Answering the Cognitive Dissonance Challenge

Crazy Train: Our Challenge is Near Universal Cognitive Dissonance

We’re trapped in what’s called a Vicious Cycle. Our various perspectives on Climate Change - Denial, Unfounded Hope, Delay, Disempowerment, Delusion - fit the definition of Crazy, “to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results," In the end, we’re just not very good at quitting fossil fuels - its very difficult to unwind the foundation of 150 years of progress by moving away from fossil fuels in the next 30. It even sounds impossible. We face cognitive dissonance – the facts don’t add up to point to a solution, at least not one we find in the subset of "achievable," so we despair and stall. And the coal, oil and gas keep on burning; CO2 keeps gathering in the atmosphere, airborne concentrations keep going up, and all that keeps making the world warmer. But we have to turn around and start down this difficult path, regardless of how overwhelming it all seems.

Many will argue that it will prove impossible. With great hope starting back in 1995, COPs 1-23 slowly ground out as the world got warmer - Bonn is next. We all got excited about global agreement on goals in Paris, but in Marrakech, reality hit home once again: goals were not enough, we need commitment. Now the Trump Administration has put climate policy in reverse and hit the gas, even contemplating unwinding Paris. Governments can only do so much, politics is politics and there will be no easy fixes. There is no way to avoid the hard changes needed to stop consuming fossil fuels; this will be a battle. Check out this recent assessment on progress to the 2 degree limit ... bottom line: no progress.

The Unvarnished Truth

The rescue team we're all waiting for is not coming. There's no magic solution to our dilemma, there's only us. So if this challenge truly falls on each and every one of us – in other words, time is effectively running out on the top down option discussed above - we individual consumers who make up the market, the ones served by fossil fuels, must come to grips with a Hard Truth. Now, this challenge has become personal - our personal choices at the collective level hold the fate of our species and the world we will hand over to generations to come. We simply have to overcome our individual and collective cognitive dissonance and take leadership into our own hands.

Houston, We have a Problem

The crazy stops when one acknowledges Reality, and that is "We have a Big Problem with no ready solution!" The continuing advance of Global Warming and the failure to retire Fossil Fuels and adopt clean energy alternatives - in time to make a difference - put our species on the path to distress at best, oblivion at worst - and nobody at the top seems able to pull us out of this vicious cycle! The evidence is plain: glaciers are melting, Miami Beach is slowly drowning from sea level rise, and aerial concentrations of CO2 keep rising - my own lifetime tracks the rise from 310 to 404 ppm, as seen above. You have to go back more than 100 centuries to see a rise this fast. We have front row seats to something awesome ... and terrible.

In a Nutshell: It’s Time

We have to keep up with all the progress we have made, all the initiatives that we have started - power sector reform, clean tech adoption, policy approaches, etc, etc. But it’s time to add a new approach to pick up the pace of human adaptation to stop this tragedy before it goes any further - it's time to grow the market at the consumer level. As a market services company, our primary strategy at Prsenl is a consumer platform – a social network and Profile tool - to enable easier consumer decisions on new Personal Energy products/services. We’ll provide market insights not yet available, new market data to feed data analytics engines and stimulate more rapid market growth. Harnessing the market in this way is the new approach we need.

Climate Change is Personal, So is the Solution

 It's time to try something altogether different, it's time to harness the awesome power of our enormous appetite for energy. We have a dormant market waiting in the wings, so let's wake it up! We start with the idea that the only way to let go of Fossil Fuels at a sufficient level is to help the market to see energy in new ways, to seek something different and to make it much easier and attractive to transform personal energy habits. A billion people who decide to do something can dramatically change our situation. We believe it’s the only real option left and that it’s still an option that can work.

Introducing Personal Energy

The Personal Energy sector envisioned by Prsenl adopts the consumer terms for innovation and new value creation inspired by new business models pioneered over the last 35 years in PCs, Internet, iPhones, and Apps. As costs for clean electricity technology like LEDs, solar panels, and electric vehicles continue to fall, more rapid market penetration for new clean tech depends on more intensive market development. We can move the market forward by shifting the conversation away from cost and price to innovation and value.

The PersonalEnergy.me Prototype

Our objective is to build the prototype of a network-based platform and mobile app supported by a rational framework. We will give energy consumers a free tool and methodology to understand new technology and the vital context to simplify market decisions based on unique personal values. This platform empowers individuals to come together, take action and make a difference. Our project enables individual consumers and companies to take control of their own energy destiny, then form viral, bottom up green armies of innovation.

How Each of Us Will Save All of Us: Follow a Common Formula – Target and Goals

? Create a Personal Energy identity ? Track energy use and carbon output ? Set personal goals based on unique personal values and priorities ? Make small change decisions initially ? Make large change decisions when ready ? Add tens, hundreds even thousands of ongoing small decisions ? Evict carbon emissions, one lifestyle at a time

Significant 10-Year Reduction Target

If everyone committed to an individual 50% reduction at the end of 10 years, we’d only need to average 6.7% reduction per year to get there. Each and every one of us can do this if we decide to work together and just get started.

Annual Reduction Goals 

If everyone committed to a 10% year on year reduction over 10 years and followed through, we’d cut our carbon footprint by two-thirds. We’ll provide residential and commercial energy consumers a personal energy system - a mirror to help understand energy use, set goals and tailor a cleaner lifestyle.

Personal Changes Add Up

Whatever the individual's personal amount of change - the potential of each residential or commercial energy consumer depends on budget, circumstance, motivation and desire - the critical success factors are the number of people changing and the level of persistence over years and decades. 

A Common System Unites Us and Harnesses Innovation

Working together within a common system will help us to make change easier and easier. Innovation thrives on lots of different perspectives. We’ll stimulate and harness innovation by listening and learning together. 

We Appreciate your Feedback and Support

We will test out this idea on the world stage with a Kickstarter campaign - expected to launch at the end of May - in support of funding the prototype PersonalEnergy.me. Watch for a notice on LinkedIn when the campaign launches - there will be lots of notices, in fact. Check out www.prsenl.com as well. We appreciate any support you can provide to help us Kickstart this vision and Stop Climate Change at the Personal level. Here's a preview of our Kickstarter campaign video.

Background Food for Thought - Let's Have a Discussion

The roots of near universal cognitive dissonance in the face of a 1.5 degree cap on temperature rise lie in the steep curve of real action required to achieve that goal. Because airborne concentrations of CO2 are residual and additive, we'll need a radical adjustment and removal of fossil fuels from our energy equation. For the sake of argument, here's a three-step plan - argue with me on the timing, but we'll have to do something like this to be successful in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

• Near Term (by 2030): Achieve a collective goal to quit using most coal for electricity and most gasoline for cars (12.5 years from now)
• Medium Term (by 2040): Achieve a collective goal to quit using most natural gas for electricity / heating and most jet fuel for airplanes (22.5 years from now)
• Long Term (2050 and thereafter): Achieve a collective goal to shift most food production, lifestyles, cultures, transportation - everything - to a new approach that doesn't produce carbon emissions (32.5 years from now)

Wow! That's radical worldwide change in the next 30 plus years - a full generation – but just one generation. When you think that it took 150 years - say five generations - to ramp up our modern life and society with easy-to-get, cheap energy from coal, petroleum and natural gas, the task feels impossible. Those that don't just deny this transformation outright – its pretty crazy, after all - may still give up in desperation. For most people, it’s just too much, so they do a little - buy some LED bulbs or a smart thermostat, maybe even invest in a solar rooftop or an EV - and try not to think about it. What difference can one person make, after all?

But that's not enough, we have to overcome cognitive dissonance and get going with a collective plan based on positive, effective action. Nobody is alone in this. In fact, each of us shares a common objective with billions of others - to save our world for our children and grandchildren. The game is not lost, not yet. Action starts with a vision of something better, then a roadmap, plan and tools to achieve the vision, one step at a time.