Who's more guilty?

Who's more guilty? The deniers or those who understand and don't do enough?

I'm talking about the climate. And two tragedies being wrought by people who should know better. While it is easy to get angry at the deniers - both the ones who genuinely believe this is a storm in a teacup and those who just find it commercially/politically better to deny - at least they are saying "nothing to see here".

But what about the rest of you - the ones who know, the ones who say "I'm worried for my children/grandchildren", the ones thinking "I'm glad my wealth means I'll be hit less hard", the ones hoping that the government or a regulatory or the courts will make some really tough rules so they can simply follow those and blame the pain on others.

For those spending meaningful time on this, how many of you are smart, intelligent, successful people and looking at this as JUST ANOTHER intellectual problem? I read pages of incredible analysis and articulate words from McKinsey, BCG, Oliver Wyman, Deloitte, Morgan Stanley, EY and so on, about climate change and what must be done. But really, honestly, does it read any different to their analysis and articulate words on digital transformation, or D&I or post-Covid hybrid-working (or the unparalleled pace in Q2 of this year when a near endless stream of “insight” on the corporate buzzword of 2023 – “Generative AI”). Be honest - truly honest - as you sit in glass palaces to the success of capitalism – “climate change” and “what humanity should do” is just another intellectual challenge – optimising within constraints– like 1970s oil price, excess size of corporations in the 80s, the threats and opportunities of offshoring in the 90s, the impact of internet on physical companies in the 2000s and the challenge of tech-enabled start-ups disrupting every industry in the 2010s.

You apply you brains to these problems – they are truly important to you as you try and find the best answers – not purely for your companies and clients but because you are driven by solving problems. That’s great, and it’s clear no one works 50+ hours a week in a white-collar role if they’re not intrigued by finding better solutions – but is the climate agenda any different to the digitisation one or the threat to supply chains in a post-globalization world? Last week you company wrote a paper on opportunities of Cloud Computing, this week one on the growing promise of scalable carbon dioxide removal. Sure, there are more people thinking about sustainability and climate as formal roles, but there are also more people thinking about gender equality and GenAI.

Drawing parallels is always fraught with challenge - circumstances are never the same and it's almost inevitable you offend someone, but at risk of causing that offence, consider two areas of “here and now pressure”: in Covid we didn't just write papers we took steps – many were wrong and many were a total mess, but even in situations such as the UK’s ineffective use of $32bn on a Track and Trace program a lot of people worked way beyond normal trying to do something hard; in Ukraine people have gone further – individuals who in February 2022 were writing python code, running remote training courses, or founding agritech start-ups picked up weapons and went East to defend their country (utterly aware they weren't properly trained but because it was clear there was an existential need to act rather than just write twitter posts)

Don't get me wrong - I see the enormous value that the brains in Green Accelerators in tech firms, consulting businesses, etc are bringing to the climate battle – in fact there are clear arguments that it is only creative capitalism that can get us out of this mess. But is it really different to the same people working on SpaceTech, Quantum Computing, Blockchain or any other set of interesting challenges. Frankly - why is anyone working on any form of research with a horizon beyond a couple of decades if they have seen and absorbed the climate science?

But at least these people are spending a big chunk of their time on this topic; what about the rest of you? You’re aware of the importance, tut-tutting about how slow your company or industry is acting, and you may even have joined the firm’s new ESG working group. But as you head home in the evening how are you reacting to those WHSmith's signs proudly saying “Net Zero by 2050”? (To put this in context that's 27 or so years away. 27 years ago most people didn't have a mobile phone or an email address. (Oh, and by the way WHSmith's 2020 plan stating it would be done by 2040)). To be clear, this is not an ad homonim attack on WHSmith, though they are an easy target given the audacity of the huge signs stating the 2050 plan - but pretty much every company. And therefore pretty much all of you.

It maybe one step too far to misquote the Christian Scriptures - "if you not with us you're against us" – so maybe we need to turn to one of the most famous 20th century questions "What did you do in the War dad?". What did you do in the 2020s dad? Mum? Grandpa? Nan?

No company is going to shut up shop to reduce its impact. Aside from the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders which means its executives aren't allowed to - the world is clearly a long way from when a mega degrowth agenda could take hold, but every single one of us that sees the challenge mustn't think that this can be solved in the same way that the dog messes in the park, or the noise on London's Central Line tube, or even truly tricky challenges like the UK’s so-called “small boats problem”. If you understand even a fraction of the scale of the problem and the urgency with which it must be tackle then why are you not doing more? Knowing and not acting is surly a more terrible crime than being ignorant?

And if it’s just too easy to say “after this project is done”, “once my kid goes to uni and I have more time” or “there’s likely to be a breakthrough soon” then remember it doesn't need your country to be blown away, flooded or burnt for climate change to profoundly effect you. If 1 billion people can't live in their current homes in a decade’s time then they need to move somewhere and that has a knock on effect on the other 8 billion of us. And of course, those happy that the UK government has removed any limits on your pension pots remember that pretty much every consumer goods and telco company whose shares are supporting your pension have a share price predicated on converting those 1 billion people to buying more shampoo, yogurt or mobile phone minutes. They can’t do that if they are climate migrants.

I wrote the first draft of this on Earth Day. Remember that? I doubt it. If you do recall, what did you do beyond hitting “Like” on a couple of posts on LinkedIn? More people pay attention to Mothers’ Day or St Patricks Day – or even Take-your-pet-to-work Day. Sorry about this, but if you genuinely understand the challenge of climate change and think you are "doing your bit" by attending some webinars and encouraging your company to turn the AC down at the weekends then are you better or worse than those in the Texas Board of Education who feel they should avoid telling their kids about what’s happening.