Innovation and Climate Change Part 3: Gwyn Prins

As noted in the previous post, Dr. Prins and others spoke on inter-related elements of the implications and science surrounding global warming and climate change. Present only for the first half, my impressions are recorded below:

Dr. Prins took us on a romp through the folly of emissions targets and trading in a presentation starting at Kyoto and ending at the collective feet of policy makers at the G8 summit in Hokkaido. He compared the challenge of creating climate policy to understanding a double helix intertwining the physical and socially constructed worlds of humanity.

Really more than a double helix, Dr. Prins described climate change issues as “wicked problems” that arise from the interaction of the complex open systems in which we live. Wicked problems are not “solved”. In an oversimplification they only improve or worsen. Remember that a gain in one place, though, is often a loss somewhere else.

Dr. Prins stated clearly that Kyoto brought no real decrease in emissions and, in fact, could not even decrease the rate of increase. He stated (and I agree) that we need to stop trying to control outputs and focus on affecting and changing the inputs. His proposed solution was to target the industries responsible for ~60% of carbon emissions and work with them to set limits, targets for reduction and development of alternative non-carbon producing processes.

Another significant aspect of Dr. Prins’ presentation was on why the public is having such a hard time engaging with climate change issues. Using the Issue Attention Cycle he described how (we) the public has heard the media and governments sound the alarm twice now yet little is accomplished, there are very few tangible, clearly causally related events and seemingly little people can do help. Thus, there is a very real risk that, yet again, climate change and the behaviors that create and feed CO2 into the atmosphere will, yet again, subside in importance and urgency in the public eye.

In my opinion, the only way out of this cycle is to move as individuals, communities and organizations toward Coherence. At that stage of engagement we begin to re-design, re-organize and re-create from eco-centric, sustainable ways. We need to become sustainable from the inside-out as opposed to having “green” ideologies imposed upon us from the outside-in. 

Actually, there is another way. We can do nothing and wait for all hell to break loose-which it will. Then, we’ll have a whole new set of problems to “fight.” And fight we will.

Tags: climate change, global warming, Gwyn Prins, sustainability, UN University