Bullseye!

Targets can seriously damage your health - Simon Caulkin in the Obsever

My views on targets are well known. So I am pleased to share this. It covers a variety of sectors, and sadly no mention of environment, but I think the picture it paints is clear.

I love this quote: 'The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers with simple problems are those with simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a simple part.'

And this: 'What do "targets" accomplish? Nothing. Wrong: their accomplishment is negative.'

This, too, both quote and comment: 'Management by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without knowledge of what to do'. This is what makes it so attractive to bad managers. Unfortunately, in absolving them from the effort of thought, it is also junk management, which has the same effect on the consumer as junk food: obesity, flatulence, discontent and demoralisation. - [As Junkk Male of Junkk.com, I am proud of the attitude demanded by that extra 'k'].

Gosh, I must just go on quoting: Lack of method explains why the public sector absorbs so much resource for so little return. It also explains the stop-go, curiously disembodied experience of engaging with it: it's not reacting directly to you, the individual citizen, but to management's abstraction of you, as embodied in the target. Hence the obsession with 'choice', which simply transfers the question of method to you.

Sound like most enviro 'initiatives' and they vast comms budgets to get 'us' to compensate for institutional failings? Think ActONCo2 or the latest food waste weeping tomato ad assault. All, I am sure, with a nice bonus for the guys at the top if the money spent (from whom?) gets enough of us to say we are more 'aware' to tick a box in some self-justifying research.

Where could this money have been better spent on actual things that can be DONE and which can make a tangible difference NOW?

I hope this guy turns his sights on other areas soon. This situation must be outed, understood... and changed.

ADDENDUM - I have been moved to write to encourage him to do so:

Thank you for writing this. I hope it resonates.

I am simply appalled at what the culture of targets, especially in complement with the proliferation of what seems to be unaccountable quangos with mysterious ROIs (financial and enviROI), is reducing this country to. Seeing to do is now much more important than doing. And this has not escaped the attention of all protagonists when it comes to forging careers and generating income.

ADDENDUM 2 - I have noticed it is guys like this who are polite enough to reply (mind you, I am usually agreeing with them!):

'Many thanks for your generosity! Much appreciated — and very encouraging.'

Observe... er

Observer editor Roger Alton to step down

Seems a pity, if not a rather sad commentary on the state of our 'independent' media, that a person who seems such a good communicator should be leaving over ideological disputes with the brand's agendas.

Ho hum, I guess I'll just have to take what I read with the same amount of salt as most other 'news' media these days.

Can science really save the world?

A question posed in The Observer yesterday which I was intending to pass comment on; only to find that the ever amusing Anorak site had already done it for me!

The policy that dare not speak its name .....

.... appears yet again in one of the Sunday's.

This from yesterday's Observer, an article about Chris Rapley, the new head of the science museum, who argues that a reduction in the planet's birthrate is the easiest method of minimising the impacts of climate change.

"What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion. That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity."

His views concur with the recent report from the Optimum Population Trust, which called for each couple in Britain to be limited to having two children each.

I wonder how long before one of the main political parties starts to dare to contemplate policies such as this? It couldn't happen, could it?

And interesting to note that there is an estimated theoretical limit for the planet's population, which is 8 to 10 billion. What do we number now - somewhere in excess of 6 billion?

Mea Culpa?

"This is your captain speaking .......... I'd like to welcome you aboard our low CO2 emission flight to the south of France."

The airline pilots association are claiming that the airline industry is being unfairly targeted as the worst of the contributors to climate change. Full ABTN article.

“Air travel has just been an easy target. But not any more. World air travel actually accounts for only 2% to 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions according to the International Panel on Climate Change and while air travel is proving more popular, carbon dioxide emissions will not be more than 6% by 2050 – a tiny amount compared to the big polluters.”

Isn’t it amazing just how easily human nature forces all of us to adopt an ‘it’s not us, it’s them’ type of attitude? Just one question – who is giving us the real numbers and the actual facts?

But we all may stop jetting off to the Mediterranean sun anyway if the researchers at New Scientist are correct – it will be waaaay tooooo hot for us Brits to handle! See Dangerously hot.

Back to sunny Skegness it is then.


Arms dealing - the career of the future?
Meanwhile, how to profit from Global Warming - become an arms dealer! Taken from The Observer.

'Expect huge migrations of people looking for food and shelter as they flee areas that become uninhabitable because of crop failure or flooding,' he says. 'You are already seeing this happen in places such as Bangladesh. That will force western governments to increase their military spending to keep people out.'

Now that’s how to put an optimistic slant on forthcoming geo-political disasters caused by global warming! Just to be fair though, he has hedged his bets by putting some huge investments into Green technologies too. Heads he wins, tails he wins?

He mentions Bangla Desh – the UN reckons the disastrous Darfur conflict, as well as smaller episodes in Somalia and Ivory Coast, are also a direct consequence, to some degree, of global warming, too. Sci-Tech Today story.

Getting what you deserve?

This could be deemed a slight case of shooting in the foot if taken one way, but I choose to believe that, having had some measure of award success in certain areas, I can at least make comment without being accused of total sour grapes (especially as, in the case below, I didn't apply - by clean forgetting - more fool me).

In fact I won't comment too much, but let the facts, and others, do it for me.

First up is this from the press office of the Observer Ethical (hold that thought) Awards:

AL GORE, GORDON BROWN AND DAVID CAMERON SHORTLISTED

The shortlist is revealed today for the second Observer ethical awards... The entrants were judged by a combination of reader votes and by a celebrity panel, which included Alastair MacGowan, David James and Emily Eavis. The winners will be announced at an award ceremony in London on June 7.

The Observer ethical awards aim to reward those pioneering a sustainable
future for the country and provide a unique opportunity to recognise and
reward the very best products, innovations and schemes that make living
ethically achievable.

There are some other interesting nominees in my view (look at the supermarkets), but this little lot grabbed my attention:

Politician of the Year
Gordon Brown
Caroline Lucas
David Cameron

Looking at the way the votes were cast, and having a vague understanding of people's motivations, I can sort of see how Mr. Cameron made it through sheer media spin and presence (that is, being on it, an no , in my view, by having any), if not, by any tangible measure why. Caroline Lucas makes sense, but I'd be fascinated to know who outside a pretty small circle have heard of her.

In fact I'm guessing a lot of folk had to scrabble to think of anyone in politics as actually, genuinely 'green' (which, as Ethical Man's travels taught me, is not quite the same as ethical).

But.... Gordon Brown?????!

Let's leave it to Dave of Solarventi:

And as on one hand Gord tells us about promoting eco houses and renewables....
… the other hand reduces grants! See the Indy

Hmn. Worth winning in such company?