The Better Planet Guide

Our enterprises owe a large part of their efficiencies and profitability to economies of scale and replicated structures.

We have shaped the world and ordered it's resources to meet these needs, and so far we have had relatively few problems.

We have however, been ignoring the externalities that do not appear on the balance sheet - environmental and social factors.

These place more finite limits on our activities than our bankers and financiers. Water or power shortages, civil unrest and an unpredictable climate can play havoc with the most carefully planned supply chain.

Reuters USA: July 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - The World Bank wants to bring together nations split over the Kyoto Protocol to work out a new plan that would remain effective long beyond the 2012 expiration of the climate changeii treaty.

Ian Johnson, the World Bank's top environment official, said global divisions over climate changeii offer an opportunity for the bank to take a more prominent role on international policies.

Is it possible to stop climate changeii without changing the way we work? If not what sacrifices will we have to make?

Current business models force us to live on borrowed time and resources. Our current profits are often at the expense of future revenues - investors demanding high rates of growth and fast exits, the encouragement of aggressive plundering by directors and shareholders, and the payment of large salaries and bonuses. Could we have to pay all of this back in the future? Have we reached the point where we can be held both morally and financially liable for the effects our activities have on the climate? Will our insurers and underwriters start getting twitchy? Now it has happened to tobacco, could it happen to us?

I don’t believe we should stand quietly by and let governments and corporations do whatever they please. However, I honestly feel that the powers that be have gone a little deaf to the longhairs shouting in the streets. Our western civilisation only really listens when money talks. So, if we want to be heard, we have to start talking in the language of money.

Within our society, individual humans have been relegated to the role of “consumer”. Others produce, we pay, consume, repeat. The consumer however is not a powerless entity; in fact, the whole free marketii system exists to serve them. Unfortunately, until recently, the consumer has looked something like this:

The end is nigh. The sky is falling. The sea is rising. We are all going to die. You are going to die. Die. Die.

When we pass these characters on the street, we may feel a little sad for them, we may chuckle, we may even stop and listen to them rant for a while. What we don’t do is take the seriously. We move on, we pay a little less attention next time.

As awareness of our impact on the environment has grown, we have somehow come to let the Doom Sayers speak for all those who feel that something should be done. We’ve let hook waving extremists come to represent an entire section of the population that has nothing to do with them. For those of us who actually want to deal with causes and not just the symptoms, it may be necessary to cut the whole “climate change” thing loose, and start again.

Here's my beef, my bitch, my great complaint: I've had enough of bitching and complaining.

If we get stuck in a protest mindset, we are actually telling ourselves that we cannot actually do anthing ourselves. We get so obsessed with what is wrong that we can see nothing else. We find nothing but fault in everything around us. The only good we can see is in the way things once were, in sentimentality - in conservatism.

(a) In the light of increasing globalisation of the aviation industry, how should the UK s approach to alliances, code-sharing and franchising meet the objectives of sustainablei development?

162. There were 72 responses to this question. Few respondents directly addressed the question of sustainablei development and there were few common themes in the responses. One respondent said that alliances contribute to the objective of sustainablei development by improving customer and economic welfare therefore the Government needs to encourage them by removing constraints and barriers. It was suggested that airlines should demonstrate how their proposals are compatible with sustainablei development.

We live within the system. Here in this first world, we cannot escape it. We are in deep. If you want to make any difference, you have to learn to swim, swim well.

For those who want to see changes in the way the world works, there is always the dillemma as to whether or not you can change the system from within. Is getting involved "selling out". Unfortunately, it's too late. If you dont want to support the capitalist system, you can make a difference in a place that does not rely on it to exist. In Europe and the US, you have no way to escape, you need the system just to survive. (yes, there are a few exceptions, but you cannot make those public, because then they would stop existing.)  You may not be able to escape the system itself, but what is the system?

Changing the world is serious business. If you want to actually achieve something in the world-changing game, you have to be willing to put in a lot of work. Spending a few days now and then shouting in the streets can only go so far. What do you want to change? What do you want to replace it with ? How, step by step, can you make this change happen ? Is each step achievable? There is nothing innately wrong with a great dream. There is a very definate need for places where we can exist beyond the rules of every day society. We need circuses to run away to. But, when it comes down to actually bringing about a better world, it's not the circus that will be turning the wheels. Without the test of the open marketi, it is very easy for activisti projects to collect the "circus folk" who want the dream but not the work.

I think this is one of the cornerstones of my argument: Governments cannot think beyond their term in office, and they rely too much on business for their power. If you want to change things you have to work the businesses and not the politicians.

In the eyes of business, we are consumers. As consumers, we influence marketis. It's not quite democracy, teh idea of "one person one vote" is nowhere to be found, but we still have power. By changing our buying habbits, we create new marketis and end old ones. Each one of us does make a difference. The "consumers" who make a significant difference are those willing to go the extra mile, who are dedicated enough to trek half-way across the city to find the only store selling the products they need. These consumers build marketis, and they destroy old ones.