It was very interesting listening to Ben Todd, the Founder & CEO of 80000 hours, describing the support they gave to people at the beginning of their careers. But what about us who are moving towards the end of our career?

80000 hours^[1] provides an ethical careers service whose aim is “ … to help people tackle the world’s biggest and most neglected problems, and our advice is aimed at people who have the good fortune to be able to make that their focus, as well as the security to change path. Due to our limited capacity, some of our advice focuses on a narrow range of paths, and is especially aimed at talented college students and graduates aged 18-30, though many of the ideas we cover are relevant to everyone.”

80000 hours approach in finding the neglected problems has three elements: find a problem that is great in scale, area of that problem that is neglected, and one that can be solved. They quantify as much as possible so that it can guide their career advice and support. There are many large scale problems ranging from climate change through to poverty where people who are starting their careers can make a difference. But what about those of us who have burned through more hours than we can count on our careers - can we still make a difference?

For most of us who are at the end of our careers we can look back over a wide range of training and experience. In amongst the different threads that have made up our career there is formal education including further education. Then there is training gained during our working life on a wide variety of subjects. We will have developed a vast number of networks of friends and acquaintances who can help in whatever next step that we would like to take. Add on top of all of this is ‘life experience’ gained through career setbacks, moving jobs and most importantly bringing up a family.

Of course as we move towards the end of our careers it is time to explore the areas that we didn’t have time to during our working lives. There may not be many hours that we are willing to use on ‘making a difference’. But with the hours invested in our careers we will have gained a lot of knowledge about how to be effective. Using the criteria that 80000 hours use and a bit of searching on the web and using our contacts, then neglected but solvable problems can be found. We can get involved with the problem at different levels whether it is donating money, mentoring those who are working in the area or rolling up our sleeves and getting involved. If nobody is working on the neglected area then with our skills and experience it could result in starting a campaign, or even a company, to solve the problem.

80000 hours offers a great service and if I was starting out on my career I would certainly get in contact. But for us that have used up our 80000 hours but still want to make a difference then we need to apply ourselves differently. We have to be like a Judo expert where they take all their skill and experience to pin point their opponents weakness and with a slight move they send them crashing to the floor! In a similar way we have to use our background to target the most effective solution to have the greatest impact on an important problem. Then give it a go!

[1] The number - 80000 hours - used as the name of the company is arrived at by assuming that a person works for 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year for 40 years.

The Climate Crisis has now reached ‘code red for humanity’ and we are left with little option but to dramatically change the way that we live. But there are certain aspects of the way I live that I will find difficult to give up.

A future without many of the things that I take for granted looks very daunting. The thought of a self-sufficient life brings back images of Barbara and Tom, from the TV series The Good Life, but a life wearing welly boots and wandering around with a wheelbarrow is not lifting my spirits for the challenge ahead. Then there is the practicalities of billions of people going ‘off-grid’, and images of an existence of minimal creature comforts seems depressing as well as impractical. I still enjoy many things that are not helping with the climate change, whether it is visiting places in my car, to cooking with ingredients that come from abroad. The image of living in a wooly jumper to keep warm and boiling water in an empty bean can over an open fire is starting to look dire.

What is needed is a design revolution, a movement to develop new products that are sensitive to their impact on the environment and gives a sense of optimism in reversing climate change.

Many of the design movements from the past have left an everlasting impact on the way that we live. The Bauhaus concentrated on function rather than form and influenced everything from architecture to fabrics and produced many sought after design classics. Their near abstract lines can still be seen today.

 

Wassily Chairs by Marcel Breuer

 

Another influential design movement was the Arts & Crafts who concentrated on making things by hand as a reaction to mass production and the industrial revolution.

 

Newcomb Pottery Vase

 

My own favourite is the short lived Memphis Group where it used glaring colours and asymmetric shapes design which gives their products for the home a sense of fun.

 

Carlton room divider by Ettore Sottsass

 

Scratch below the surface of any product currently on sale and you will find the influence of one of these design movements.

Over the years, the products that we used have separated us from the environment and desensitised the impact that we have on it. In the case of cars, we are couched within a box that isolates us from the pollution that is produced. Fast fashion with its ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ is rapidly filling up landfills. Food is conveniently brought to a shop or supermarket and increasingly to our doorstep. This has separated us from the way that food is produced and with powerful marketing techniques our attention is directed on consumption rather than how we leave our mark on the environment.

The overarching theme for a revolution in design is to reconnect us with the environment but in a way that enhances our lives. We don’t want to use, or look at, something that looks as though it has been produced by Scrapheap Challenge!!

When using the products we must be made aware of its impact on the environment whether it is a positive or negative effect and feel that we are contributing in an improvement to the environment.

Another aspect is to take into account the life cycle of the product and its impact on the environment. There are already many ideas that range from recycling to the broader ideas of the circular economy. These ideas must move from the fringes into mainstream production techniques. The new products must be affordable for everyone. We cann’t wait for those with the most money to buy the latest technology and then let the economies of scale reduce the price for the rest of us to buy the products. This trickle down approach is too slow. Electric cars and heating systems for the home need to be affordable to everybody from day one!

So, calling all designers, and budding designers, why don’t you come together and start a movement that will make the world a better place and recover the environment through your innovative products!

When the news that a Dutch Court ordered the global energy company Royal Dutch Shell ( RDS ) to reduce its CO₂ emissions I was intrigued, how did they lose this case and are there any consequences for other companies or even industries?

In May 2021, the Hague District Court in the Netherlands ordered RDS to reduce its group-wide CO₂ emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels, by the end of 2030. The class action was brought to court by a group of NGOs and it is the first case where the resulting win has forced a multinational to meet its obligations in managing the Climate Crisis. This is not the only one. An Australian Court ruled that the country’s environment minister has an obligation to children to consider the harm caused by climate change as part of their decision-making in approving the expansion of a new coal mine. In France a coalition of NGOs and local authorities took oil firm Total to court for alleged climate inaction. Pressure is building up. If the law is in place, then it is being applied to force companies to meet their obligations to significantly reduce their CO₂ emissions.

Buried in the subtle arguments during the court case RDS’s emissions were broken down into two areas: the activities of RDS and those of its suppliers and end-users. In the case of RDS’s own activities the group was seen to have “an obligation of result” which was binding on the group to reduce its emissions by the specified time. RDS claimed that 85% of the CO₂ emissions came from its suppliers and customers and therefore should be regulated by the legislator and politicians. But the court held that RDS was required “to take the necessary steps to remove or prevent the serious risk ensuing from the CO₂ emissions generated by [such suppliers and end-users], and to use its influence to limit any lasting consequences as much as possible.” This was described by the court as “a significant best-efforts obligation”. The intention is clear that RDS must play a more important role in influencing its customer’s consumption of its products with respect to the environment. What is interesting in the decision is that RDS can’t sit back and just meet government targets, which are currently not enough to meet the Paris Agreement anyway, but they must be seen to be actively meeting and promoting a reduction in CO₂ emissions to meet those targets.

There are some interesting consequences for other companies and industries from the RDS case. Now that a legal precedent has been set, other energy companies will come under close scrutiny about their role in the climate crisis. However, other industries could come under the spotlight for their role in addressing social and environmental problems. For example could manufactures such as Nestle’, whose recent analysis showed that over 60% of their products are unhealthy, be forced by law to produce health products and therefore reduce obesity? Or could supermarkets be forced by law to ensure that the plastic that they use in packaging doesn’t find its way into landfill or worse the rivers and oceans?

RDS is appealing the court’s decision which could take many years before a decision is reached. In the meantime, they must start to reduce their CO₂ emisions to meet the target set by the court. This could be the beginning of producers having to take more responsibility for the impact of their products on the environment. The buck may stop with the companies producing goods and service rather than society struggling alone with the problems they create.

The details of the court case give a clear overview of the current situation with climate crisis as a well as some fascinating detail of the arguments put forward by both sides - it can be read here

As part of the UK Government’s green revolution there will be a ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030. From then only cars for sale will be Electric Vehicles ( EV ). But given the Government’s track record in combating the climate crisis - how effective will the policy be?

There are many instances of governement policies not delivering its aims. In 2001, the UK chancellor, Gordon Brown introduced tax breaks for diesel cars because they emit less CO2 than petrol-powered cars, but it is now known that they emit other harmful pollutants. This government policy resulted in 40% of the cars on the road being diesel and an on-going investigation on their impact on health.

Electric Vehicles have the banner attached to them of “zero emmisions”. But that is only looking at one part of a complex problem. A much better approach would be to consider the whole life cycle of the car. There are three elements: the amount of CO2 Equivelant( CO₂e ) that is produced in making the EV, the amount of CO₂e produced generating the electricity to power the EV and finally the amount of CO₂e produced during its disposal. Searching on the web to find out the data to compare the life cycle of an EV with petrol and diesel is very difficult because of the many assumptions that are used to promote a point of view. A study by the engineering company Ricardo demonstrates CO2 emissions from a life cycle analysis shows a different picture. For a standard gasoline car the estimated lifecycle emissions is 24 tonnes CO₂e, with 5.6 tonnes CO₂e estimated in its production. For a EV it is 19 Tonnes CO₂e with 8.8 Tonnes CO₂e estimated in its production. Therefore the reduction in CO₂e over the life of an EV compared to petrol car is around 20% which is good but maybe not what the banner headline of “zero emissions” is suggesting.

The government’s plan for a green revolution is based on ten key points which covers, power generation, housing and transportation but doesn’t take into account any life cycle analysis for any of its elements. Therefore its effectiveness must be called into question.

Moving to zero emission cars is a good step forward for managing the climate crisis and improving health, particularly in urban areas. But rigorous analysis should be carried out so that the government policies can be held to account for their effectiveness. Life cycle analysis gives a better picture of the overall impact a car, food production, housing or any other activity has on the climate crisis. Lets hope that we don’t end up with a similar situation that we had with diesel vehicles!

After writing this blog for over five years I felt that it was a good time to look back and gather a few lessons for its future direction.

When I started the blog I had two aims: improve my writing skills and develop the discipline of publishing something on a regular basis. I am from a generation whose education missed out on the importance of grammar to express ideas clearly. I have struggled ever since. The title of the blog is - Thinking Out Loud - which describes the impact of ideas on how we live and therefore it is important to describe those ideas clearly. Also, talking to many would-be-bloggers it was clear that after about three or four posts they’d run out of steam and stopped. I wanted to challenge myself to keep going. I was not targeting any particular audience which is at odds with the normal motivation of a blogger who is trying to establish the writer in the public consciousness either to promote themselves or a business that is related to them. There are thousands, if not millions, of posts published every minute on the web. Therefore, I decided to keep mine down to a two to three minute read; in other words something that could be read while having a coffee. This meant that each post had to engage the reader quickly and make its point clearly - another challenge! To give myself a chance of maintaining the post frequency I kept them at one post per month. This gave me enough time to explore ideas before putting pen to paper ( yes I draft ideas on paper! ).

I wasn’t sure how the blog was going to go so I wanted to keep my running costs for the web site down to zero. I used the free GitHub Pages to run the web site and Jekyll with a free theme to display the posts. This approach allowed me to modify the software so that I could try out different formats for the blog. Google Analytics is used to gather data on how often each post was being accessed and which search terms were picking up the posts.

So what have I learned? The biggest achievement is that I have kept the posts flowing for over five years which against a background of the trials and tribulations of life I can justifiably give myself a big tick. The results on readership have been mixed. The most popular posts had a business flavour, with the most popular so far Being Creative With A Bear And Honey Strangely, the posts relating the work of Wittgenstein to current issues were being regularly picked up by web searches. Looking back over five years worth of posts it is clear that I write in a formal way which is understandable because of my business background. This is something that needs to change for future posts. I also learnt that editing is an important part of the writing process. I can re-write an article several times until it has achieved what I want it to say. Having an independent pair of eyes looking over the final post is a must - big thanks to my Editor!

The biggest lesson was to focus on a theme and look at it from different angles. That theme will be the one that will increasingly dominate our lives the climate crisis. For example, Margaret Heffernan in her book Uncharted points out that we are addicted to prediction and desperate for certainty. But modern life is complex and therefore most experts in forecasting are reluctant to look more than 400 days out. What does this mean for the future targets set by governments and business that involve looking tens of years ahead? Another area is using Wittgenstein insights into how language works and applying them to sift through the endless media discussions to separate facts about the climate crisis from what Greta Thunberg succinctly puts as blah, blah, blah.

The last five years have been hard work and there have been many days when I have asked myself why I am bothering. But after I have published each post there has been a feeling of achievement. I have learned lots about the art of communicating through words. I am looking forward to many more years of publishing posts but with a clear focus on the climate crisis and with a louder voice!