above and turn the challenges into opportunities.
In this third series of blogs, I will be exploring the three big global challenges that we need to address and the role and needs of the individual, the market economy and the state to solve them to move towards a resilient and sustainable world.
As a backdrop to this, and with the most serious threat of climate change to achieve resilience and sustainability, we should see ourselves not as inheritors of the earth from previous generations rather as borrowers from future generations. Our burning platform is the threat to the lives of our children, our grandchildren and future generations.
Overall you can look at where we are from two perspectives. If you were a pessimist, you would say that even excluding what is happen to our climate and CO2 emissions our situation is disastrous. We have about 1 billion people in extreme poverty, of which most are in sub-Saharan Africa, and income and wealth inequality is growing not shrinking. We have an exploding population that started at under 1bn people in 1800 that has reached 7.8bn today and could be as high as 11 bn by 2100. The child mortality rate for children up to 5 years old is as high as 12% in some countries. The life expectancy rate in Africa is about 63 years old which is dramatically below the top countries where the expectancy is over 80 years old. About 13% of our population are illiterate, over 250 million children are out of school and learning outcomes are much lower in countries with low levels of GDP per capita. The level of pollution and waste is continuously growing. We have been over exploiting our resources – energy and minerals. We continue to destroy key forests especially in the Amazon for beef and soy, and in Indonesia for palm oil. People are working too hard. We have too many wars and too much terrorism. There is a large gender gap and real issues of racism. And the list goes on.
The optimist would say, yes but. Yes, there are lot of challenges in the world; but, on almost every dimension we have made significant progress and therefore we should be confident that we can solve the issues that lie in front of us. Despite population being 8 times larger now vs. in 1800, world GDP has grown by about 100 times. In that same period, life expectancy has increased from about 30 years to over 80 years in many countries. The share of population in extreme poverty has dropped from about 90% in 1820 to 44% in 1980 and is now below 10%. The average work week was over 60 hours in the late 1800s and is now below 40 hours. In terms of education, in 1800 about 87% of the global population were illiterate, in 1980 it was 30% and now it is only 13% of the population. School enrolment and attendance is improving every year, as well as mean years of schooling and learning outcomes. Our death rates from pollution, disease and homicides are all dropping. Our farming yields in grain production have allowed us to cover all the needs of a growing higher income population without needing additional land since the 1960s. We have been successfully covering off our increased consumption of fish since the 1990’s with fish farming. Our shift in use of energy use from wood to coal, to oil, to natural gas, to nuclear and now to clean energy sources has helped reduce our pollution rates per kilowatt hour. Just since 2010, solar energy generation has increased twentyfold with wind energy generation tripling. With technology and asset sharing we are dematerialising our spend. Our levels of gender bias are reducing. Almost everywhere people’s lives overall are improving. The optimist would summarise this by saying on virtually every part of our life there is a clear long term learning curve of progress and there is no reason for this to not continue.
Although the positions look diametrically opposite giving us a perspective of two different worlds, both sets of facts are true. It is all about which lens you look through at the world. We have made significant progress however there is still a lot of work to do to make the world a better place. Solving these issues is not just a matter of economics and technology. Its complexity is like creating a beautiful symphony, it requires getting a lot of different musicians to play their instruments in an orchestrated way. The musicians in this symphony, or actors in this play, are us as individuals, the market economy, the state and the third sector. We should remember as individuals we are consumers, we are participants in the different sectors and if activated we are voters that drive our political systems explicitly or implicitly.
No matter which lens’ you look at our situation, there are three big challenges in a peaceful world that need to be significantly progressed to continue our slow climb towards a better place – Shangri-la. If we don’t address them with the right urgency we could be on the slippery slope to an inferno. We are at an inflection point!
I think of myself as an activated optimist. We can solve the problems in front of us if we have the will and commitment, because we do have the wherewithal. To a large extent we already have all the knowledge and capabilities we need; and, for the areas we don’t the technologies and solutions are in sight. Sitting back and naively expecting these challenges to be solved and with the right urgency is irresponsible. Taking the view that these challenges are all someone else’s problem and they will solve it, is misconceived. Everyone can contribute at a minimum by being more thoughtful in their consumption of food and energy, generation of waste and participation in recycling programs, and involvement in their community and society.
So, what are the challenges. Firstly, and with urgency, global warming and collapsing biodiversity. These are two highly interconnected issues and effectively part of the same family of challenges. Global warming is well documented and confirmed to be largely human driven by virtually all scientists. It can be measured in terms of CO2 parts per million (including equivalents for GHG gases such as methane) and the short term impact can be felt in terms of average increase in temperature vs. the industrial average temperatures and the level of weather extremes. We are now sitting at CO2 levels of about 415 ppm (part per million), with the world having fluctuated between 150 ppm and 300 ppm for over a million years. Also, up to early 20th century we have been in a unique 12,000 year period of climate stability – seasons, weather and temperature predictability – that has provided optimal conditions for the human race to spread around the world and develop. Slowing down climate warming also helps to significantly reduce the release of C02 and other GHGs from what will occur from melting ice, melting permafrost and warming oceans. The land, oceans, and ice are large carbon and methane sinks that hold multiples more of these gases than currently exist in our air.
Biodiversity comprises the genetic, species and ecosystem diversity that has developed and helped created this stable environment. It is also what has created the environment for effective carbon sequestration in the land and sea. We are now running at an unprecedented loss rate of flora and fauna which is affecting our food supply, carbon sequestration and environmental stability. The current rate of diversity loss is estimated to be 100 to 1000 times the naturally occurring extinction rate. David Attenborough effectively describes this in his latest book and documentary, “A Life on Our Planet”. The solutions include shifting to regenerative farming, regenerating fishing stocks in the seas, and rewilding land and seas.
The second challenge is inequality. Inequality manifests itself at one level in terms of the extremes in distribution of income and wealth, and the shortfall in the basic necessities of life – food, shelter, clothing, health and education. However, it also is reflected in freedoms, our access to opportunities, and our rights to safety, security and equal justice. Unfortunately, the absolute levels of inequality are significant both within and across most countries and continue to persist. It is no wonder that there appears to be rising social unrest across many countries, LGBTQ+ and BLM movements and many other areas of social concern. Clearly, our market economies and governments have not been effectively addressing these issues. A focus on these issues and adjustments to how governments and market economies operate can solve this situation. There is global consensus that this is a critical issue that must now be solved.
The third challenge is digital trust and mass manipulation. At its base level, this is about privacy and the need for enlightenment and truth in a society. These components are key drivers of freedom, transparency and trust. For a period now we have seen increasing levels of theft of private information, expansive monitoring and surveillance (accelerated during this pandemic), rising populism and increasing distrust of governments. We just have to look at the US elections, and other recent elections, to see evidence of this.
The digital world has provided us with some amazing levels of progress and benefits; but, unfortunately it can have a dark side. This includes the program to monitor, manipulate and control the Uighurs in China and the building of their overall digital social credit system. The Western world has a somewhat equivalent system that gathers all forms of data to make credit evaluations of individuals; good and bad behaviours are judged on risk, reliability and trustworthiness of individuals with respect to financial transactions. The dark side also includes the targeted delivery of fake news to drive votes in democratic elections as is shown in the movie ‘The Great Hack’ describing the use of social media in the US 2016 election and the Brexit vote, among others. A growing number of countries have tech ops groups to drive misinformation and manipulate election outcomes among other clandestine objectives. The targeting and selection of news/fake news comes from intimate analysis of people’s use of social media. The ease with which you can micro target the delivery of real or fake information through social media to shift people’s thinking and behaviour is growing. The fragmentation of truth, the growth of conspiracy theories, a missing common base of facts and increasing levels of misinformation for a population will cause growing problems. Democracy has been an essential component of social progress across the world and needs to be protected. The value of democracy has not been helped by the shambolic display of US 2020 presidential election; thankfully, it appears that is has held up this time. As well as an economic recession we now appear to be in a democratic recession with rising populism and the growth in power of China;
Extensive problems are caused by the social media companies (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) which are driven by their advertising business models which are fed by building addictive dopamine generating behaviour for billions of users. Their success is based on gathering every conceivable piece of information about you and combining it with AI to serve you content and create the desired outcomes/behaviour shifts that provides a return to their clients for the money they spend on the social media site. You are the product and the information they have on you includes – every piece of content you generate, every piece of content you look at and for how long, the web of friends and people you interact with, likes, follows, comments, reactions to content you look at and is served up to you, every website you visit, all the times you are on each site, GPS coordinates, etc., etc., etc. At the same time, there is very little control and no direct responsibility for the content they serve you, which may also be content from foreign trolls and bots, conspiracy and extremist groups, and false advertising. The implications on the individual of social media addiction, misinformation, distortion of the real world, breach of personal privacy and freedom is significant and the accumulation of this across whole societies is extremely concerning.
These challenges can be translated into the need to focus on three things. Firstly, decarbonisation and biodiversity regeneration. Secondly, inclusivity and fairness. Finally, digital privacy and collective truth. The first two challenges are well covered off by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The third challenge is recognised and looked upon with increasing concern around the world and is highlighted by the World Economic Forum as one of the key risk factors we are facing.
There are three critical issues to solve in addressing these challenges. Firstly, ensuring there is clarity on the potential solutions for each of the challenges. This concerns having clear solutions that will drive us to address the challenges within the required timeframes. Inevitably, this will be a combination of existing solutions that are already in place but not pervasive enough; existing technologies that are proven but only in early stages of rollout and need to cycle through further generations of development to increase their effectiveness and drive down their cost position; and, emerging technologies and applications that are in sight to be available within the next 10 years or so.
Secondly, to be clear on roles of the individual, the market economy, the state, and the 3rd sector to drive the implementation of solutions. This is very much about finding the right approach that does not disrupt the ongoing innovation and development that has progressed us to where we are today. Probably, the most critical issue is to find the right balance between the role of the state and the reliance on the market economy and capitalism. Within the state there are the supra-national activities and then the roles of the government at the state, regional and local levels. Within the market economy, investors, asset managers, and corporate boards and executives all have vital roles. And, there is also an important role of the individual as a member of the public, a consumer, a worker/contributor, and a voter who has a stake in the outcomes. Finally, there is also the 3rd sector which includes charities, voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises and cooperatives, advocacy groups, think tanks, private research institutes and large philanthropic organisations. We are seeing a growing role of philanthropic groups, such as the Gates Foundation, that are focused on large global problems including health, education, poverty and now climate change.
Thirdly, implementing the incentives and checks and balances to ensure progress is being made to time. The most critical challenge in this regard is to maintain a focus on the actions and time frames agreed in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement which is to try to keep climate warming below 2 degrees centigrade and targeting 1.5 degrees. We are already well behind the goal as we are currently trending towards a 3+ degree Celsius outcome, so there is a lot of work to get back on track. These incentives, checks and balances need to be keeping the pressure on each set of participants to meet their responsibilities, solve how to make adjustments, and have back-ups to shortfalls.
I think we have a pretty good idea of what we could do for ‘Decarbonisation and Biodiversity Regeneration’ and ‘Inclusivity and Fairness’. The challenges have been understood, potential solutions have been identified and quantified, and the goals have been set within the 17 UN SDG’s and the Paris Climate Agreement. What is missing is a well thought through program accompanied by the commitment, mobilisation, resourcing, incentivisation and monitoring that is required to ensure we meet the goals within the timeframes identified.
‘Digital Privacy and Collective Truth’ perhaps sits as a different type of problem given that is likely viewed more at a national level and within the purview of each country’s political system; yet, it sits within the global scope of the internet and the global footprint of the large social media companies. Privacy and the need for facts and truth are a human right, they are also vital for the effective long term development of a society; however, cyber and all its manifestations are also seen as a new form of, cross border and internal, warfare and mass manipulation.
I will be exploring in more depth, these three challenges – decarbonisation and biodiversity regeneration, inclusivity and fairness, digital privacy and collective truth – along with the roles of the individual, the market economy and the state in subsequent blogs.
#climate change #global warming #decarbonisation #biodiversity #species extinction #regeneration #rewilding #carbon sequestration #regeneration #rewilding #inequality #inclusivity #fairness #privacy #digital trust #cyber #mass manipulation #truth @David Attenborough @Gates Foundation @Bill Gates
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