The Tories are hoping Zac Goldsmith wins the Richmond Park seat at the next election and in him, they may have upped their credentials on the Environmental front. See a review of Zac Goldsmith’s book from the current MP for Richmond Park, Susan Kramer, Liberal:

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/09/goldsmith-taxes-constant .

You can see with politicians, all we get are battles about party lines, all gets compromised to serve the brand.

I think it will take a determined business community to initiate and lead a successful programme for UK to be sustainable, with politicians in support, being fed necessary tasks to be done.

Maybe it is better led by business people who can use their skills in driving a strategy to achieve concrete goals for UK self-sufficiency in products and services such as Energy, Food, Water, Health & People Care, Accommodation, Travel, etc. As in WWII, a more practical and single-minded UK civil government will be needed to provide and maintain an infrastructure to support and defend this UK-Self Sufficiency process.

I tried to find out if the UK government were working on making the UK self-sufficient, but couldn’t find anything. Is there anything they are doing on this? The sort of thing I did find was DEFRA have a strategy on Food security which relies on the EU which I think is very dangerous after what we saw when every country was for themselves when there was an Energy supply scare the other year.

I did see an article that Wales are aiming for self-sufficiency in Energy within 20 years:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/22/wales-energy-efficient-plans

You are right Lovelock does think of the whole world, his Gaia approach is Systems Theory based and thus his suggestions here, at first, seem surprising.

Lovelock does paint the darkest future and it is one we find very difficult to consider. He does think there will be mass extinctions and he thinks the best course of action is to at least save the species by preparing those parts of the Earth, least likely to be affected by adverse climate change, as safe havens for a population which is sustainable, hence the growth only up to 100m for UK. These will, as you suggest, need to be defended from being overrun.

It sounds bleak.

He says he has been driven to this partly by governments and organisations such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) pandering to politics and dogma instead of using the true scientific observations, which are more damning.

He believes the situation is similar to the start of WWII in Britain, he was 20 years old, when people wanted to believe in peace and only woke up when the hostile forces were bearing down on them. He said it took strong determined leadership from Churchill to bind the nation into a single-minded effort to wage a difficult war. He is shouting out for similar now.

He is saying we haven’t time to continue in a business-as-usual way, so the priority should be to sustain ours and other nations as viable sustainable habitats.

I guess by UK giving a big priority to it being self-sufficient and sustainable, say within 10-20 years, this can act as you say Pete as “a brilliant example and act as an experimental test-bed for other less well-off countries.”

As well as this, as a secondary priority we can contribute to helping other nations.

When I look at the news and Internet, I see loads of discussion, research, opinions and projects on ways to counter Climate Change, but I don’t get a sense that anyone in the UK is organising and driving the activity to make us self-sufficient and sustainable within a 20 year period. I guess we will have to wait until there is the first real Climate Change disaster, maybe a food war, or mass starvation, or energy scarcity.

Do you think the business community could take a lead in some way in helping to build and support the infrastructure of a growing self-sufficient network of supplies and accommodation for the UK? The politicians would also need to be dragged in to remove blockages in political and administration system of the country, such as planning laws.

It would make a very interesting venture.

Or maybe it is all in hand — I would like to think so.

Duncan

You paint a rather dark future.

And I’m not really sure I understand the logic. In Lovelock’s world if most areas of the world are uninhabitable where have all the people gone?

Unless he posits mass extinction events then presumably there is mass migration instead? Where do people go: presumably towards the habitable areas?

In that case Britain won’t have a cosy 100 million people. It’ll be many more than that.

The obvious response to that is “pull up the draw bridge”. Well, we know (from 9/11, from “Star Wars”/SDI) that this won’t work. In an age of nuclear weapons we simply can’t get away from each other. We really do share the whole planet with each other.

That leads me to the conclusion that the only sensible approach is to start rapidly trying to mitigate the impact of climate change worldwide now – and at the same time build as much resilience and strength into developing countries as is humanly possible.

Of course, we should aim for self-sufficiency here in the UK too. We’re in an incredibly powerful and rich country – and with some pain I think we’ve a good chance of becoming self-sufficient. And apart from anything else we can set a brilliant example and act as an experimental test-bed for other less well-off countries.

Business can help with, and lead, on this.

But the rest of the world isn’t like that. With more than a billion people living on less than $1 a day ($365 a year!) resilience is already low.

In my view, we need to look at the whole system globally – not just what we do in the UK. Not having read the book I can’t say – but I guess Professor Lovelock would agree?

Pete

I think this focus is about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Dan Pink tackles this in his recent TED talk where he outlines Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose as drivers. Worth a look – inspiring stuff that starts with the individual and extends to a broader potential social impact.

Well here is one such focus…..

A couple of days ago I pinched off my son, James Lovelock’s latest book ‘The Vanishing Face of Gaia’ and read it with a great unease. Lovelock doesn’t pull any punches in this warning to the world that the point of no return for Earth has passed and the effects of Climate Change will, in a few decades, start to reap real destruction.

If you think he could be right, then his suggested way forward does provide a clear objective for our business growth and a much focussed, war-like urgency to organise our scientific, engineering and business contributions.

He believes that the best we can achieve is to recognise that most areas on Earth will soon be uninhabitable and that there will be just a few areas which can sustain life and one of them will be the UK. It is these pockets which carry the responsibility to become self-sustainable in order to preserve some of our species.

So the urgency is to get the UK self-sustaining, in order to support its 100 million people within 30 years. We need to be self-sufficient in water, food, energy and provide accommodation and support for our wellbeing.

It will need a strong leader to organise the UK business market to provide the resources we will need.

This challenge to make UK sustainable should be full of opportunity and provide a strong purpose for all.

I recommend the book.