Adapted from the book ‘ZERO Greenhouse Emissions – The Day the Lights Went Out – Our Future World’ Chapter 8 – Nature’s Voice the Year Before

The year before and the years preceding that, both nature’s ecological voice led by the environmentalists and nature’s science voice promoted by concerned scientists had fallen on deaf economic ears.

The tree hugging, cries of ecosystem damage, species extinctions, humanitarian disasters, changing weather patterns, and more and more frequent severe weather events, while being highlighted to the true decision makers of the economically privileged, were more often an irritation rather than a concern. There may have been occasional mutterings from the halls of power when they could see the political gain in condemning whaling, promoting energy efficient light bulbs, or committing this or that $600 million or so over the next five years in Australia for climate change, while continuing to subsidize the $2 billion per month coal export trade, taking care of GDP. But largely this was window dressing, mostly green wash and political grandstanding.

Economic prosperity was sacrosanct.

Nature’s science voice was also only managing to preach to the converted. The environmentalists held rallies for the converted, rock concerts to raise awareness, lobbied endlessly trying to sell the bitter pill of economic and industrial rationalism to save the polar bear. But just like the Cree Indian before them who advised “only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten,” those that had money could buy the trees and eat the fish, and how can you make money out of polar bears anyway? You can’t blame the environmentalists; they at least acted as one single sincere voice, not for the good of themselves but for the good of the global shared community, its inhabitants, and its future. They just didn’t know how to sell to a reluctant market segment.

Any half-decent car salesman will tell you it’s easy to sell a new car to a willing buyer. You can even convert the sale to the reluctant purchaser if you ask the right questions. They’ll offer the tip. “All you need is a question directed to a reluctant purchaser that will give an answer in the positive. Never ask a question that will provide the answer, no.” “Can I help you this morning Sir?” Wrong question: this will generate “No thank you I’m just looking,” a wrong answer as the outcome. “Good morning Sir, are you looking at six-cylinder or four-cylinder vehicles this morning?” is the right question. “Just a four-cylinder thanks,” is the right answer. “They are over on this side of the lot, I’ll show you.”

The trouble with our ecological and science salesmen was that the only ones who were buying the message were the converted buyers. You couldn’t sell “It’s going to cost you dearly to save this rainforest for future generations, are you willing to pay the price?” or “It will hurt the nation’s GDP and cost jobs if we reduce our environmental impact, would you please sign the Kyoto Protocol?”

The economist Sir Nicholas Stern came close to asking the right questions in 2006 with his report. At least he in part had their tuned in, economic ear, though falling short on the purchase price of the vehicle. They already had the Mercedes SLK, and he was asking them to trade down to the four-cylinder hybrid. “This will cost you 1 percent of global GDP each year for 20 years, but waiting and the cost to global GDP will be 5 percent or even as high as 20 percent.” Where he also went wrong was that the sale of his hybrids needed to be a global fleet vehicle purchase, and some with even bigger SUVs weren’t going to trade down.

See if you can pick some of his “no thank you very much” questions in the summary of conclusions:

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response. This review has assessed a wide range of evidence on the impacts of climate change and on the economic costs, and has used a number of different techniques to assess costs and risks. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting.

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world—access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.

Using the results from formal economic models, the review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5 percent of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20 percent of GDP or more.

In contrast, the costs of action—reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change—can be limited to around 1 percent of global GDP each year.

The investment that takes place in the next 10–20 years will have a profound effect on climate in the second half of this century and in the next. Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes.

So, prompt and strong action is clearly warranted. Because climate change is a global problem, the response to it must be international. It must be based on a shared vision of long-term goals and agreement on frameworks that will accelerate action over the next decade, and it must build on mutually reinforcing approaches at national, regional and international level.

The buyers walked by his hybrid car yard in droves and went to buy the SUVs they could afford right now.

He may have briefly captured the attention of the economic rich, as he was talking in terms that they at least understood and held dear, GDP, but he failed to close the sale. Reference to the second half of this century and the next wasn’t going to affect the decision makers in place today. It wouldn’t hurt their GDP immediately. Their larders of food wouldn’t run out, their bottled water supply and water from their taps was safe for the foreseeable future. Their private health care was okay. Their environment was safe.

He nearly got the attention of those in Florida with the waters rising, but if you have ever been to Fort Lauderdale, you’ll know they have all got pretty large boats down that way, moored in front of their canal- and harbor-side mansions.

So nature’s science salesmen, like nature’s environmental salesmen, had no sales training. They held seminars, conference after conference and lecture after lecture for the converted. They spent their research funding, handed out in dribs and drabs by the economic decision makers, to come up with this model and that scenario. The answer to their sales pitch for many years was always the same. “No thanks, we’re just looking.”

End adaptation.

So come on environmentalists and activists for change. Let’s all start asking the right questions in the right way. Ask AND OR questions of those that can make good policy.

“Would you like to act now or would you prefer to wait until it is too late?”

As Mother Natures Super Salesman in the book puts it Climate change is a bit like a good vindaloo curry, the longer you leave it the hotter it gets.