Complexity and disorder
My work as a sustainability consultant largely involves making sense, or finding a pathway through complexity. The word sustainability itself is loaded with so much meaning, politicism and overuse that it often fails to inspire. Responses to my work and job title don’t generally elicit an understanding of what I do or what sustainability is. Personal assumptions, cognitive bias, all these inherent traits, conspire to deprive us the opportunities for the depth of conversations needed. Our echo-chamber, algorithmic virtual lives don’t help.
My Facebook algorithm pinged up an article in The Economist by Ted Norhaus. The clickbait worked (here I am writing this) and it also got me thinking, once again, about the nuances of the climate and sustainability work I undertake. Ted clearly carries his distinct bias for technological revolutions. Many of the environmentalists I know, shun the possibilities of nuclear power, geo-engineering and the like, but happily promote renewables and electric cars. A handful recognise the downstream impacts from source materials, with all their inequalities and poverty.
How many of us (in the West) generally accept the hidden poverty, inequalities and tragic ecosystem losses that are embedded in our day-to-day lives? We all do, we all live with these, environmentalist or not. The global north is built on pollution, whether that’s tangible on the land or in the ocean, or within our souls, from the blood of colonialism to rampant consumerism. Ethics explode in this minefield.
Recently with a client, we were discussing the broad parameters of sustainability thinking within different business fields. Now I know in my heart that much of what is discussed is, in reality, just tinkering around the edges (I told them that too). My role there was to guide them through the path towards sustainability, not to provide answers. Much like stockmarket analysis, no one has a crystal ball.
It is important to remember, that there are clear benefits for much of the established resource-use efficiencies work. Saving energy, water and waste are no brainers, common sense. It hurts trying to say this though, when the other end of capitalism brings us the necessity to fly empty airlines to retain their slots. Herein lies disorder.
Navigating the nuances, oppositions and dilemmas of building the brave new world, in whatever form it takes, will be all of us. No one single technology or zero-carbon strategy will be perfect. Our complexities, personal, societal, geographic and more, will require equally agile and tactical responses. It is worth being open to all ideas and innovations, interrogating and researching rapidly to quicken progress. One size will not fit all. Pushing specific pathways whilst dismissing historic legacies or utopias of environmentalism diminishes our collective efforts.
Sitting with these challenges, as a human, shaped by the very specific circumstances of my life, is a task. I do not have faith and therefore cannot rely on a God, definite afterlife or spiritual guide to answer these questions (I don’t think I need this either, but respect to everyone who does). I empathise, as best I can, with those who lives do not match the easy freedom I have. My Mum use to call this our ‘accident of birth’, living in this society, in this bit of the world and at this time. Her way of keeping us positive when guilt for this privileged position became overwhelming as a teenager.
Inconsistencies between what I say and how I act are, I believe, inevitable to some degree based on this accident of birth. Ruminating on history will only get us so far and so I try to focus on solutions. I endeavour to try harder; recycle obsessively, buy less plastic, buy less everything, eat less meat, quit smoking (with its eventual increased healthcare resource loading). I try and fail to break all these ingrained habits completely, importantly I keep trying.
Sheer bloody mindedness, focus, easy to say and hard to practice. In amongst the normal family dramas, realities of moving country, learning a new language and trying to work and volunteer, attention and focus is thin on the ground. Distractions, as I have written previously, abound. Getting through a day is hard enough without taking on a world of global challenges.
A friend shows me their farm, which we could stay at for free. It’s beautiful, or it will be. Really, it’s little more than a shell. No kitchen or bathroom, electricity or running water, flooring and the odd missing door. I can imagine roughing it here, with the little kids, in a yurt or caravan, but not with the teenager. The additional expense of a temporary shelter would eat further into the modest inheritance, currently our sole source of income beyond intermittent bits of work here and there.
This inheritance carries the burden of legacy, both from my parents and onwards for the children. Each month of rent, bill or other expense erodes its value and the dream of owning a little family space seems a little further away. Our budget is small but still possible, for a patch of land, maybe with existing fruit trees, water and space to rebuild or build a home. This area needs real focus, urgent focus.
Yet bathtimes come and go, school homework completed and refreshed anew and another week passes. The system of work, the need for constant capitalisation of our time and energy, is something I’ve never been great at. I’m good at the work, not the constant self promotion. This is a rub when you’re a sole trader, Jack of all trades, master of none.
Apparently, manifestation is what is needed. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I kinda believe that the universe helps out occasionally but not reliably so. I’m pretty sure I’ve been dreaming about painting walls and growing a garden for donkey’s years, but not quite manifested it yet. We’re closer to the idea and open to the universe. I pursue leads, new projects and opportunities for work.
It’s not growing trees though. The seeds I have bought with me from England remain carefully stored in their tin. My other trees are getting used to this new climate. They remain in their pots, waiting for release, watered to combat the weeks without rain. It feels obvious, even to a newcomer like me, that this is not normal winter weather. And thus, we come full circle again.
Around me the winter landscape bakes in the sun, without rain for weeks. Farmers appear regularly on TV bemoaning the weather, pictures of water reserves empty and without rain forecast. The situation is not normal.
Despite its complexities, the difficulties and challenges, tomorrow again, I and many, many others, will look to climate change. We will confront the huge, terrifying reality. We will remain open to solutions, be they technical or nature-based, as long as they are honest and transparent.
Our little dream of a farm, the whisper of its reality, will be part of the solution… one day.
