal example. Take action within the financial system, rather than eschewing it. Avoid slactivism. There's an old oak tree near where I live, and it's a source of inspiration in the following ways. It has clearly had to survive the passage of time, and the ravages of the weather. It has some dead branches, but it stubbornly sprouts leaves each year from the ones that are still living. It stands there, weatherbeaten but not destroyed. It has its place in the landscape, among a wide variety of other plants and trees.
Being a sustainabilitarian is a bit like being that tree. The ravages of the weather are similar to the constant battering we get from many quarters, and indeed from the mainstream of society. You people are just idealist dreamers with no understanding of the real world and how it works", or "You want to take us back to the stone age", or "Economic growth and jobs come first", or "It's too expensive being green", or "It's too late anyway so let's not bother". These are some typical positions in response to the sustainability agenda. But, like the old oak tree, if we can find a place where our roots can flourish, we can absorb all the hardships and the battering and be steady - steady in the knowledge that we are doing the right thing, that we are building a better future. Sometimes, we just have to endure when times are rough. Ride out the bad times and wait until conditions are more favourable when people will be more receptive to sustainability in the mainstream. And there's no harm in playing the long game. Many aspects of sustainability involve the long-term - the carbon cycle and the water cycle are just two examples. We don't have to stop carbon emissions tomorrow - we have to stop them in a few decades time. Until then, we have to let the mainstream live well, and carry on the transition to a carbon-free future. If we lead by example, and show how we ourselves can live well on a lower-carbon basis, others will eventually follow. On this morning's "The Big Question" programme, one of the topics was climate change. It was good to see that this sort of debate, which has for many years been about whether human-induced climate change is happening or not, has now moved on. Even the most vociferous resister of firm and immediate action (Andrew Montfort, author of a book sceptical of the global warming "hockey stick" graph) said that climate change is happening and human activity is one of the drivers.
The core of the debate is now what we do, when and how much we spend on it. Some participants in the programme advocated 'fixing and growing the economy first, so that future generations are wealthier and more able to prevent, or adapt to, climate change' It was pointed out by others that the ecological debt we pass down might be far greater than the financial debt we currently have. Part of the polarisation (which naturally happens in such a debate) seemed to be about the balance between financial debt and ecological debt. However, this failed to appreciate that it's not a case of either-or. Especially with some of the great work being done by the likes of Cameron Hepburn at Oxford University, on breaking the links between economic growth and material throughput in the economy, many people are challenging the polarisation. They are working tirelessly towards building a future where there is some economic growth and prosperity, and lifting the bottom segment of the global population out of poverty within a sustainable society living within one planet's ecological resources. As Planetary CFO, I would argue that the creation, and periodic updating, of a World Balance Sheet can capture and report on the information needed to square the circle on these various elements, enabling sensible decisions to be taken now about our resources, their deployment and the impacts of those decisions over time. It could help us to set realistic and achievable goals on how far and how fast to redirect resources (eg away from fossil-fuel industries and into green industries). It would help us to assess how we are doing at serving the basic needs of the global population. I think the time has come for both extremes in the currently polarised debate to use methodical techniques such as accountancy (which are already proven, through centuries of practice) to provide the logical frameworks for a well-reasoned and evidence-based approach to creating a sustainable future where no future generation will be any worse off than the ones currently alive. Recently, I saw a video of an MEP labelling decarbonisation in Europe as "madness" because "crops need carbon to grow". My response is to refer to "Climate Change - evidence, impacts and choices", from which the following is an excerpt:
Professor Nathalie Seddon, Director of the Biodiversity Institute, concluded the event by explaining why she was hopeful that the fight to preserve biodiversity could be won. She said there was global popular support for protecting nature, that the corporate will existed to commit to zero deforestation and biodiversity loss, that the political will was also there and that different academic disciplines were working well together to tackle the issue.
“We can’t escape that fact that some form of valuing is unavoidable in a world of scarce resources,” she said. “But urgency must not compromise logic, and we must not lose sight of our values.” As Planetary CFO, I agree that we must value natural assets if we are to properly protect them. Economics is a tool invented by mankind, but most people forget that economics is fundamentally about appropriate allocation (ie sharing) of scarce resources. We need some of that right now if we're to pull back ecological overshoot, so that we can leave a sustainable world for future generations. In his 9th January 2015 article "Climate scaremongering won't trouble the oil junkies", Andrew Critchlow rightly points out some of the practical reasons most of the developed and developing countries are unlikely to make significant headway in limiting carbon emissions to keep global warming below 2 degrees. These include the love-affair almost all humanity has with the current economic paradigm.
What's disappointing about his article is that he offers no alternatives, even though there are at least two choices available to break the apparent deadlock between homo-economicus and homo-sustainabilitarian: a) Work within the existing economic paradigm, but use its existing levers such as pigovian taxes and a World Balance Sheet approach to manage resources and demands sustainably in the long-term, or b) Challenge the often unchallenged assumptions about the continuing viability of the existing economic paradigm, and enter realistic dialogue about what we might do to adapt it to the current reality. The current reality is that we are, as a global species, in ecological overshoot - we are using resources at a rate that would take somewhere over 1.5 planets to support sustainably. We only have one planet. We could do with a new economic paradigm that recognises this more explicitly and helps us to steer into a sustainable path. Here's a global map from the Global Footprint Network, showing whether each nation is in credit or debt when measured on the local demands compared with the available bio-capacity. Where nations are debtors, they 'borrow' resources from other parts of the world.
Those of you who know me and my personal circumstances well will perhaps have suspected that 2014 was, for me, the most challenging year I've ever experienced. I won't go into the details here. But it has been the friendship and support of many people, from near and far, that has helped me to get through some tough personal challenges and retain my sense of humour and cautious optimism about the future. Thank you to all of you (you know who you are).
I hope I can count on your continuing understanding and encouragement in the coming year to face whatever comes next with fortitude and compassion and to continue to build a better world for following generations. |
About the BloggerI'm David Calver - an Accountant with a passion for sustainability. Categories
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