A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Arctic Frontiers conference, what I saw, and how I interpreted it. It oozed a slick kind of velour with all of the enforced seriousness you get with heads of state in attendance. As a consequence those smaller voices were marginalized, or presented in a way that was to make the big players give themselves a pat on the back for bringing them in. But I'll save the bitter recriminations that are perhaps obvious to those who go to these things a lot. The short story is that though interesting, I felt there was a lack of the local there, a lack of the small voice, and a lack of frank discussion.
The Jokkmokk Winter Conference couldn't have been any more different, with the attendance being half made up of students and the rest being various professionals in the field. Overall it was set up to encourage a lot of frank discussion, and discussion was had. Geared as it was towards the young or up and coming researchers in the Arctic/Climate Change, the conference really focused on communicating results and the gap between knowledge and action and possible ways to overcome it. I saw it as something of a training workshop for all of us young people that are frustrated with lack of action on Climate Change, something to encourage us to get out there and make ourselves heard. There was also a heavy local flavor at this conference, and it came across as very grass-roots, very much the opposite of Arctic Frontiers.
I'll make a few comments on how I view what was said.
Communicating Complexity
One of the first presenters and, I think, the one that really set the tone for this conference was Ilan Kellman from University College London. He had a very practical and sobering message regarding how to talk about Climate Change and some puzzling questions for the reasons that governments have done so little. He reminded us that CO2 has been suspected as a potential climate altering gas since the 1820s, and that Climate Change as an issue has existed since the 60s, with the IPCC, in his words, drowning in its own bureaucracy since 1990. It's only become more clear that it presents a threat, but the message has remained very unclear. He outlined the slipperiness and origin of terms like adaptation and mitigation, what they really mean, and how they have changed over time. It seemed to me from his presentation that we have just been moving words around this whole time, with a still unclear goal. Are we trying to stop Climate Change? Are we just trying to muddle through it?
Ilan also spoke on the issues of power in play, with both the vested interests and the not, and how challenging it is communicating the full complexity of Climate Change. People have short attention spans and generally don't want to look at issues in a complex way. Climate Change is such an easy thing to ridicule in a 140 character tweet, and so difficult to defend in the same format. Climate scientists make mistakes, and any mistakes make them easy pickings. On the issue of power, it's not just the sort of black and white world of the activists, with the Koch brothers trying to drag us into an abyss to preserve their own fortunes. The same power struggles exist among climate scientists, and Ilan related personal stories of being told specifically never to criticize the IPCC no matter their mistakes. I try to imagine the complexity of the response to climate change, and see only countless drab offices each filled with this or that petty tribal chief defending their own turf from any perceived attack. We have on our hands an issue where everyone is to blame and nobody wants to take any, it's no wonder we haven't been able to respond effectively to this challenge. We're simply too confused to properly respond.
He left us with a few messages to hopefully cut through this kind of behavior, which is to be honest, critiquing, and self-reflexive. I think this is the right sentiment but wonder if several billion of us can adopt the sort of soul-searching introspective qualities and honesty that are probably required to head off Climate Change. I thought that one of his really interesting points was when he asked why it is that Climate Change in particular has to define everything when it might be better to plan for the future in general. This is interesting because it had a host of follow on considerations, like, if there was no defining issue for the future, would there be any incentive to invest in long-term planning like renewable resources or curbing emissions? I think strategically thinking there has to be at least an element of fear to push changes, certainly not the only element, but it has to exist in some part.
Application to Strategy
Strategically speaking, this sort of word play and fear making in the Climate Change narrative is necessary. The goal is to move a body of people in a general direction that they don't want to move in. Discomfort must exist for people to change. Yes, I hold some aspect of disgust at the fact that we have to resort to such word play to get things moving. Because if you look at things in a cold, rational kind of way, yeah, the Climate Change narrative can come across as extremely annoying. People are out there seriously telling people to do things that are "good for the planet." A stupider phrase might exist, but I haven't heard it, and it really trivializes the complexity of the relationship between humans and the ecosystems in which we live.
There is something incongruous about having to package the multifaceted, chimeric nature of Climate Change into such simple bits, but it's necessary, and the unfortunate side effect is that because the narrative doesn't encapsulate the full truth of the issue, it's easy to criticize and to troll. This makes it a bit self-defeating, but I'm not sure it can be avoided, because if it doesn't contain some element of fear or urgency in it, people aren't going to bother taking the long view when they have immediate issues affecting them. The Climate Change narrative either gets bogged down by nit-picking criticism or it runs the risk of never getting over the top of the immediate crises of the day.
It's perhaps easy to get frustrated by these very human fallacies, but Climate Change is a human issue and there's no getting around the fact that one of the biggest parts of finding a solution is communicating the problem in a way that galvanizes action. The greatest difficulty in curbing climate change won't be in finding technical means to make renewables viable, or in defeating resourced and vested interests, but in getting people to change very ingrained behavior and look to the long term. To link strategy to their daily lives.
Friday, February 6, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Arctic Frontiers - My Impressions
I had the privilege to go to Arctic Frontiers last weekend as part of the U Arctic group of Student Ambassadors, and have a few impressions related to my work on Arctic Strategy (which has bloomed a bit to also encompass general research on whether or not governments are taking appropriate measures to confront climate change and protect the Arctic in a broad sense). These come from my viewings of a few of the presentations on hand, the general setting, and meetings with PM Stubb, the Prince of Monaco, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway, and Admiral Papp, US Special Representative to the Arctic.
One thing to note before I dive into it, is that this is a very high-level conference, and though grass roots players were present, they seemed to me to take a back stage or secondary role to the heads of state, business players, and NGO leaders. So it's not the whole story of thoughts and interests for the Arctic, but a highly influential side of things regardless. Perhaps the most influential.
Business Seems More Important than the Environment
This is the general theme that I got from this conference, though much of the time it was subtext that I interpreted. Many speakers brought up the recent Nature article about how to prevent a temperature rise of 2C or over, the oil in the Arctic has to remain in the ground, but these were limited to NGO leaders like Samantha Smith of the WWF or the Prince of Monaco, or their like. Business leaders and government officials emphasized the business opportunities of the globalized and warming Arctic.
Either that or they seemed to adopt a somber persona and warn of the dangers, right before getting animated and talking about the "exploding" rise in Arctic shipping as Papp did. Dr. Yang, a Chinese scientist gave a speech warning about the potential extreme weather and loss of coastline that China will experience under fully realized climate change, right before expressing the opportunities for shorter shipping routes. Interesting, will the kilometers saved from a northern sea route compensate for a submerged Shanghai (his own prediction)? Likewise, Admiral Papp mentioned that the Singaporeans are hugely interested in the Arctic for both the threat a melting Arctic brings their small, coastal city-state, as well as for the potential for business.
This lack of urgency, as the Prince put it, is worrying, but not new. Governmental legitimacy is staked on providing a certain standard of living for their peoples, and this in the current day means a symbiotic relationship between them and big business (Mathias Finger, 2013, What Does the Arctic Teach us?). Keep the growth going at all cost, both of them rely on it.
Adaptation, not Mitigation
Overwhelmingly, the strategic emphasis seemed to be on adaptation to climate change and changing conditions in the Arctic. Admiral Papp mentioned it as one of the three priorities for the American chairmanship, and there was little mention of strategic mitigation at this conference that I could see. This is possibly due to the fact that it's something of a regional gathering that perhaps has little impact on mitigation anyways, but many of the Arctic countries are highly involved globally, and what happens in the Arctic has global impacts so it's discouraging to see so little discussion of it.
Oil Drilling in the Arctic is Inevitable
Admiral Papp said this explicitly, and others, including a representative from an oil consulting company and Fran Ulmer, former Lt. Governor of Alaska, more or less implied this. Indeed, the aforementioned representative and Fran Ulmer had very similar statements about this topic, both saying that whether or not it happens is down to economics, politics, and (Fran only) demographics. But hearing this while at the same time hearing from Fran that the industry is of a split opinion on whether or not it's technologically capable of safely exploiting Arctic reserves is worrisome. Low oil prices now, true, but that is temporary. Economics and demographics then will likely demand it, and politics will, for the same reasons mentioned earlier, allow it.
The International System is Inadequate
I asked the PM of Finland whether or not he thought this was true and he confirmed it. He did say that the governance systems developing in the Arctic are a good start, but also mentioned that big countries like the US and Russia like the status quo because they benefit from it, while small countries may want differences, their ability to enforce that is relatively slight.
Overall then, I got the impression that most players are either resistant to change or have limited influence to bring it about, whether it be small countries or regional players. To me I see it as a disconnect between the Arctic region and the wider globe. What happens in the Arctic is determined by the activities of those outside of it. But with such powerful players in the Arctic I don't see this disconnect as insurmountable.
The Arctic is perhaps our best opportunity yet to test our systems' abilities to plan ahead, to take the long view in the context of confronting something that is on the horizon, but not quite arrived yet. On the issue of the Arctic, those with stakes seem to yield to the fact that the global system will enforce the effects of climate change, and are seeking to adapt more than anything else and get some gain out of it. This is too bad, the United States is a power that could powerfully merge global issues with the Arctic, instead of continuing to treat it like a region alone. Unfortunately, they seem to rate it a secondary issue at best. But their chairmanship is approaching, and they are paying more attention than before.
I will take the liberty of editorializing though and cherry picking a vignette from the conference to reinforce my thoughts. Dr. George Hunt, a fisheries scientist from the University of Washington, explained that there will likely be an increase in fishery viability in the Arctic due to warming, and that those species that rely on summer ice are in existential trouble. When asked by the moderator if there was anything to be done, he said something along the lines of "at this point it's not looking good for them." The moderator then replied "Well that's depressing," and moved the conference along. In my mind, I just see that as evidence that people don't want to confront the difficult truths at hand.
One thing to note before I dive into it, is that this is a very high-level conference, and though grass roots players were present, they seemed to me to take a back stage or secondary role to the heads of state, business players, and NGO leaders. So it's not the whole story of thoughts and interests for the Arctic, but a highly influential side of things regardless. Perhaps the most influential.
Business Seems More Important than the Environment
This is the general theme that I got from this conference, though much of the time it was subtext that I interpreted. Many speakers brought up the recent Nature article about how to prevent a temperature rise of 2C or over, the oil in the Arctic has to remain in the ground, but these were limited to NGO leaders like Samantha Smith of the WWF or the Prince of Monaco, or their like. Business leaders and government officials emphasized the business opportunities of the globalized and warming Arctic.
Either that or they seemed to adopt a somber persona and warn of the dangers, right before getting animated and talking about the "exploding" rise in Arctic shipping as Papp did. Dr. Yang, a Chinese scientist gave a speech warning about the potential extreme weather and loss of coastline that China will experience under fully realized climate change, right before expressing the opportunities for shorter shipping routes. Interesting, will the kilometers saved from a northern sea route compensate for a submerged Shanghai (his own prediction)? Likewise, Admiral Papp mentioned that the Singaporeans are hugely interested in the Arctic for both the threat a melting Arctic brings their small, coastal city-state, as well as for the potential for business.
This lack of urgency, as the Prince put it, is worrying, but not new. Governmental legitimacy is staked on providing a certain standard of living for their peoples, and this in the current day means a symbiotic relationship between them and big business (Mathias Finger, 2013, What Does the Arctic Teach us?). Keep the growth going at all cost, both of them rely on it.
Adaptation, not Mitigation
Overwhelmingly, the strategic emphasis seemed to be on adaptation to climate change and changing conditions in the Arctic. Admiral Papp mentioned it as one of the three priorities for the American chairmanship, and there was little mention of strategic mitigation at this conference that I could see. This is possibly due to the fact that it's something of a regional gathering that perhaps has little impact on mitigation anyways, but many of the Arctic countries are highly involved globally, and what happens in the Arctic has global impacts so it's discouraging to see so little discussion of it.
Oil Drilling in the Arctic is Inevitable
Admiral Papp said this explicitly, and others, including a representative from an oil consulting company and Fran Ulmer, former Lt. Governor of Alaska, more or less implied this. Indeed, the aforementioned representative and Fran Ulmer had very similar statements about this topic, both saying that whether or not it happens is down to economics, politics, and (Fran only) demographics. But hearing this while at the same time hearing from Fran that the industry is of a split opinion on whether or not it's technologically capable of safely exploiting Arctic reserves is worrisome. Low oil prices now, true, but that is temporary. Economics and demographics then will likely demand it, and politics will, for the same reasons mentioned earlier, allow it.
The International System is Inadequate
I asked the PM of Finland whether or not he thought this was true and he confirmed it. He did say that the governance systems developing in the Arctic are a good start, but also mentioned that big countries like the US and Russia like the status quo because they benefit from it, while small countries may want differences, their ability to enforce that is relatively slight.
Overall then, I got the impression that most players are either resistant to change or have limited influence to bring it about, whether it be small countries or regional players. To me I see it as a disconnect between the Arctic region and the wider globe. What happens in the Arctic is determined by the activities of those outside of it. But with such powerful players in the Arctic I don't see this disconnect as insurmountable.
The Arctic is perhaps our best opportunity yet to test our systems' abilities to plan ahead, to take the long view in the context of confronting something that is on the horizon, but not quite arrived yet. On the issue of the Arctic, those with stakes seem to yield to the fact that the global system will enforce the effects of climate change, and are seeking to adapt more than anything else and get some gain out of it. This is too bad, the United States is a power that could powerfully merge global issues with the Arctic, instead of continuing to treat it like a region alone. Unfortunately, they seem to rate it a secondary issue at best. But their chairmanship is approaching, and they are paying more attention than before.
I will take the liberty of editorializing though and cherry picking a vignette from the conference to reinforce my thoughts. Dr. George Hunt, a fisheries scientist from the University of Washington, explained that there will likely be an increase in fishery viability in the Arctic due to warming, and that those species that rely on summer ice are in existential trouble. When asked by the moderator if there was anything to be done, he said something along the lines of "at this point it's not looking good for them." The moderator then replied "Well that's depressing," and moved the conference along. In my mind, I just see that as evidence that people don't want to confront the difficult truths at hand.
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