Category Archives: politics

Climate change, politics, Research

IPCC 2013 and Creative Self Destruction Redux

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Image: Christopher Wright
Image: Christopher Wright

Well the IPCC‘s latest scientific report has come out confirming what many of us have suspected – that anthropogenic climate change is on track with previous worst-case scenarios and the future prognosis is bleak. Given the IPCC is by its nature a conservative organisation, it seems likely that as before, the current report may well underestimate some climate impacts. Be that as it may, this is startling and confronting  to read given the import of its conclusions.

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Climate change, politics

The market versus the environment has to be a fairer fight

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A commitment to sustainability has become an essential component of any modern-day corporation’s public face. Visit the homepages of major organisations in any sector, from building to banking, from cola-making to coal-mining, and you’ll find their ‘green’ credentials front and centre.

This might be viewed as a predictable and entirely well-intentioned response to mounting concerns over climate change, deforestation, declining biodiversity and other environmental issues. Yet it is vital to note that an innate component of that response has been to further incorporate the environment within market capitalism.

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Climate change, politics

Can our Political Systems Deal with Climate Change?

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Protestors outside the Copenhagen climate talks, December 2009 (Image: Bastien Vaucher http://bit.ly/1cVuhck)
Protestors outside the Copenhagen climate talks, December 2009 (Image: Bastien Vaucher http://bit.ly/1cVuhck)

So here’s the thing. Despite decades of debate and a scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is a real and present danger to not only our societies, but our future as a species – greenhouse gas emissions continue their inexorable rise. This year we passed the symbolic 400 ppm CO2 concentration levels (not seen on Earth for several million years) and we now appear destined to exceed the politically constructed fiction of a 2 degree limit on global warming. The house is on fire, the experts are screaming ‘do something!’, and yet we remain oblivious, addicted to the distractions of hyper-consumption and tech-toys. Which brings me to the topic of this post: can our political systems actually deal with the challenge of climate change?

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Climate change, politics

‘We’re F#cked!’ Conceptualising Catastrophe

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Galveston Aftermath (Image: Cody Austin)
Galveston Aftermath (Image: Cody Austin)

Climate change is often characterised as a ‘crisis’ but is it more accurately understood as a ‘catastrophe’? This is a question I’ve been pondering during the last few days at the 8th International Conference in Critical Management Studies at the University of Manchester. Along with colleagues Christian De Cock, Daniel Nyberg and Sheena Vachhani, I’ve been involved in organising a conference stream which pondered the meanings of catastrophe under the somewhat mischievous title ‘We’re Fucked! Conceptualising Catastrophe’.

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Climate change, politics

Creative Self Destruction: Corporate Responses to Climate Change as Political Myths

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Image: iStockPhoto
Image: iStockPhoto

Recently I’ve been pondering the worsening news on climate change, escalating greenhouse  gas emissions (400ppm!), and the continued political obfuscation around this most critical of phenomena.

One response has been to get increasingly angry and frustrated at the lack of substantive and coordinated action in confronting climate change. Another has been to ponder why humanity fails to engage on this issue. Recently Daniel Nyberg and I have penned a paper seeking to explore how political myths underpin much of the current corporate response to climate change. I’m presenting the paper at the forthcoming European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS) 2013 conference in Montreal. You can read the paper here: Wright & Nyberg EGOS2013 Paper Final – be interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Climate change, Events, politics

Bill McKibben – Do the Maths

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Bill McKibben - David vs Goliath (Image: Christopher Wright)
Bill McKibben – David vs Goliath (Image: Christopher Wright)

Last night I attended Bill McKibben’s first public Australian lecture at the University of Sydney. It was sell-out event and the Seymour Theatre was full as young and old crammed in to hear what one newspaper has termed the “rock star of the global warming movement”. Waiting for the doors to open it did have that feeling of a big event – a performance by someone who has been willing to call-out the elephant in the room – our convenient but ultimately suicidal race to change the physics of the Earth in the name of “business as usual”. People were hungry to see and hear the unassuming American who has become the most prominent public face of the fight against global warming.

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Climate change, politics, Research

Incorporating Citizens: Corporate Political Engagement with Climate Change

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Orson Welles Citizen Kane (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Orson Welles Citizen Kane (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Business corporations are key players in the on-going political debate surrounding climate change. In producing the goods and services of the global consumer economy, corporations are major producers of greenhouse gas emissions. However, corporations can also play a leading role in the mitigation of those emissions through increased efficiencies and the development of new technologies. As a result, the business response to climate change can often appear conflictual. ‘Corporate greening’ and innovation contrast with examples of business obfuscation and the organised funding of climate change denial (e.g. as this recent documentary outlines).

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Climate change, emotions, identity, politics

Climate Change as Culture War

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugfaker/5847464425/in/photostream/
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugfaker/5847464425/in/photostream/

The social and political debate over climate change continues unabated, despite an ever worsening procession of extreme weather events and increasingly dire scientific climate projections (on track for a 4 degree warmer world).

While there is a significant over-estimation of the extent of climate change denial within society, those who reject the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change appear to have become even more strident, despite the overwhelming weight of climate science.

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Climate change, politics

Global Business Responses to Climate Change: Where to Now?

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Image: Flickr Dave Clarke
Image: Flickr Dave Clarke

The following is a short piece published in The Conversation which I wrote with Andy Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.

Despite the widespread scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change, ideological rhetoric dominates the global political discourse. This is preventing the development of clear policy frameworks that companies need for long-term investments. In spite of this, there are signs of progress at the international, national and corporate levels.

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Climate change, politics

Pricing Carbon in Australia: The On-going Political Drama

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'Carbon tax' protest 2011 (Image: mugfaker)
‘Carbon tax’ protest 2011 (Image: mugfaker)

With the announcement that our next federal election will be on Saturday September 14 2013, there has been renewed commentary on the likelihood of a possible future federal Coalition government repealing the Clean Energy legislation.

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Climate change, emotions, politics

Climate Change Abolitionists

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Tim DeChristopher thanks his supporters outside the courthouse where he was found guilty of two felonies for disrupting a Utah BLM oil and gas lease auction in 2009. (Image: Ed Kosmicki)
Tim DeChristopher thanks his supporters outside the courthouse where he was found guilty of two felonies for disrupting a Utah BLM oil and gas lease auction in 2009. (Image: Ed Kosmicki)

In the last few weeks there have been a number of commentaries on the shifting nature of climate change activism. These include:

  • the Sierra Club’s announcement that it will for the first time in its history engage in civil disobedience in the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline;
  • an article in The Pheonix by Wen Stephenson profiling climate activist Tim DeChristopher and drawing parallels with the nineteenth century abolitionist movement against slavery; and
  • a recent piece by Andrew Winston in The Guardian pointing to the same theme of a new abolitionist movement around climate change action (you can nominate your favourite ‘climate change abolitionist’ here). 

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Climate change, Events, politics, Research

Leading US Business Scholar to Discuss the Social Implications of Climate Change

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This month the University of Sydney Business School and the United States Studies Centre will be hosting a visit by leading US business scholar, Professor Andrew Hoffman.

Andrew is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. Within this role, he also serves as Director of the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise.

Professor Hoffman has written extensively about corporate responses to climate change; how the interconnected networks of NGOs and corporations influence change processes; and the underlying cultural values that are engaged when these barriers are overcome. His research uses a sociological perspective to understand the cultural and institutional aspects of environmental issues for organizations.

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