Freedom (Chris)

Freedom is being able to choose. 

To choose your environment. 

To choose how to spend your time. 

To choose your purpose. 

To choose your income. 

To choose your relationships.

Sometimes these freedoms come with a heavy price tag. Other times they just require a decision.

This is how I chose my time, environment and relationships this morning.

We saw deer (mother and fawn), birds great and small, the sun warmed our backs and created shafts through the canopy. The dogs chased scents to their hearts' content.

This was a simple way to start the day, and so energising. It just takes a decision.

I love freedom.

Chris Gardener

A friend who works as a Business Consultant at his business, Strategic Mentors

Indigenous Garden

My father and his wife have spent the last 20 years building an indigenous garden on a one acre plot in Hillcrest, South Africa. The British occupation of the Cape Colony led to an exchange not just of people, things, and ideas but also of plants. Australian trees gained world wide popularity, and one of these was the Blue Gum. Thirsty as they are, they make it very difficult for other plants to survive. They on the other hand, thrive. The first job in establishing the garden was removing more than 50 of these trees. With the benefit of time, all that was required was cutting a path, and slowly leaving the garden to, mostly, look after itself. Now and then adding a few plants. Tending the path. Occasionally dealing with the aftermath of storms. Sometimes natural, sometimes the ones in my head and heart. A lesson in resilience.

This garden is a happy place.

Revising Exam Answers

If we stay private till we plonk, we can't see the thought process people have gone through in order to come to their conclusions. We only see the end result. The path is more important than the conclusion. People change their own minds. The way we see the world changes as we see new things. The curse of knowledge makes it very difficult to ununderstand things. If you know that squiggles make words, you can't see squiggles - you can only see words. We are often forced to vote on things we don't understand. I think we should do more thinking in public, and be more open to changing our minds. We should be more critical of our own ideas once they are out there. Like being in an exam. You have a limited time to answer. You do your best. Then afterwards you see where you made mistakes, and you improve your answers for next time.

A friend and I are having a debate about some of the topical political issues. I am no expert. I have attempted to answer ten of his questions exam style. I sat down, and answered them in one sitting. Fancy marking my answers? More questions or direction to resources that would lead to better answers would be appreciated.

Exam Time

1. Should people have access to universal (free) tertiary education?

Various countries have different approaches. I am not familiar with the evidence. Intuitively it feels like learning shouldn't be a privilege, but I feel similarly to education as I do to housing. You can make things almost free by increasing supply. Water is almost free and incredibly valuable. Providing loans for people who can't afford it increases demand, but not supply, and so just makes things more expensive. I am hoping Education Technology makes education significantly more democratic. I am for a Universal Basic Income. That would allow people to make their own choice on what to spend money on, which would include education.

2. Should people have access to universal healthcare?

Primary and emergency healthcare does seem like a basic human right. Some cultures are better than others at holistic health, which also includes what you eat, how much exercise you get, whether you make time to relax etc. Work environments that are healthy etc. are as much a part of health as paid for treatment. Market forces struggle in healthcare and create perverse incentives. I suspect if a Universal Basic Income could free people who are natural carers from worrying about how to survive financially, more of them would focus on caring for free. Free healthcare does lead to very difficult moral questions around available, but very expensive treatments. That shouldn't stop us providing for the basics though.

3. Should environmental regulation be informed by the recommendations of environmental scientists or by the industries such regulations would affect?

Both. I think anyone who feels they have something to contribute to regulations should be listened to. Science, by definition, is open to to evidence that can prove it wrong. It should be rigorous in its approach. Regulations should direct activity away from wealth capture and towards wealth creation and attempt as far as possible to quantify and allow for negative unintended consequences. Industry  will be best placed to articulate their interests, and then government should be able to incorporate that, and the interest of society, into the rule of law.

4. Should we have a global carbon reduction target based on the recommendations of science?

Yes. That is what the consensus of the world's experts is. That should be factored in to creating the best possible steps to start targeting the various problems the world faces. Problems can't be looked at in isolation, and so negotiating these things at multi-national level can get ridiculously complicated. I am a fan of micro-ambitious measures. Things that the man in the street can do. Things like eating less (or no) meat, using public transport, and being aware of individual impacts of what we do. Any plans that stop us having to depend on negotiating big plans. Small bottom up plans are better.

5. Should the majority of the land at the ground plane in our cities be publicly accessible?

I am a big fan of shared spaces. I love parks and paths. The best cities I have visited have all seemed open to all, allowing all those who visit or live there to be cultural billionaires. The biggest menace for me in cities is cars. I am looking forward to more efficient transport that removes the need for private vehicles and opens up more of the tar to walking, bicycles and shared vehicles. Cities are our best chance to create communities where we can break down barriers and learn to live together. That needs space.

6. Should we sell public assets to fund public services?

I like the idea of Community Wealth Funds. Where public assets are held in custodianship not just for the current generation. The analogy of the fruits of the tree being fair game as long as you look after the tree, and use some of the fruits to grow more trees. Selling the asset to fund services doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Rather make the asset work and use the fruits to fund services... or put the money in people's hands to decide what services they buy.

7. Should political parties be allowed to receive money from companies?

I don't like partisan politics. I do think the US is an example of where money and lobbying have gone awry. An arms race where both sides spending cancels each other out in a Zero Sum Game. Transparency probably helps. In the Financial Services Industry, there has been a big change in terms of what companies are allowed to spend on intermediaries. I think that has helped. I think it is a problem that fundraising and sharing of ideas are so linked. I prefer the idea of us all being interested in building consensus and listening to all parties. We can do a better job with democracy. The mix with money is one of many problems.

8. Should governments fund research more or less?

There is always a trade-off between research and current expenditure. Some important areas of research are under-funded and others over-funded. The question for me is how do we ensure we are working on the most important problems? There is a tendency for people to build up the importance of their expertise in order to get funding. The funding becomes the focus. As we get richer, we can start stripping away these kinds of incentives through increasing Universal Basic Incomes etc. Combining improved incentives with better communication, I believe the community itself can find the right balance between how much is spent on the future, and how much is spent on now. The community itself can best decide how to be good custodians. 

9. What is more important, freedom or dignity?

I don't think it is a competition and I don't think values can be quantified. Values change as society changes and different communities make different moral trade offs. I believe most people value both freedom and dignity. Constraints on freedom make for better co-ordination and co-operation. Rule of law makes things work smoothly when everyone agrees on the rules and plays by them. Dignity gets fuzzy. Adam Smith spoke of money being put aside to maintain leaderships dignity. I think leaders can live simply. The Pope shows that. Most Monarchs, less so. Dignity also gets fuzzy with things like free speech. I am for different communities coming to different agreements about how to deal with these things. Allowing for a variety of combinations of moral ingredients.

10. If we have a global carbon reduction agreement, should trade be a vehicle for its enforcement?

Yes. In a world of scarcity, I do think markets are the most efficient vehicles (within agreed rules) to allocate things. If there is a limited supply, demand can push the price up till the demand decreases. The rules would need to allow for any unintended consequences, so should operate within a democratic system.

China (Tim)

I used to live in the People’s Republic of China, which doesn’t belong to the people at all; it belongs to the government, and any Chinese person who disputes that will find himself summarily disappeared. Ironically, the Chinese public generally seem to support their repressive government – partly from fear, and partly from national pride. In fact, human rights (and full access to the Internet) seem to be a low priority for most Chinese, who are more interested in catching up with the developed west. Unfortunately this progress is a double deal with the devil because it’s also leading to the greatest environmental catastrophe in history.

Tim Casteling

Other posts by and with Tim

Old Friends - Encouraging Empathy - The Martyr Complex - South Korea

Saving the Planet for Nothing (Georgie George)

One of the challenges with science is that you can't really prove things. You can disprove things. With maths we know the rules because we set them based on obviously true conceptual facts and build up from there. Science is more complicated. There are normally lots of people arguing. It is tempting to just find the people that agree with you. Sometimes the experts are wrong because the smart people have moved on to unsolved problems. Sometimes the consensus is wrong. Ask Galileo. I still think you can make reasonable life choices if you keep your wits about you and keep half an eye out for whether you are on the side of the crazies. Bad science gets found out. 

For the Australians out there, I apologize for Georgie's banter. I recognise it well, we met representing our respective residences at university. My residence was for the good looking, intelligent, athletic, witty and inspirational guys. His was for the others. Despite that, he's a good guy.

Saving the Planet for Nothing
Georgie George

In 1988 James Hansen (who none of you have ever heard of), a climate scientist from NASA, gave testimony before the United States Congressional hearings on the “Global Warming trend”. This testimony gave way to the conference in Rio De Janeiro which then gave way to the Kyoto protocol which then gave way to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Again, most of you would probably only have heard of the Kyoto Protocol? In short, what all these conventions and expert panels are supposed to achieve is a common agreement between all participating countries on the levels of atmospheric emissions we should limit each country to, to ensure that the average global temperature increase does not exceed 2 degrees. The idea is that the more harmful gases (specifically carbon dioxide and methane) we emit into the atmosphere, the warmer the planet is going to get. It’s like sitting in your car in the hot sun, windows closed, chain smoking and eating a lot of baked beans. It’s not going to end well!

Between Hollywood and South Park, some of these concepts should be familiar? There have been numerous models demonstrating the impacts on the planet with a 2 degree rise in temperature, like the rise in sea levels by 1m in some places, completely swallowing California (not so great) and parts of Australia (I can live with that), the shift of the global weather patterns which completely destroys global food security. Essentially the “worst parts of the Bible”, or any apocalyptic movie… that does not have Zombies, or Aliens, or flying sharks…

Anyway… what was my point?.... oh yes…  Most of you probably haven't made up your mind on the whole issue of climate change or global warming. 'The fact is the science is darn confusing and there is just as much research disproving global warming as there is proving that it is already occurring.' The most common excuse is that “the planet is just in another natural warming cycle, things will balance out”. I am by no means an expert on the topic. There are many more qualified people out there with many more consonants behind their name that are much more appropriate to speak on the subject. But I'm pretty sure the planet didn’t have large industries, cars, Burger King (that’s right you big yellow M franchise… you have been replaced in colloquial language) or the internet. Surely there must be some merit to the argument that humans had/have a hand in destroying the planet?

Let’s forget for a moment all the science and all the theories that have been put forward on the warming of the planet or the death and destruction that awaits us all. Let's just focus on our (the humans) impact on the planet and see if we can appreciate the part we play in it. Let's limit our sphere of influence to a single day, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night (I'm going with a basic case where you are a single individual living in a one bedroom apartment, driving a modest car…ok, you can have a convertible, and you have a corner office in a trendy part of town…any town…except anywhere in Australia… or Canada… there is nothing trendy there). I'll try not to go into too much detail, but I want you to think about every activity throughout this period in terms of “using energy” i.e. electricity, gas, or generating waste i.e. “trash or anything you have to flush away, or expel into the atmosphere”. Does it make sense?

Ready? … let's give it a try

• 5:30  - wake up
• alarm clock probably plugged in – energy used
• if you are guy, you probably broke wind  - waste expelled
• If you are a lady… you probably did too – but it was cute and I won’t count it
• Unplug smartphone –energy used
• Check Facebook, twitter, tumblr etc and check how many “likes”, “retwits” you got – poke a few people- retweet etc– how much energy is used to “Power the internet”? Answer – a lot of energy and a lot of waste expelled (take my word for it… I still have a few consonants in the relevant field after my name)
• Evacuation (like in Austin powers?) – waste expelled (if you had curry the night before… a lot of it evacuated…painfully)
• Brush teeth – waste expelled (not sure if you want to switch evacuation and this one?)
• 5:45 – Cup of coffee
• Boil kettle – energy used
• Coffee – energy used at some point to buy it… more energy used and waste generated getting the coffee to the shelf. =>  does this make sense? If you are in London and are drinking coffee, there is no way was grown in TESCO’s backyard. The coffee beans were grown in some poor country where even poorer people picked the fruit, and roasted the fruit to get the beans which were transported to another country that was then roasted again and then ground to a coarse texture. Then it had to be packaged, branded and then shipped to the store shelf. I am leaving out a great amount of detail here. But you get the point? Things don't just appear on the shelf. It has gone through a process to get to you. => don't forget, at some point, you will throw that tin of coffee away => waste generated
• Milk from the fridge – energy used to keep milk cold, waste generated from milk carton at some point => now do the same thinking process for milk, or electricity that we did for coffee :-)
• 6:00 -  all packed and out the door
• Get in car, drive to gym -  energy used, waste expelled
• Most of you probably used your phone while driving? – energy used, waste expelled
• 6:30 – 7:30  - gym and shower
• Using a facility with excessive lighting, TV’s everywhere, loud music and central air conditioning – copious amounts of energy used and lots of waste expelled
• 8:00  - drive to work - energy used, waste expelled
• 8:15 – another cup of coffee – energy used and waste expelled
• But you used a paper cup – waste generated
• And there was a plastic spoon – waste generated
• Oh… but you spilt some coffee on the floor, need a paper towel – waste generated (because you are a decent person and you wouldn't leave it for the janitor)
• 8:30 – 10:00 – Check emails / surf daily news – energy used and waste expelled
• 10:15 – Toilet break – waste generated
• 10:17 – Coffee break 2 – see above
• 10:30 – Meeting – death by PowerPoint, more coffee => energy used, waste generated and expelled 
• This is getting tedious… fast forward to getting home at 18:00 (there was lots of internet surfing, office banter, checking of social media / using smartphone and more coffee drinking during the course of the day… you probably printed a few reports that no one will ever read) => lots of energy used and lots of waste generated
• Shower – energy used and waste expelled (geyser was probably on all day… so lots of energy used and lots of waste expelled somewhere)
• Supper, take out – waste generated
• 20:00 – Watch TV – energy used, waste expelled.
• 22:00 – go to sleep
• If you are a guy, you definitely broke wind – waste expelled
• If you are lady… stop it… it was only cute the first time!

This was a very brief example and by no means exhaustive. The point I was trying to make was that every action we take has a consequence, either from the amount of energy we consume to the amount of waste we generate. Now add in your family members to the scenario above, co-workers, friends, random strangers, all those cows to give us those delicious bovine products (especially Biltong). Suddenly there is a lot of energy being used and there is a lot of waste being generated / expelled. But where does all the waste go? Well…the large amounts of gases go into the atmosphere… and the solid stuff…goes… into landfills, or the oceans <= The real picture of the actual waste disposal process is not pretty, so I'll leave it vague.

I wasn't trying to convince you of the link between human emissions and climate change. What I was trying to illustrate was that:

• you spend too much time on your smart phones / social media / reading useless pieces on the internet (not this one of course)
• you need to drink a few more glasses of water a day
• you need a bit more roughage (it will make evacuation easier)
• your impact to the environment and the planet is not inconsequential.

Whether you are convinced that the planet is getting warmer, or that there may be a human influence on climate change or not, you have to appreciate the impact you have on the environment around you? Hopefully you will think a bit more about you actions going forward, who knows, you might even join a Facebook campaign to save the planet…