Are you still hoping for hope? (And what about "net zero" anyway?)

SO WHAT ABOUT "NET ZERO"?

"Necessary but not sufficient".

That phrase (from logic and mathematics) has been surfacing in my thinking lately, and not just because of all-too-common flaws in the logic of public discourse.

Take the sustainability realm, for example. There's a welcome and continuing increase in moves that are necessary to avert, or at least mitigate, the looming climate disasters. But the trend is woefully insufficient, both in quantity and in quality.

This surfaced again in conversation with the provocative Bangalore-based consultant Alice Kalro, who asserts that we can "tell that a business is not sustainable in <5min." A "pinnacle" commitment to "net zero by 2050" was one of her three diagnostic indicators of not sustainable. Companies are rushing ever so slowly to embrace a 0x2050 goal, but that embrace is problematic:

• It's way too slow; 2050 is too far away. (I favor "net zero" by 2030, actual zero by 2040, and ensuring that the "net zero" investments along the way build strategic bridges—providing platforms for further accelerating the transition, not just quantitatively offsetting current and future emissions.)
• But more fundamentally, zeroing out GHG emissions—the central target for so many companies, governments, and passionate people—is a necessary but insufficient target, since the challenge, as I see it, is "doing business as though we actually belonged to the living world." As Kalro put it, "net zero by 2050 is neither going to result in real-world environmental sustainability (future livable conditions), nor stop climate change. It is an arbitrary goal that has been defined by looking at climate change in isolation from other planetary boundaries / Earth systems, and from a flawed identification of emissions as its only key contributing factor and hence the only/key factor in the remedy. All of these are missteps."
• "Achieving net zero by 2050," Kalro continues, will not avert environmental collapse scenarios (which in fact will be at an incredibly advanced stage by 2050)."

BTW, here's what I said to the Confederation of Indian Industry recently about these matters. Did I fall into the trap? Or invite them to step out of it?

STILL HOPING FOR HOPE?

We visited the land of hope on our last monthly call exploring the challenge of Living Between Worlds, with Grace, Dignity, and Power.

But hope as a stance, a commitment, not a prediction or a wish. What if, we asked, these times of unprecedented change and uncertainty offer us rare opportunities to influence the future, and to choose how we face it? What if these are times for action, not despair?

To prepare for the call, we encouraged people to read "Hope is a n embrace of the unknown ’: Rebecca Solnit on living in dark times.” It’s timely and fecund, full of phrases you’ll want to hang on your wall—like:

“This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It is also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.”

WHERE DO YOU LOOK?

We're doing an informal survey, so please tell me:

• Where do you find nourishment, inspiration, encouragement—and roadmaps—in the face of the barrage of bad news, doomism and collapsology?
• Where, and how, are you focusing your energies and actions to support those “vital, transformative movements,” and to keep yourself *personally* resilient, and grounded in a mood of possibility—and perhaps even in a mood of wonder?
• What are the two most significant/inspiring/provocative/effective sustainability and regeneration initiatives you've seen or heard about? Or been involved in! (They could be big or small, individual or collective, personal or corporate, financial or political—but they stand out for you. And, if you're game, reflect on and share what about them makes them so?)

Yes, we are flawed humans making flawed moves in a flawed world. That's stipulated. But what if we spent a moment or two from time to time on the other side of the coin?

Anyway, that's where we started. Watch or listen to the recording to review—or to find out—where we went. (And please: "like!" and "subscribe!"—it trains the YouTube algorithms to treat us more kindly.)

We'll convene again Wednesday, August 16. I hope you'll join us! The topic? Well, this time we'll tell you when you get there! (And please help us enrich the conversation: invite people you know who are not like you or me, and younger people in your life who might appreciate this conversation!)

WHAT I'M READING LATELY

That's what the picture up top is; I can't figure out how to insert it in-line. How about you? What books have your eye these days?

AS ALWAYS, THANKS FOR WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO

Yours, in solidarity with life,

Gil

Gil Friend

CEO, Natural Logic Inc.

Managing Director, Critical Path Capital

Coach/Mentor, Trimtab4Trimtabs™