keepfakingit.com http://keepfakingit.com Cian O'Donovan Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:36:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 10:10 – Bottling it big time. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/ZkBgReRkJAU/ http://keepfakingit.com/1010-bottling-it-big-time/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:36:33 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=635 I thought it time I’d better start getting on with this 10:10 thing. So here’s my first step this year. Bottling my own water. At source.

Cian’s 10:10 Summer Tip: Source your water from Cian O’Donovan on Vimeo.

Every day on planet Earth we burn a whole gulf load of oil up to make plastic bottles so firstworlders like myself can drink water just about anywhere we fancy. No longer!

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/1010-bottling-it-big-time/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/1010-bottling-it-big-time/ Lighter Later at parliament http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/D1LjVcEuDZQ/ http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-at-parliament/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:53:37 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=627

Cross-posted from 1010uk.org.
10:10's Lighter Later campaign held a day of high-profile activity on Monday, the summer solstice, including a specially organised conference for MPs, peers and policy makers in Portcullis House, Westminster.

The event, on the lightest evening of the year, saw energy academics, road safety campaigners, representatives from the tourism industry and experts on crime and other social research areas come together to press the case for a change to the UK's clocks to GMT+2 in summer and GMT+1 in winter.

 
The rationale is simple: aligning the clocks to better suit the population's waking activity produces a diverse range of benefits to society. The overarching theme of the evening was that, considering the current economic and environmental situation, these are benefits we cannot afford to ignore.
 
Keynote speaker for the evening was Dr. Elizabeth Garnsey of Cambridge University's Centre For Technology Management, presenting for the first time her paper on the energy savings expected from Lighter Later's proposed clock changes, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy (Hill et al., 2010).
 
Dr. Garnsey and her team have been studying electricity demand in the UK for the past five years with particular focus on the weeks before and after the clock changes. The results she presented are clear. Were the UK to switch to GMT+1 in the winter there would be a clear 6GW saving per day in the winter months alone. 
 
"Translating that into carbon [dioxide] tonnes, that would have been around half a million tonnes saved. Which of course is cumulative: since the 1971 trial 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide could have been saved," she said.
 
Dr. Garnsey's second point, that the most important effect of Lighter Later is on peak demand, was stronger still: "Lower peak demand results in lower price of electricity and lower pollution on GMT+1 in winter. We found that peaks in demand could have been reduced by up to 4%. The reason is that when overall electricity demand surges beyond a certain level, the sources used to cover the peaks are the most inefficient and polluting. We estimate between a 0.6% and 0.8% saving overall."
 
She added: "Think interest rates, because electricity prices have a similar knock-on effect over the economy as a whole. So there would definitely be winter savings on GMT+1."
 
Robert Gifford of the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport Safety (PACTS) restated his organisation's support with some strong accident and financial numbers. During the trial of 1968 to 1971 there were 2,500 fewer road deaths. That translates into a conservative figure of 74 to 98 road deaths per annum today. Valuing the cost to the economy of each death at £1.5m, he argued that this would represent a saving to the tax payer of over £100m per annum, money that the NHS, for example, desperately needs.
 
The case was similarly made for tourism by Colin Dawson of BALPPA, who claimed the boost to the UK inbound industry would be as much as £3bn. Add in the fact that five of the nation's top ten participation sports are light dependent and the health and obesity benefits are clear.
 
There was also space on the panel for Dr. Mayer Hillman of the Policy Studies Institute. Dr. Hillman is currently researching the positive economic impact of Lighter Later on Scotland. At the conference he gave compelling reasons why the change would positively impact the personal security of two key societal groups: the elderly and the young. 
 
At present there is not a great deal of organised support against Lighter Later's proposal, however there are firmly held cultural beliefs in parts of the UK, and particularly in Scotland, that the change will be less positive for those north of the border. Most speakers touched on this and called these views simply misinformed. Dr. Garnsey had some upfront statistics:
 
"[During the '68-'71 trial] there was an actual 8.6% net reduction in Scottish road deaths but this was disbelieved because it was in the face of a strongly held conviction that the trial had been a mistake… In fact the Transport Reseach Lab showed at least a hundred fewer deaths."
 
Tom Mullarkey of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), who have been campaigning for 60 years on the issue, argued that in fact, Scotland would stand to benefit more than the rest of the UK from the move.
 
"The number of lives saved and injuries prevented would be 20% greater proportionally than in the rest of the UK. I don't think people in Scotland realise this. In terms of the GDP that depends on tourism, it's 4% in England and Wales, but in Scotland it's just over 10%. Once again disproportionately Scots appear to be the major beneficiaries of change."  
 
From the expert panel to the audience, there was a huge amount of consensus in the room. Vocal in their support were MPs and peers from all sides of the house. Zac Goldsmith MP, Peter Bottomley MP (the event's sponsoring MP) and Baroness Billingham all made vocal contributions from the floor. Whilst some on the panel have been campaigning on the issue for four decades, the diverse coalition that continues to grow under the Lighter Later banner has gained real momentum over the past number of months and is increasingly looking like an idea whose time has at last come.
 
For more on the Lighter Later campaign, the organisations behind it and the benefits it would bring to the UK, go to LighterLater.org or join the conversation at Facebook.com/LighterLater.
 
References: 
Hill, S.I., Desobry, F., Garnsey, E.W., Chong, Y.-F., 2010. "The impact on energy consumption of daylight saving clock changes". Energy Policy, 38(9): 4955-4965.
 
 
 
 

 

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-at-parliament/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-at-parliament/ Lighter Later: Redefining climate change campaigns. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/stoYdi7YqUY/ http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-redefining-climate-change-campaigns/#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:39:59 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=616 Graphing wasted sun

This weekend just gone, 10:10 launched quite possibly the most unique and inspirational climate change campaign the UK has seen for many many years; Lighter Later. Okay, I would say that, but think about it. By focusing solely on making life noticeably better for the vast majority of the UK’s citizens, 10:10 has taken the climate change debate to a whole new dimension. So pay close attention. The idea is ingenious in its simplicity. We shift our clocks to match better the hours we work. Wintertime in the UK would now run at BST, or GMT +1. And Summertime would be an hour ahead, GMT +2. So we would still change the clocks twice per year but it would mean that we’d spend more of our day in light, in evening sunshine in fact. Right now as you can see from these graphs we “waste” a lot of that light by sleeping right through it.

Here are the numbers and reasons just why this is such a good move (there are some more at LeftFootForward):

  1. Cut at least 447,000 tonnes of CO2 pollution – equivalent to more than 50,000 cars driving all the way around the world – each year [1]
  2. Save 100 lives each year and prevent hundreds of serious injuries by making the roads safer [2]
  3. Lower our electricity bills by maximising the available daylight and reducing peak power demand [3]
  4. Create 60,000–80,000 new jobs in leisure and tourism, bringing an extra £2.5–3.5 billion into the economy each year [4]
  5. Reduce crime and the fear of crime [5]
  6. Help make people healthier and tackle obesity by giving people more time to exercise and play sport outside in the evening [6]
  7. Save the NHS around £138 million a year through reducing road casualties [7]
  8. Improve quality of life for older people [8]
  9. Make the nation happier – including reducing the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder [9]
  10. Demonstrate that dealing with climate change can be good for the economy, good for people and good for society as a whole

Full list of references for the above are here http://www.lighterlater.org/benefits.html.

In much of his work (certainly in World at Risk, 2007) Ulrich Beck discusses the the need for civil society organisations to start working together in a genuinely constructive manner in order to tackle some of the planet’s major risks, climate change paramount amongst the usual lineup of global terror, GM and nuclear. At Christmas I wrote of what I thought was the most exciting and progressive aspect of the 10:10 campaign, its intention to do just that. To work with already existing organisations in society, from the bastions of neo-liberal capital such as Sony and Microsoft, to traditional CSOs like Action Aid and People and Planet. Here then is the perfect example of that strategy in action. Incidentally, Beck writes also of the importance of the relations of definition. These relations play a crucial role in the ultimate success or failure of a campaign like Lighter Later, one could argue that the campaign is in fact solely about these relations, but that’s a much longer post, perhaps for a night with a little more light.

Amongst a host of partners, 10:10 is working with RoSPA, the royal society for the prevention of accidents. Has a climate change campaign ever before worked like this with what is primarily a road and society safety group in this manner? Unlikely. But why wouldn’t we work with as many different CSOs as possible, the co-benefits of the switch to a low carbon economy are simply too big to keep to a single climate change campaign.

I’m just back from a talk with Jonathon Porritt, at a BrighterFuture event in London.  Porritt gets it. The time for positive messages, for societal change that uses a carrot, not a stick, is now he stated. The time for the likes of 10:10 and Transitions Towns to get out on the ground, keep an eye on the big picture but all the time keeping two eyes on local, immediate, tangible action has come. Whether you agree with Porritt that all three mainstream parties in the UK are institutionally incapable now of adhering to that most basic of sustainability tenets, the notion of inter-generational equity, is irrelevant. If coalitions of societal groups like the one Lighter Later is building can be intelligently consolidated, around issues that are important, and importantly, tangible, then we have a chance.

So if you back one campaign this year, ask one request of your politician as she or he canvasses on the streets of the UK in the coming weeks, make it an ask for evenings that are Lighter, Later.

Oh, and join the facebook.com/lighterlater group right here. That would make me very happy.

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-redefining-climate-change-campaigns/feed/ 2 http://keepfakingit.com/lighter-later-redefining-climate-change-campaigns/ In your reader, reading your feeds http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/gkAysb2XFeE/ http://keepfakingit.com/in-your-reader-reading-your-feeds/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:06:04 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=607 Keepfaking.it’s good friend Wouter asked us today for a few blogs and websites he might be interested in as part of some digital research he is engaged in. Far be it for us to get in the way of academic pursuit, and may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb as they say. Here’s a dump of relevant sections from our Google Reader account. Excuse errors and omissions. There are tons of stuff missing but seriously, don’t sweat it, if your website is absent it probably means we check it the old fashioned way. Anyways, who reads RSS anymore.

Stuff That Matters — General News

Stuff That Matters — Green Blogs + Opinion

Stuff That Matters — Activism|Climate Change

Stuff That Matters — Env Orgs + Corps

Stuff That Matters — Social | Activism

Stuff That Matters — COP 15

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/in-your-reader-reading-your-feeds/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/in-your-reader-reading-your-feeds/ Guerrilla Gardening in the Spring Mist http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/-xSX1qWWENA/ http://keepfakingit.com/guerrillagardening/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:12:12 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=602 Denmark Hill, London by The Guerrilla Gardner

Ah yes, Spring is in the air, and it may even be found in the step of keepfaking.it right now. We wrote up this short piece on Guerrilla Gardening for 1010uk.org on Friday, but wanted to re-publish the interview with Richard Reynolds here as he was such an inspirational gent. A man with 110% the right idea.

Welcome to the world of guerrilla gardening, where just about any patch of soil in a lay-by or traffic island can become a prime spot to grow some veg.

Guerrilla gardening has sprung up in cities around the world over the last decade, and has turned out to be one of the few things that anarchists and Sunday Telegraph readers can agree on. Sounds good to us.

To get started all you need is a patch disused land, some seeds or bulbs and a fertile imagination. But if you need a bit of advice or even some experienced guerrilla gardeners for your first dig, help is at hand. Guerrillagardening.org is a favourite resource and one of the original catalysts for the trend in the UK. On it you’ll find plenty of community advice on what to grow, where to grow it with and invitations to join existing digs that are planned for the coming months. They even have instructions on how to make your own seed bombs, a must-have in any guerrilla gardener’s arsenal. We interviewed founder Richard Reynolds on Twitter this afternoon, you can see the transcript below.

Pictures tell the story of Guerrilla Gardening better than we possibly could so here’s a selection from the Pimp Your Pavement Flickr group.

Here’s the transcript of our Twitter interview with Guerrillagardening.org founder Richard Reynolds.

@tentenuk: Welcome to the  Friday lunchtime Twitter chat. It’s Planting Month right now and we have @Richard_001 of guerrillagardening.org
@tentenuk: We’ve got some questions lined up for @Richard_001 but please jump in with any comments. And be sure to use . @Richard_001 how are u?
@richard_001: I’m good. And all the better for seeing my city (and guerrilla gardens) just got a soaking after a few dry days!
@tentenuk: Great to hear! So let’s begin, in two tweets or less @Richard_001 what is guerrilla gardening?
@richard_001: Gardening someone else’s land, err without asking. Usually public land, usually neglected. We adopt this orphaned space
@richard_001: That was a definition in one tweet!
@tentenuk: Guerrilla gardening seems to be on the rise, why now @Richard_001 ?
@richard_001: More of us in cities, less of us with land and the realisation that digging public places means you meet people
@tentenuk: Cool, we want to start gardening, so how does a regular 10:10er get involved @Richard_001 ?
@richard_001: Spot a plot near where you live, a tree pit, a shabby planter and get sowing and planting.  http://tinyurl.com/6fy6se
@tentenuk: You make guerrilla gardening sounds super easy! How about veg, what are the biggest vegetables you’ve grown @Richard_001 ?
@richard_001: Clumps of swiss chard in SE1… but fruit trees (not veg) are taller. Apples, pears. If you can dig a decent hole this works
@tentenuk: We’re talking to @richard_001 about guerrilla gardening. join in with any questions and see here for more: http://bit.ly/cEouil
@tentenuk: You mention SE1, what are your other favourite places to guerrilla garden @Richard_001? Have you gone international?
@richard_001: Guerilla gardening is best local. But via the GG Community http://tinyurl.com/y8n65qe you could dig with GGs all over Europe
@tentenuk: Ok, I’m sure like us everyone now wants to see the fruits of you labour. Any examples of photos, tweetphotos etc.@Richard_001
@richard_001: Here’s me and Wilm in Germany gardening in Garten Strasse outside a prison in Muenster http://tinyurl.com/ye8lgp8
@richard_001: Here’s a YouTube ‘gallery’ of what I’ve been involved with guerrilla gardening around London http://tinyurl.com/yg6cotr
@richard_001: And here’s an inspiring thriving chard photographed in Clapham http://tinyurl.com/yhel38j Not sure how tasty though!
@tentenuk: Wow, that’s a great video. Tell us, what do do local authorities have to say? They must be pretty happy with new shrubs? @Richard_001
@richard_001: Most local authorities turn a blind eye and the police can almost always be explained away when they know you’re not robbing
@tentenuk: Tell us about http://pimpyourpavement.org @Richard_001, is guerrilla gardening going mainstream?
@richard_001: http://pimpyourpavement.org This is my new campaign, to focus on micro local public gardens and invite authorities to help
@richard_001: My aim is that guerrilla gardening is so popular that we don’t need to be guerrillas anymore and the land is ours to garden!
@richard_001: The reality is that it’s more effective to garden these scraps of land as guerrillas and get permission (if ever) later
@tentenuk: Just a couple more questions to go in our Twitter interview with @Richard_001. If you have any questions get them in quick
@Ian_Preston76: @tentenuk @Richard_001 do you know of a good website to buy seeds? Need to get my tomatoes & beans in soon
@richard_001: You’re after seeds. Ideally find a local seed swap. Search “seed swap” or “seedy Sunday” and get local seeds
@lowcarbondiary: @Ian_Preston76 I always buy seeds from http://bit.ly/c78OlP very little packaging, good quality service & cheap!
@tentenuk: Can’t argue with that. Penultimate question from us: Seed Bombs, FTW!?! @Richard_001. Please explain
@richard_001: Seed bombs: a way of gardening ‘hard to reach’ or ‘hard to linger’ places. Definitive guide here: http://tinyurl.com/lb3r2r
@Childrensfood: @Richard_001 – let’s get growing taught in every school!
@richard_001: Absolutely yes, more growing at school. I had teachers who encouraged my digging the edge of the playground!
@tentenuk: Finally @Richard_001, what are you doing in 2010 to reduce your emissions by 10%
@richard_001: 1. Signed up 2. More bike 3. Less meat 4. Enjoying seasonal food 5. Off to four German cities next week by train to talk GG!
@tentenuk: That’s it from our lunchtime chat. We’re off to plant some Camden pavements. A HUGE  thanks to @Richard_001 for stopping by.
@richard_001: Thank you too. Good luck with pimping your pavement, guerrilla gardening I presume! http://www.guerrillagardening.org
@tentenuk: We have more on our  Planting month at http://1010uk.org and http://www.facebook.com/tentenuk
@tentenuk: Thanks to all who took part in the  gardening chat today. If you want some 10:10 stickers let us know.
]]> http://keepfakingit.com/guerrillagardening/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/guerrillagardening/ Me and the Devil – Gil Scott-Heron http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/no654KJAv1w/ http://keepfakingit.com/me-and-the-devil-gil-scott-heron/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:16:17 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=597 This my friends is good. Perhaps formulaic and cynical (the Guardian mentioned Rick Rubin, which is kind of obvious) but that doesn’t take anything away. Totally Utah Phillips.

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/me-and-the-devil-gil-scott-heron/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/me-and-the-devil-gil-scott-heron/ Coal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/ZcEOcEoThKo/ http://keepfakingit.com/coal/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:33:05 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=594 I know I’m sick of seeing Gerry’s beard every time I load up keepfaking.it. So here’s something much more disturbing. But it looks so pretty.

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/coal/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/coal/ Beck: Turning corner on nice curves http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/lQ4vh6nXE58/ http://keepfakingit.com/beck-turning-corner-on-nice-curves/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:29:25 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=591 Ding dong

“Successfully employed by the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss in the nineteenth century to describe deviations in astronomical measurements, the Bell curve or Gauss model has permeated our scientific culture, the economy and the self-image of modern society in general. It is more than a technical description. It shapes our thoughts. We think in terms of Gaussian distributions. The problem, however, is that measurements of uncertainty using the bell curve fail to take into account or attach any importance to the possibility of abrupt peaks or discontinuities. Employing such a measurement procedure in world risk society would be like concentrating completely on the grass and ignoring the (gigantic) trees. But in fact the occasional and unpredictable large deviations, even though they are seldom, cannot be dismissed as ‘outliers’ because their cumulative effects are dramatic.
“Traditional instruments of risk management concentrate on normal procedures and regard extremes as inconsequential. This approach is misleading in world risk society, which necessitates a turn towards a non-linear approach: the exceptions that only apparently confirm the rule must be the primary focus of attention.”

- Ulrich Beck in Risk Society

(a big up for discrete mathematicians everywhere)

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/beck-turning-corner-on-nice-curves/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/beck-turning-corner-on-nice-curves/ Turning Off the Spotlight on the Staging of Global Terror http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/dTrnPSeK67c/ http://keepfakingit.com/turning-off-the-spotlight-on-the-staging-of-global-terror/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:35:05 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=581 Childhood memories: The beard that rocked the cradle

Photo (cc) infomatique

Growing up a couple of hundred miles south of “The Troubles” in Ireland during the 80′s had its vagaries, which at this now twenty year vantage point, can hardly be believed, if recalled at all.

Whilst the closest we ever came to their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their guns was the deplorable Dolores (who incidentally didn’t get much closer herself), we were of course witness to the media battle front. A battle conducted using the deadly weapons of voiceover. In their wisdom, the British government declared that like errant Victorian children, Gerry, Martin and the rest of their Sinn Féin/IRA cohort could be seen but not heard. Picture the scene, it’s the morning after the night before. Another tit-for-tat nationalist/loyalist killing (translation: straight-up murder) and UTV or BBC Northern Ireland is looking for a quote of either condemnation or abhorrence from Gerry or Martin. Well, they weren’t going to get it. No, Gerry would wag his beard up and down with some animated affectation, but all we in TV land would hear was a passionless fob-off and some gibberish about  Ian Paisley being neither a real doctor nor authentic reverend. Whatever.

[One suspects all of this may in fact have been a result of intense Westminster lobbying by the Ulster Voiceover Artists union (commonly referred to as the UVAu), but we have no proof of this whatsoever. ]

We are remided of this over the festive period whilst reading some more World at Risk
. Beck proposes a simple thought experiment relating to “global terror” [yes cringe, cringe]. What, asks the German sociolagist, would be the result of a worldwide media boycott of the flash points of global terror. You know, a total worldwide ban on reporting the latest antics of underpants arsonists (do you see what we’ve done there) or shoe bombers. We’ll leave you alone to answer that one.

For Beck argues that it is the now ever present anticipation of terror incident, rather than the incident itself that is the goal of this 21st century terrorism. And it is the “glamour of terror staged in the West which transform terrorism into a power drug.” Beck goes on, when dealing with the discources of global subpolitics, to suggest this power drug is now the developing world’s best narrative in which to fight economic globalization. Certainly the only one in which the media industrial complex of the West will pay constant attention to. Take away that attention and perhaps we’ll get some interesting results.

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/turning-off-the-spotlight-on-the-staging-of-global-terror/feed/ 0 http://keepfakingit.com/turning-off-the-spotlight-on-the-staging-of-global-terror/ A Post-War Effort for Climate Change Mitigation http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cianodonovancom/~3/3fMQVMcCW8Y/ http://keepfakingit.com/a-post-war-effort-for-climate-change-mitigation/#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:53:33 +0000 Cian O'Donovan http://keepfakingit.com/?p=568 You could say that humanity's chances of surviving climate change is a little like walking a tight-rope but let's not think abou that right now. Photo of photo (cc Anthony Mayfield)

Re-photo (cc) Anthony Mayfield

Within the climate change mitigation discourse, a war effort is often called for. WWII is cited by some as the only time during the history of industrialization that a societal/productivity shift of the order of magnitude now required has happened. But we want to look at a slightly different point in history. Just like post-punk was an altogether better sound than punk itself, the post-war effort (in both Germany and Japan) has plenty of interesting lessons for us when it comes to the subject of societal change.

Let us consider for a brief moment the issue of social capital in post-war Germany and Japan. These countries had just been whooped ten shades of blue, millions dead, and in Japan, two nuclear craters. Understandable if the local populaces felt a bit put out and distrustful of the Allies restructuring plans. Yet the economic turnaround in each country was nothing short of miraculous. Now, we’re not going to get totally reductionist on this, there are plenty of reasons, common and independent, why the original Axis of Evil managed to get back on its feet, but one nugget provided here by Francis Fukuyama stands out in this decade old paper originally written for those friendly folk at the IMF.

Apart from religion, shared historical experience can shape informal norms and produce social capital. Both Germany and Japan experienced considerable labor unrest and conflict between workers, managers, and the state in the 1920s and 30s. The Nazis and Japan’s military rulers ultimately suppressed independent labor unions and replaced them with “yellow” ones. After their defeat in World War II, the democratic successor regimes opted for a much more consensual approach to management-labor relations that produced Germany’s postwar Sozialmarktwirtschaft and Japan’s lifetime employment system. Whatever their current dysfunctions, these institutions played a critical role in allowing the two societies to return to growth after the war, and constituted a form of social capital.

What did these institutions do? They bound society. They allowed trust to develop, crucially between workers, so that an honest day’s pay was not going to be wiped out by either hyper-inflation or schemes dreamt up by the occupying powers. An honest day’s work was rewarded and society could get back to rescuing cats from trees and whatever else they do on the banks of the Rhine.

Of course that’s not all Frankie has to say but he goes and ruins his nice ideas with a little apology for Globalisation right at the end, that’s to be expected we suppose. And while we’re on the subject, it’s 2010 and you know what, we’re still not at the end of history buddy!

Back to climate change. Post COP15, there’s a big argument that with the failure of our governments, it is time civil society, and business, stepped up to the mitigation plate. The job they have to do is huge and in order to do it they’re going to have to create even more social capital than was mobilized during the late forties and fifties in Germany and Japan, for without this social capital, the job for CSOs will be next to impossible. But the great thing about social capital is that much like economic capital (i.e. cash), surplus capital can be banked and transferred to those that need it most. Think about a trusted NGO. Let’s say the Red Cross. Over the last century the Red Cross has done a big job in warzones and natural catastrophe areas. On a whole, the world trusts them. When they come looking for money (and trust) in times of peace we happily supply. And when the shit hits the fan they’re ready financially, and in terms of trust, to get to the heart of the action.

Enter the likes of 10:10, a concept keepfakingit endorses so much we went and joined the company. If civil society organisations like 10:10 are to win the day in this battle, you had better believe they are going to have to become the Goldman Sachs of social capital, using every trick in the book to first-off generate that capital, then bank it, and have it spent in the most efficient way possible to cut emissions. Organisations are going to have to work together, and use additively created radii of trust to bring more and more people under their umbrellas of social action. This means building layers and layers of trust (thus social capital) across real life social networks, both horizontally and vertically. Horizontally from nuclear family to nuclear family, through communities, schools, businesses and clubs. Vertically through neighbourhood watch schemes, councils, religious orders and up and over international borders.
This is hugely ambitious, it has to be. And here at keepfakingit we think there’s a chance it may work.

10:10 - Doing the right thing to do the right thing

]]> http://keepfakingit.com/a-post-war-effort-for-climate-change-mitigation/feed/ 4 http://keepfakingit.com/a-post-war-effort-for-climate-change-mitigation/