Why aren't we acting now?

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I've been thinking more and more about the great gulf holding back the attempt to stave off climate change - the yawning chasm between intentions and actions. A couple of recent sources have helped me, as well as my own consideration of what I can do to my (relatively) new flat to improve its efficiency, generate on-site energy etc. The sources are George Monbiot's book Heat, which I've been meaning to read for months, and a recent edition of Analysis Radio 4 (I only a found a transcript of it online).

Monbiot's book underlines just how we have to go before really working out how to hit those myriad of CO2 reduction targets. Admittedly he sets himself a very ambitious target - 90% reduction in fossil fuel emissions by 2030 - but his attempts to get to the bottom of the solutions led me to think that deciding what to do - carbon capture, nuclear, renewables etc etc - is a minefield.

The there's human psychology to deal with, as the Analysis programme illustrates. Here's an extract, starting with words from presenter Camilla Cavendish:

By the end of last year, 74% of people in one poll said that climate change would influence how
they would vote at the next election. The shift has been dramatic. But will
those who express such concerns welcome being told what to do about it?
Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation in London...
believes that the Second World War provides a useful historical precedent for the kind of changes that
may be needed.

SIMMS: What’s fascinating when you look back
to the Second World War is that today we think everybody saw the threat
and fell into line and did the things they were told to do.  It wasn‘t like
that.  It was a struggle to get people initially to take it seriously.  When
they tried to introduce taxes on luxuries, it was fought tooth and nail all
the way; when Keynes stood up and tried to devise a system for war
savings, that was a struggle.  As today we may have carbon appeasers,
back then there were people who didn’t really think it was important
enough to radically change their lives.  But change they did and change
they did for a variety of reasons.  One was a comprehensive
government-led, public education programme, which used the best
artists and the best entertainers and performers and writers the country
had.  You saw peer to peer pressure. In the six year period from 1938
using a combination of public pressure and regulation, including
rationing, you saw a 95% drop in the use of private vehicles, you saw an
80 plus percent drop in the use of electrical appliances in homes.  There
were leaflets asking you how many pairs of knickers did you have to
have in your drawer.  Every aspect of life was interrogated for where
there might be waste.  It was done with wit, it was done with humour.

CAVENDISH: The power of humour seems as relevant as
ever today, when  environmentalists and politicians are better at moralising.
But even with the best satirists to hand, a Blitz spirit would be hard to revive.
The war against climate change is a strange kind of war, one in which we are
each both victim and villain. Some scientists say that we have only ten years
to avoid tipping points which could make climate change rapid and
irreversible. But such concepts still lack the brute force of an immediate threat.
There is a difference between acknowledging the problem and actually doing
something about it, says Andrew Cooper, Director  of the polling organisation ‘
Populus’.

COOPER: To an implausible degree, people say
that they are already taking every possible step. For example, 81% of
people say that they only boil as much water as they need, they don‘t
automatically fill the kettle; 4 out of 5 people say that they don‘t use the
standby button on their television set; 76% say that they recycle
everything in their house that can be recycled; two thirds of people say
that they only buy low energy light bulbs.  Now that‘s despite the fact
that, according to the National Consumer Council, only 11% of the light
bulb market is currently for low energy light bulbs and at the current
growth rate they‘re projecting that it’ll only be 13% by 2020.  So clearly
people are over - claiming here.  What it clearly tells us is that people
perceive that there is now a sort of cultural norm that the right answer is
to say that you are doing these things, that you are acting responsibly in
respect of the environment even though they’re not.  So it is also by the
fact that they’re over- claiming evidence of a significant mood change in
importance of the issue.

CAVENDISH: The mood is changing, but not enough. So
why don’t human beings who watch Al Gore’s video or worry about polar
bears just get up, walk down the hall and turn down the thermostat? Solitaire
Townsend (Director of sustainability public relations firm Futerra)
points to an extensive body of research:

TOWNSEND: Take, for example, a study that was done
in the US with male students and young female students in a co-ed hall
of residence.  Now there was a laundry downstairs where there were
dryers and washing machines, but there was also the ability to hang
your clothes out to dry outside.  Now the women were hanging their
clothes out to dry outside and the men were using the dryers.  Big
campaigns were done with these students: “Save Money, Dry on the
Line” ; “Save the Environment, Dry on the Line “. And the men
continued to use the dryers.  And so these researchers asked the
women what they thought of the men, and the women thought that the
men who hung their clothes out to dry on the line were more likely to be
poor, probably gay and just generally less sexually attractive.  What they
realised there was this wasn’t a rational challenge to behaviour; this was
a status challenge.  They had to raise the status of the behaviour.  I live
in an ex-council area.  My residents’ association won’t let us hang our
clothes out to dry on the line because it makes us look like we’re still a
council area.

CAVENDISH: Status has a big influence on our behaviour, in ways that are more subtle than just biggest is best. Anthropologists say that
in almost every civilisation, consumption forms a fundamental part of the
narrative that people construct about themselves and which is essential to
their psychological well-being.

TOWNSEND: If I change my light bulbs and put cavity
wall insulation in my home and turn all my lights off when I go to bed
and half fill my kettle, it‘s not something that’s giving me any social
status, it’s not something which my neighbours can see; whereas if I put
a wind turbine on my house or a solar panel on my house or park a
Toyota Prius outside my front door, it’s a social proof action.  Now that
doesn’t necessarily mean that you did it for climate change.  One of my
friends has got a solar panel on the north- facing roof of her house. 
When I pointed out to her that’s not necessarily the best place in the UK
in order to be generating energy, she pointed out to me that I wasn’t
understanding why she’d done it.  The north facing part of her house is
the part that faces the street."

So there's a status issue here and as the programme points out those richer citizens who profess to recycle, turn their lights off and buy renewable energy are more than likely jetting off to Tuscany every August.

Then there's my humble experience. I've bought a new flat and reckon there's a thing or two I can do to upgrade it environmentally - a green roof, solar thermal, triple glazing etc. Do I invest in it now if I move in the next couple of years and sell it on/ rent it out. How much is the payback? Am I better holding on to my cash and taking on a more ambitious project (renovating a decrepit non-performing older property)? It feels to me that as soon as you make the decision to go green we collectively are not sure where to turn next.

Comments

[Mel Starrs]

Great article Phil - thanks for pulling together the arguments here. The fundamental problem with sustainability is the breadth and scope of it - simply focusing on zero carbon or green add-on status symbols is not enough.

Nor are there any 'right' answers - just shades of grey and subjectivity. For instance, is it better to build solid monumental buildings that will last for all time? Or lightweight, flexible buildings that will be redesigned or repurposed in a matter of years? It depends on context. For instance, in some locations, housing should have a short lifetime to keep it as flexible as the demographics demand. However public buildings should probably be of the more permanent type.

Human behaviour and psychology are a massive part of the equation here and in our world of ever increasing specialisms (know anyone who is a specialist in low energy buildings, psychology, economics, politics and devlopment? No, me neither), the key to getting all this right will be communication between parties. The ability to debate and reach concensus on sustainability may be a much greater skill to develop than say, a zero carbon house.

[Phil Clark]

I particularly like your last point. This is where construction has consistently fallen down, so the challenge is a steep one given how much wider this communication will need to stretch to. Good luck everyone.

[Jon Goodbun]

There is some interesting material here. Coincidentally I have recently posted a review of a review (!) of Monbiot'd book on http://www.thepolytechnic.org which touched inevitably on some similar questions regarding the whether it is just wrong to expect climate change to be solved through consumer choice, and whether the problems raised amount to a full blown critique of consumerism whether we like it or not.

Regarding the other comments raised above I agree that there is clearly a growing need for a new kind of professional.. an Urban Ecologist perhaps. In terms of training I would imagine this as an extention of architectural training (or what architectural training should be), but including more economics, planning, engineering etc.. a real modern master built environment consultant... rather than reducing the length of architecture courses (as the current thinking seems to be), perhaps the entire professional remit needs to expand into planning, policy, engineering...