Cras congue, ipsum id adipiscing luctus, enim sem vehicula massa, ac facilisis tellus est eget nibh. Ut tempor risus vel libero fermentum euismod. Vestibulum elementum malesuada libero, non vulputate elit laoreet vestibulum. Vestibulum bibendum lectus id nibh feugiat in semper odio sodales. Morbi rutrum lectus eget odio convallis vitae hendrerit arcu tincidunt. Ut enim nisi, bibendum in faucibus ac, posuere sed arcu. Morbi imperdiet risus ut velit fermentum hendrerit.

What is the connection? Buying stuff you think you need that quickly becomes something you don’t need. The environmental impact?

• Waste disposal? – one more contribution to overflowing landfill or transportation via charities to a sorting centre, then distribution to shops or other countries (carbon emissions). On the good side, there are benefits to the Salvation Army who recoup 1/20th of what you spent (why not just give them the £100 you wanted to spend on the dress instead of buying it, and make yourself feel even better? At least you’d be doing some good with your cash!).
• More storage space? You’ll soon be needing bigger cupboards, a bigger house, moving to a housing estate that spreads out over the countryside. Your bigger house will need that bit more heating, use more energy, emit more carbon dioxide, increase the chance of global warming that tiny bit more (why not buy a sweater and wear it rather than heating the house – no-one’s going to be looking at you anyway!)
• The smart paper bag you get the dress in – non-recyclable because it’s made from mixed materials, sent to landfill rather than recycled, toxic inks leaking into the water table
• Biodegradability? If the dress is polyester, or any other fabric made from an oil derivative, the odds are it’s not biodegradable, though the chances of you asserting your buying power and intelligence and choosing a biodegradable dress while in the depths of depression are fairly slim. The dress, even if you chuck it out, will outlast your next several love affairs. Out of sight is not out of mind.
• Resource depletion? If the dress is cotton, you will have caused the consumption of around 5,200 litres of water and a third of a kilo of chemicals. Did you know that conventional cotton is chemically dependant, needing pesticides and fertilizers to grow. It accounts for 10% of all agricultural chemicals and 25% of all pesticides used worldwide every year. And the people tending the cotton can be affected by acute or chronic toxic poisoning leading to illnesses such as neurological problems, learning difficulties, reproductive defects, susceptibility to cancer and changes to DNA. So, if you are going to hit rock bottom after the bust up with your boyfriend, at least chose organic cotton and then others are less likely to suffer for your emotional state!

More food for thought:

• Do you eat more when you’re depressed – chocolate, carbs, Big Mac, processed rubbish – but never an apple? Read “Eat Your Heart Out” by Felicity Lawrence and find out how the food industry is impacting the planet.
• Do you drive fast when you’re angry? Anger is bad for your heart, but also uses up more petrol as you put your foot to the floor and try to overtake all the idiots who are driving too slowly.
• I know someone who, every time she falls out with her mother, goes on a cleaning frenzy in the house, using so much household bleach (the thick powerful variety, it seems to really kill germs and bacteria fast!) you can’t breath when you go inside. Sodium hypochlorite gives off toxic fumes that irritate your lungs. It is really dodgy for people with heart conditions, asthma or emphysema. In the workplace, the use of chlorine is regulated by legislation, but not in homes! It’s a serious air pollutant.
• Does reading about the latest gadget from Apple make your heart race? You could be one of the millions who are completely addicted to  needing  to have the latest technology. Not just any technology, but the latest. Millions of discarded mobile phones lurk in desk drawers, millions more chargers sit in boxes in hotel lost property cupboards. The biggest issue with all these gadgets , however, are the billions  of electronic devices which are left on standby (and confess, how many do you have in your house now, compared to only 10 years ago?). A UK energy review in 2006 found that standby mode accounted for 8% of all domestic power usage. In America, it was calculated that wasted energy from electronic gadgets left in standby modes amounted to the equivalent of 18 working power stations! I don’t know how many tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions that would account for, but I’m sure if standby was banned overnight, global emissions would reduce by several percentage points.

These are all examples of how our emotional state can have a direct impact on the environment. As there are currently 7 billion people on the planet, all of whom have feelings, we can safely say that emotions can make a difference. So here’s some questions for you:

• How do you see yourself? What does your self-image drive you to do?
• How does your emotional state motivate you?
• Do you feel you can made a difference? Do you feel you have the power to make a difference?
• What will it take for you to stop for a moment and find the connection?

Who and what do you trust, when it comes to hard facts about environmental issues, climate change, sea level rises and so on? Television or newpapers? BBC? Sometimes. News International? Not now! David Attenbrough? Always. What books can you read that explain things in the right way? Everyone seems to have their own agenda. Scientists, ever the dutiful measurers and recorders of facts and discoveries, have been accused of feathering their own specialised nests and making money out of citizens’ fears. And strong lobbyists and enviro-sceptic organisations who counter arguments about how real global warming is and discredit the science, have been found to be in the pay of some of the world’s largest energy companies.

So how do you know what information is credible? We can use our judgement of the source. If we follow the media, we can see each newspaper has it’s own individual approach…

• The Guardian – “here’s the research – you’re intelligent enough to know what to do with the data”
• The Daily Mail – “here’s what the scientists and everyone else are saying – now here’s 10 easy steps to follow to counter global warming”
• The Sun – “here’s the headline – and it’s catastrophic! For more, see page 42 - it’s at the bottom of the page beneath an article about a man who lived on tins of beans for 10 years and lived to tell the tale”

On the whole, there are plenty of books, films and on-line articles with solid reporting of how things are. You may need to read a few books to get a rounded picture. The IPPC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, assesses the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change. This body tends to underplay things, as every party involved has to agree to every aspect of the report. In general, you can rely on the consensus of the hundreds of scientists whose research is used as the basis for the IPCC’s assessments. However, as all scientists will admit, the science is still developing, we still don’t know what we don’t know, and you can expect predictions to change as more is discovered.

A good place to start is by thinking about what is important to you:

• Have a family and concerned about their futures? Read “6 Degrees” by Mark Lynas (the best overview of the current state of play and the scenarios we potentially face) or “Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World ” by John Michael Greer (a bit heavy but worth it for the introduction).
• Concerned about the food we eat? Try “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser or buy the DVD ‘Food Inc’ from Amazon or even McLibel, the story of how McDonald’s took two people to court for saying their food was bad for humans and the planet.
• If you are worried about collapsing fish stocks and the fish we eat, read “End of the Line” by Charles Clover (now made into an excellent DVD) or “Dead Seas” by Taras Grescoe who looks at how the fish on our plates is killing our planet.
• Anything by the Australian Tim Flannery is worth reading – he’s able to give a great overview of life on the planet and where we are headed.
• For those people who want to reduce their carbon footprint, a good foundation comes from Edinburgh University’s Dave Reay – he’s their programme director on the MSc in Carbon Management. He wrote ”Climate Change Begins at Home” and even a book for children which I bought for my daughter. I know he’s good, as he’s my friend’s son-in-law and she says he is conscious about everything that creates carbon emissions!
• Knowing about the impact of our consumer habits is important. “Confessions of an eco-sinner: Travels to find where my stuff comes from” by Fred Pearce gives you the behind-the-scenes look at how much destruction of the planet takes place or damage to the health of poor people happens just to get you your gold wedding ring or clean your recycled plastic. “How Bad are Bananas?” by Mike Berners-Lee is where I found out that each internet browser search uses the equivalent energy of boiling a kettle of water. I still don’t know what to do about that…

Often, when people are starting out in their search to be informed, it’s easy for them to get depressed, despairing even. I remember telling my friend how depressed I felt after watching “The End of the Line”. Oh, it’s alright, she said, the experts always find a way to sort things out, it’s never as bad as you think! It felt like she was patting me on the head and saying there, there, you poor thing, you’re far too sensitive. I hope she’s right, and that I’m wrong. We go looking for some simple answers or fixes and find that the problems are complex and any solutions are not magic bullets. In some cases, there can be too much information to handle. Be aware!

We aim, through this website and the work we do with organistions, to help people understand the key issues with as much clarity and simplicity as serves them.

• What have you noticed about the weather recently? I mean, really noticed for yourself, rather than listening to the TV or gossip on the tube? When you think back to when you were a child, how different was the weather then? You probably remembered summer holidays the most. What was the weather like this morning? Have you noticed in the last two years we went straight from winter to summer, missing out spring altogether (or maybe it was over very quickly), and summers were full of April showers!
• Have you noticed less frog spawn in ponds in the Spring (there’s more being laid in December…)? Have you noticed we are finding fungus and mushrooms sprouting in July and again in the autumn?
• Have you noticed how many people around you (Western world) are piling on the pounds (maybe you are too – it’s not an age thing!), on diets, wearing baggy clothing?
• Have you noticed how supermarket shelves have changed over the years? More flavours, more variety, less nutrition, more exotic, less real food, more additives, more packaging, more convenience, more carbohydrates, more ready meals.
• How many electric gadgets do you have in the house now, compared to 10 or 20 years ago?
• Have you noticed how few varieties of crops there seem to be in the fields around you?
• Did you notice that the price of rice went through the roof a couple of years ago?
• What were our holidays like when we were children? How different is that from now? How often do we fly? I’d never been out of the country till I was 21!
• When you see litter, what form is it in? Plastic? Paper? Food? Cigarette butts? Gum? Packaging? What do you do when you come across it?

This is just the tip of the iceberg….

• waking up
• being aware
• noticing what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what’s important
• asking why you like some things and hate others
• knowing what you love, what you believe in, what you think about the world
• getting real about your fears, what you persistently avoid, what you don’t say when you should and do say when you shouldn’t …

IF YOU DON’T NOTICE YOUR OWN SELF, HOW CAN YOU NOTICE WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND YOU IN THE WORLD?

THEN…..when you finally wake up and notice who you are…

…you start to notice the consequences of all those things that make you you

…you connect up the dots and notice that you do impact the world

…you realise you are contributing to the problems

…you realise you can make a difference

1. The Earth is running out of natural resources

2. The natural environment is being destroyed and degraded because of man’s unconscious activities and behaviours.

3. The planet is warming because of man’s unconscious activities and behaviours

THE DILEMMAS

1. We know things need to change but we’re not changing (fast enough)

2. We aren’t making the connections between what we think, what we do and the impact we have

3. We (ordinary people – not scientists or philosophers or senate lobbyists) don’t know what needs to change

4. We keep waiting for politicians, engineers and technologist to come with the solutions, but they don’t, or can’t.

5. Things are changing. For the worse. Nothing seems to be changing. For the better. We’re not noticing the change. Yet. But we’re causing change, albeit unconsciously. We’re not making change happen. Consciously.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

• the processing of information at various levels of awareness
• the ability to know one’s thoughts
• more than awake/aware a lens through which we view reality, resulting in perceptions, beliefs, mindsets, values, attitudes being aligned with that reality – it is possible to takeoff this lens and try on a different one
• a state of awareness and knowing – internal and external
• having an awareness of one’s environment and one’s own existence, sensations and thoughts

For me, consciousness means being awake, being aware, being present, noticing what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what’s important to you, why you like some things and hate others. Knowing what you love, what you believe in, what you think about the world, what you fear, what you avoid, what you don’t say, how you say what you say…. It’s about being aware of the real impact you have in the world through the habitual things you do, the emotionally-driven actions you take, through your decision-making and as a consequence of your choices.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been running dynamic risk assessment training for a major oil and gas client. What the sponsors wanted was for people to dynamically review risk as they were carrying out tasks. There are several reasons why people don’t maintain a dynamic appreciation of the risks around them: they are on automatic pilot, they’ve gone ‘blind’ to what’s going on around them because they are so focused on the task to the exclusion of everything else, they are doing work that’s habitual or routine – they could do it with their eyes shut, or they might have other more compelling things on their mind – their wife is running up debt, their son has been caught in possession of drugs, an elderly parent is ill, their supervisor wants them to hurry along as there are more jobs waiting…. In short, it’s normal that most people have regular periods or spontaneous moments where they become ‘not’ conscious, or aware, of what they are doing or thinking and lose track of what’s called ‘situational awareness’. Most of the time, they don’t need to be fully aware and present, if they are doing familiar tasks in a safe and familiar environment. That’s how we manage to pull our socks on in a morning while we are still half asleep. But what about the tasks that haven’t been completely thought through beforehand? What about when conditions change suddenly? If you aren’t fully awake, if you aren’t conscious about what you are doing because your head is somewhere else, what might the consequences be? And we are talking about situational risk here. What about the long term effects of our actions? Or the global effects of our actions? How often do we take time out to consider the systemic risk of our behaviours?

As one bright young apprentice said while we were teaching the new process, what happens when this new process becomes a habit? Don’t we go back to sleep? And the answer is, yes we do! The more procedures (or habits) we have, the less conscious we can become. And if we aren’t fully conscious about what’s going on in our own mind, or if we aren’t aware of our most basic behaviours and decisions at work and at home, how can we be conscious about the impact we have on others and on the world around us?

Something I’ve noticed in the highly regulated offshore industry is that the more procedures people are given, the more checklists, tick boxes, processes they have to follow, the less people think. Even when those processes are designed to get people to think about risk. The conclusion I’ve come to is that we need regulations and complete compliance – but to really keep people and the planet safe from our worst industrial (or banking, even!) mistakes we have to foster an ability to think about things in the widest possible way – with full awareness and with applied wisdom.

I think about corporate consciousness like this: organisations are like people, they have to know themselves fully and well to reach their potential. In a modern world where organisations are under massive public scrutiny, it behoves them to fully understand what makes them like they are: their drivers, their real motives and intents, their real values (not the ones published in the corporate literature), their unspoken rules, their fears of competition and failure and desires for success and reward, the true power they have in the world which they wield sometimes well, sometimes to global detriment. Once an organisation is able to look at itself clearly, they have to be able to join the dots between the impact of their corporate (and individual) behaviours and what is happening in the world – lack of trust, fear about an uncertain future, degradation of the environment, global warming, poverty, famine. Corporate consciousness involves being transparent and honest about what they see internally and externally. Corporate consciousness requires ownership and responsibility for the effects of their activities. And corporate consciousness requires they use their considerable power, and entrepreneurial creativity, to make the world a better place. For us and our children. Seven generations into the future. For the greater good.

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew?

Drew Delinger
“Hieroglyphic Stairway”

The Climate Change debate is over according to Shell, says Bryan Lovell. He and the Geological Society of London make the geological case for concern over the ongoing build up of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, and its consequences. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXTCai_NAFk&feature=player_embedded