Stuart McMillen

Earlier today I launched my latest cartoon “The Problem”. Things had been a little quiet on my cartoon website because I’ve been busy with other projects, and (more importantly) waiting for inspiration to strike. Inspiration for this one came on Friday night and I spent all of Saturday and some of Sunday working on it.

Since the meaning behind some of my cartoons are sometimes debated by readers, for this one I thought I’d get on the front foot and explain myself.

Inspiration
Although some of the imagery relates to BP’s current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the cartoon was written as a broader critique of the fossil fuel lobby and the undue influence they have in our economies and political systems.

Left? Right? Centre?
My main concern is that this cartoon will be tagged as some ‘lefty rant’. How sad is it that environmental issues are chiefly seen as a so-called ‘left-wing concern’, as if conservatives are somehow able to tolerate the man-made toxins and ills that stem from unsound business practices. I can’t understand the antagonistic fanaticism that some people hold for activities that clearly have destructive consequences, yet align with a deep-seated ideology towards status quo.

Environmental concerns should cut across the spectrum of political ideologies, and I hope my cartoons can be a part of the chorus of voices trying to demonstrate that ‘the economy’ and ‘the environment’ are not polar opposites. Why settle for second-best? If an activity produces 80% ‘good’ and 20% ‘bad’ for society, let’s work to make the equation 100% ‘good’ and 0% ‘bad’.

The roles of business and government
The first thing to change must be the current muddied distinction between business and government. As the cartoon alludes, businesses spend an excessive amount of time and resources lobbying governments, donating money to politicians, and generally trying to be the ones setting the rules of the economy. At the same time, governments too often wade into the domain of free enterprise – setting prices, picking winners and establishing programs that could be more efficiently implemented by industry.

The role of government
Governments have the critical role in setting the laws and standards for which business must abide. Taking the role of the ‘guardian’, governments sets the vision for the world and the climate for the behaviour of business. Taking care not to be too prescriptive, governments give businesses incentive to innovate by setting targets for energy efficiency, materials recycling. Through law, they also determine the activities which are unacceptable, such as the use and disposal of certain chemicals as advised by scientists.

The role of business
If governments have a talent for standards and regulation, the innate talent of free enterprise is creativity and innovation. In a healthy commercial system, industry wastes no time resisting government legislation and instead employs bright minds and lateral thinking to meet and exceed the targets set by governments. Realising that laws and standards apply to their competitors as equally as it applies to them, successful businesses seek competitive advantage from surpassing the competition whilst working within the framework set by governments.

The distinction must be made clear. Governments should be steering the boat and industry should be rowing. If the government sticks to what it is good at, and industry sticks to what it is good at, the whole system will work efficiently.

A price on pollution: the economy as the solution
The individuals who built the companies and institutions behind the industrial economy didn’t set out to make a system that slowly destroys the life on Earth. I’m sure the current CEOs and leaders of industry don’t want to leave that legacy either. Unfortunately, that’s what is happening as a result of ‘business as usual’.

Although often historically ignored and counted as ‘zero’, damage to the environment is a major cost that reduces our future ability to live a quality life. As the cartoon alludes, whenever there is an ‘externality’ from industry to the environment (for example, water pollution), it falls upon society to cover the ‘cost’ of this mistake. The most efficient way to correct this market failure is to calculate the cost to society from damaging behaviours, and impose the costs on the polluters.

Adding taxes to pollution do not ‘add costs’ to the economy as some might claim. Rather, they redistribute society’s costs towards the party responsible for the damage, giving direct incentive for improvements to be made. By enforcing a price on pollution and regularly raising environmental standards, it is amazing how quickly industry uses its talents of innovation to find cleaner (and therefore cheaper) ways of doing business. Unfortunately, this will not happen while it is still considered ‘free’ to pollute, as is currently the situation for many toxic activities.

Putting it all together
In short, the negative, mucky way of conducting business that I describe in the cartoon can be reversed. All it takes from business is a positive attitude which focuses on its natural talent for innovation and efficiency. Transferring its resources away from lawyers, lobbyists and spin-doctors and towards scientists, engineers and inventors. All it takes from governments is the courage to stand firm in the face of the vested interests of lobby grounds and act in the public interest. Governments must understand that for every laggard business that whinges about complying with government standards (“we cant”), there is always a cunning competitor profiting by leading the way (“we are”).

More reading
To dive deeper into these issues and learn about ways that business must reinvent itself, beg, borrow or steal the books “Cradle to Cradle” (2002), “The Ecology of Commerce” (1993) and “Natural Capitalism” (1999). (I lament my need to re-emphasise the compelling views of these authors in 2010, given the original publication date of the books!)

Keep your eyes peeled (and your accounts subscribed) for more illustrated ideas about the green economy in the coming months.

Name: Carrotmob
Description: Targeted green consumer activist movement
Founded: San Francisco, 2008

No, this has nothing to do with the crunchy orange root vegetables. The name Carrotmob comes from their principles of using ‘incentive carrots’ to try and change business behaviour.

Carrotmob aims to mobilise a group of shoppers who are willing to spend their consumer dollars with businesses that commit to improving their environmental credentials. Some steps to Carrotmobbing:

• Carrotmob organisers choose a particular geographic area and business category (e.g. bottle shop, restaurant) that they want to target, and then invite locals businesses to compete with each other.
• The businesses submit proposals for the percentage of sales revenue (etc) that they will use to improve their environmental impact.
• The proposals are all evaluated by the Carrotmob organisers, and eventually one winner is chosen.
• On a particular day, the Carrotmob supporters all visit the winning business and spend their money to reward the business owner for their outstanding commitments.
• The results of the day’s trading are collated, and the Carrotmob organisers, often in conjunction with a supporting organisation, go about using the money to undertake energy efficiency improvements, etc.

The above video summarises things very nicely, as does the animation on carrotmob.org. In fact their site is a wealth of information, with FAQs, a guide to organising a Carrotmob, and a history of their past successes.

I have some reservations with the Carrotmob concept, but overall it is a good, positive initiative. Does anyone want to help me organise a Brisbane Carrotmob? Let me know.

In my last post I mentioned solar thermal energy technology. I thought I must mention how solar thermal is different to the photovoltaic solar cells that readers may be familiar with.

While photovoltaic cells directly use the sun’s light to create electricity, solar thermal installations use mirrors to concentrate the heat from the sun into a storage medium, such as molten salt. The high heat of this molten salt can then be used to turn a turbine by boiling water into steam, much like what happens in a coal, gas or nuclear power plant. The benefit of solar thermal over photovoltaics is that it can be relied upon as a baseload, 24 hour power source as heat is gradually drawn from the molten salt when required. The benefits of solar thermal over coal, gas and nuclear is that it requires no fuel inputs, and emits no pollution from its operations.

I’m sure I’m not the only one excited by technology such as this. I’m fascinated by the idea of energy sources that need no fuel inputs and produce no pollution or emissions. Better yet, the cost of solar thermal is comparable to coal power plants and the technology is well-suited to Australian conditions. Bring it on.

A quote from page 87 of The Ecology of Commerce (1993) by Paul Hawken:

Solar technologies are currently more expensive than coal because they internalise their costs to the environment, but coal externalises its costs.

I think it’s great that despite this situation (the costs of coal pollution to the environment being written off as ‘free’), solar thermal is still emerging as an economic challenger to coal under these ‘old rules’. When we remember that coal is only ‘cheap’ because of the incomplete way we account for its environmental lifecycle, the choice between fossil fuels and renewables is stark. Let’s make our priority supporting clean, rapidly deployable technology such as solar thermal.

What would it take to transition Australia’s electricity grid to 100% renewable energy in 10 years?

That is the question asked by the Beyond Zero Emissions group, who are a part of the exciting Transition Decade movement. Better still, they think they have an answer to the question.

The plan uses current, proven, commercially available technologies in a 60/40 split between solar thermal and wind. Their plans maps the sites of the solar and wind modules to areas with appropriate sun and wind resources that are suitably close to major cities.

The upfront costs of the plan have been calculated, with a quoted figure of $35-40 billion per year for 10 years – the equivalent of 3-4% of Australia’s GDP. The group state that with the economies of scale associated with such a project, the cost of installing these solar and wind options are close to parity with that of coal power. The upside, of course, is we won’t have to deal with the many dirty consequences of coal mining and coal-fired power plants, and that we will have invested in a brand new grid of energy utilities that requires no fuel inputs.

Beyond Zero Emissions are keen to take on the might of the fossil fuel lobby, who have long run a scare campaign about renewable energy: specifically that renewables are too expensive, can’t provide baseload power, will cost jobs and will ‘wreck the economy’. Level-headed analysis dismisses those claims as scare tactics by vested interests.

T10 Launch – Mark Ogge from Transition Decade on Vimeo.

The T10 plan show that there are no resource constraints (steel, concrete, glass, labour, etc) that are holding us back from a 100% renewable energy grid in one decade’s time. Personally, I think there are just three things holding us back:

• community members who have not been informed that such economical clean energy alternatives exist and are ready to be deployed
• politicians stuck in the ‘coal, coal, coal’ mindset who have not been shown a vision of the benefits that a transition to renewable energy would provide for the economy and society
• environmentally informed citizens who are not doing all that they can do to make this plan succeed (I raise my hand to this category)

Please take ten minutes to watch the above video, and please help spread the word of this credible plan. We need this issue on the agenda in the lead-up to the 2010 federal election.

A website I visited half a year ago, and haven’t been able to get out of my head is The 3/50 Project.

The project encourages people to select three local independently-owned businesses, and pledge to spend at least $50 between them each month. According to the site, for every $100 spent at a locally-owned independent store, $68 dollars stays in the community. For $100 spent at a national chain, only $43 stays in the local community.

The site is fairly US-focused, but is though-provoking for anyone interested in the effect of their spending. I thought I’d give a shout-out to three local Brisbane businesses that I frequently support:

• Food Connect – possibly the ulimate example of an enterprise that benefits all it does business with. Food Connect is a fruit and vegetable supplier which exclusively deals with produce which is “local & chemical spray-free first, organic where possible”. I will write more about Food Connect in the future.
• A Night in India – Located one train station away from me, in Toowong, A Night in India is the best restaurant in Brisbane. They have an extensive range of vegetarian dishes, all of which are extremely tasty and wholesome. Kitty and I are regulars there!
• Rocking Horse Records – even in the digital age, the appeal of collecting music in physical form is still with me. Compared to the unsettling feeling of stepping into a chain music store, it always feels right supporting an independent like Rocking Horse. I am a fixture at the ‘second hand new arrivals’ rack.