Foreign holidays as a Right

According to the Times:

‘An overseas holiday used to be thought of as a reward for a year’s hard work. Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidised by the taxpayer’. The European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, Antonio Tajani, is reported to have said, “Travelling for tourism today is a right.”

There has been a massive increase in low-cost flying based on cheap aviation fuel. If airlines had to pay a similar amount of tax, as motorists pay to drive their cars, then the mass aviation market would be forced to contract. Instead of curbing unsustainable aviation, the EU is seeking to expand tourism (presumably on cheap flights) to the poorest members of society. The aims are laudable: to encourage a sense of European identity by understanding other countries within the union; but what has happened to the idea of reducing the carbon impact of our holidays?

For now we are enjoying clear blue skies in southern England for the first time that I can remember. This has been courtesy of the ban on flights in response to the risk of volcanic ash thrown out by the volcanic eruption in Iceland. The skies are free of vapour trails and high cloud generated by aircraft. We have just has a very quiet and sunny evening meal in the garden.

We should reflect whether the time has come to charge the full environmental cost of flying. The EU would have to think again about its budget for tourism for the poor and disadvantaged. We might then observe exchanges taking place between adjacent countries to allow people to travel sustainably and engage with neighbouring societies. This would be a more useful way to give the poor a taste of alternative culture than further subsidies on flying.

Threats and Opportunities

The classic view of the external business environment, taught at business schools everywhere, is through the lens of ‘threats and opportunities’.

Responding to ‘threats’, is about looking to the future in order to survive the cut and thrust of a constantly evolving business landscape. Responding to ‘opportunities’, is about looking to the future to grow the business to exploit new markets, new technologies and new ways to do business.

I believe in looking at the world as a series of opportunities. Focussing on threats, leads to defensive strategies and risk-averse tactics. Focussing on opportunities, leads to risk taking and support for innovation. These latter behaviours are the ones that I favour.

These same deep-rooted mental approaches apply also to government and to all of us. People, who focus on the threat of climate change, are digging themselves into a defensive rut of narrow thinking that attempts to squeeze carbon out of the processes we now operate. People, who focus on the opportunities that arise, are getting on with the work of transforming society to sever society’s reliance on fossil fuels.

There is a huge difference between shuffling forward in a timid manner driven by fear and leaping forward taking the problems that arise in our stride. I would rather be running a little too fast than shuffling far too slow.

Paying in Energy

Iceland was lauded prior to 2008 on having clever entrepreneurs who could covert the nation from a remote island reliant on fishing to a major speculator in the realms of international finance. I remember the praise that was heaped on these financial wizards. The Icelanders bought a lot of UK companies and earned respect from overseas observers – although not from me. I was very wary of the alchemy that was being pursued. Conjuring up money and profits by playing the financial system does not fit my definition of sound business.

I like businesses based on innovation and genuinely novel ideas that seek to do something better or more efficiently. These companies deserve to prosper. It might be nothing more than the old and very successful business model built on community values that encourages hard graft from a loyal work force that are valued for who they are and not only the work they do.

The Iceland business model was more smoke and mirrors than hard graft. I was dealing with my parent’s affairs before the crash and was advised to put their savings into Icesave to get the best interest rate. It was advice I ignored. In hindsight, the UK government decided to back the deposits in Icesave so perhaps it was safe but it did not take much due diligence to see that this was a dodgy operation. It might have been better to let people learn the lesson that dodgy investments are to be avoided.

The UK government chose to bail out the savers and now seeks recompense from Iceland. An interesting idea has been floated by Gijs Graafland, the director of the Amsterdam-based Planck Foundation, that Iceland could pay back this debt in energy. Iceland straddles the fault line between North American and Eurasian tectonic plates and has good geothermal electric power potential. The power could be generated and passed to the UK through a new 750-mile underwater cable. That would be an innovative and useful idea.

Little Known Fact No 3 – Bottled Water

UK bottled water consumption reached 34 litres per person in 2008, up from 27 litres in 2001. Bottled water consumption is projected to reach 40 litres per person by 2015. In the US, bottled water is drunk at an average rate of 105 litres per person up from 67 litres per head in 2002. In Italy bottled water consumption has grown from 194 litres per head in 2002 to an estimated 200 litres in 2008.

The UK market has a lot of room to grow if the market follows the lead in other countries. People are responding to health advice that drinking water is good for you and are concerned that the water they drink is pure and healthy. This is big business with a large, and growing, resources bill for the bottles and their transportation.

There have been a number of studies comparing the quality of bottled water with tap water. For Helsinki, tap water comes out with an excellent report. In fact there is one company bottling and shipping Helsinki tap water to be sold in the Middle East. London tap water may not get such glowing reports but it is healthy and safe to drink.

Carefully managing water supplies is vital to human health. It might be better to ensure that all our drinking water is safe and put the bottled water business (and the associated resource consumption) out of business.

That would then lead onto tackling another associated anomaly – that we use clean water for flushing toilets. We would not flush the toilet with Evian; why flush it with tap water? Flushing loos should reuse grey water from our washing activities.

Rather than bottled water, we need protected water sheds and more complex plumbing.

The Wrong Ice Conditions

Sunday was a special day. I stood atop Suomenlinna, the Fortress Island that stands guard over the harbour of Helsinki. From there I looked out over the Baltic sea in one direction and across to the buildings of Helsinki on the other. Another high point on the island is surmounted by a church that doubles up as a light house. The regular pulses of light brought rhythm to the early dawn. Hopping across the snow in front of the church was a hare. The peaceful scene came at the end of a week when I had skied across the breadth of Finland from the Russian Border to the Swedish border.

The event was the ‘Border to Border’ ski marathon event. People from 18 countries came together to tackle the 440km route. The end point was Tornio a small town on the Swedish border. If all had gone according to plan; I would have ended by skiing across the Tornio River and right up to the lobby of the Town hotel.

It was not to be. Although this winter is the coldest for many years (dropping to minus 36 degrees C) the ice on the lakes and rivers was not as strong as it should have been. Heavy snows had come early in the winter whilst the ice was still thin. This had then provided insulation from the severe cold above preventing the formation of thick strong ice.

The ice on the Tornio River was strong enough to take skiers as evidenced by the large number of ice-hole fishermen sitting over their round holes in the ice with their short fishing rods. The problem was a river further to the east where there was water on the ice and snow on top of that. This river prevented us from going further. We were forced to end the journey a few km short of the full distance.

I still harbour the wish to finish the ‘Border to Border’ event at the doors of the hotel in Tornio, to take off my skis and walk downstairs and into the sauna to then relax. To fulfil my dream I will need to return another year when ice conditions are better.

Little Known Fact No 2 – Oil and Sheep

Did you know; that in The Falkland Islands there are 160 sheep for every islander?
Did you also know; that for every sheep there is thought to be 120,000 barrels of oil reserves?

The foreign Office official position is that the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands depends on the wishes of the islanders. The war in 1982 was not about oil; but as the world faces shortages of black gold it may be a convenient time to drill for more in the waters off these remote islands. When the prime assets are sheep, the incentive to fight over the islands is low. If there proves to be commercially viable oil fields then the game changes.

In the unsustainable world in which we live the politicians will weigh off the cost of protection of this remote outpost with the potential revenue streams – sticking, of course, to the official line that it is the wishes of the residents that are paramount.

There is another possible outcome. The world could take the huge steps required to learn to live without fossil fuel. It seems preposterous, but it is feasible. Saudi Arabia understands the dangers and this is why the kingdom is so obstructive in negotiations over climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions. Falkland Islanders should also not count their barrels of oil before they are pumped. If the world takes the required action to stop climate change, then the commercial and political case to make the Falkland Islands a new oil producing nation may never add up.

I suspect that there will be a window of opportunity for an oil boom in the Falklands. However wool from sheep is a better long-term bet for the Falkland Islands in a sustainable world society.

Hummer RIP

"General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart." —The New York Times, Feb. 25, 2010

In 2007 I wrote about massive change in society that I described as the Sustainable Revolution. My book Adapt and Thrive was published the following year. I predicted that the future of the Hummer brand would be a barometer of when the revolution was ready to take off.

“Driving an SUV will be a good barometer of where we have reached. Having one is a proud aspiration of many drivers now, but when fashion changes they will not enjoy the ridicule that will be heaped upon them. This will not be a clear-cut transition, as, even if we push the costs prohibitively high, there could be a small hard core who take pleasure in demonstrating their ability to pay. It will only be when they are shunned socially for their choice of vehicle, and the latest Hummer is no longer the thing to be seen driving, that the SUV will finally leave our city streets.”
Adapt and Thrive: The Sustainable Revolution, by Peter McManners 2008.

If I am right, then the death of the Hummer brand heralds the start of the Sustainable Revolution.