Energy, History and Neverland
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Neverland
Yesterday, with energy bills set to rise by 700 pounds and BP's Chief Executive calling their recent 9.5 Billion profits a 'cash machine', I shared this and this with with some friends.
(They are articles talking about a tax on burning fossil fuels, to address fuel poverty today, and climate change tomorrow)
"Never Gonna Happen"
Was the response.
'Never???'
As in not possible?
Ever???
As we talked more about the climate/cremation cul-de-sac we find ourselves in I realised I'm in a minority, in believing there's a way out. But why?
3 reasons.
a) Because I have spent the last few years working with entrepreneurs who believe in, and are building, a better tomorrow.
b) I recognise that building and bridling a new economy, focussed on public and environmental good with new ways of working and being is far more exciting than flogging the dead horse of unbridled capitalism until year zero.
c) The parallels of the 'nevers' of today with the 'nevers' of 100 years ago...
The Unemployed Painter from Braunau am Inn
In 1914, as it was all about to kick off, H.G. wells wrote about about The War to End War.
This was the pretext at the outbreak of 'The Great War': this would be final, scores would be settled, Europe was euphoric. Above, you see a familiar face celebrating at the outbreak of WW1
4 years later with 20 million dead, 'Never again' was our slogan at the war's close.
The man in the photo, by now beaten and disillusioned, was hawking his paintings on the streets in Vienna, sleeping rough and eating at soup kitchens. He went on to serve time in jail. According to his biographer, Ian Kershaw, anyone who knew him described him an inconsequential figure, a man who by birth, law and situation could 'never' lead.
Within a decade he was at the helm of a major political party.
In less than a decade again, Adolf Hitler had built the most powerful army in the world, launching a vengeful second world war that would see four times the numbers killed in the first.
The Jolly Good Fellow and The Backbench Warmonger
That same year, 1938, while the English national football team gave the Nazi Salute at the Euros, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain planned a visit the new Chancellor in Germany. He came back with an assurance that Hitler would 'never' go further and invade the countries of Europe.
He waved the declaration from Buckingham Palace while the crowds sang "For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Peace in our time.
Meanwhile an unpopular 'warmonger', an out of favour backbench politician who'd spent time in jail and been out of frontline politics for a decade, doubted Hitler's 'never' just as as public opinion had decided that Mr Churchill would 'never' find himself in frontline politics again.
In less than two years he was Prime Minister, leading his country against a man who, once upon a time, he had fought against, not 10 miles away, in trenches of the first world war.
The Lost Cause
By 1941, with no sign of American or Russian military support, Britain was isolated and exhausted. The UK had been beaten with relative ease by a superior German army in France leading to the desperate retreat of Dunkirk. The Germans had captured the majority of British munitions and were pointing them across the channel.
Months of relentless bombing raids, German domination across Europe and dwindling morale and supplies all pointed to British defeat.
As Churchill's biographer Andrew Roberts explains, Churchill was planning on how to hide provisions from German soldiers once they arrived in Britain while discussing sending the British naval fleet to Canada to stop it falling in to German hands.
In public Churchill made his famous 'fight on the beaches' speech. In private he confessed to Anthony Eden:
领英推荐
"I awoke with dread in my heart"
In 1941, to the majority of sensible commentators it seemed Britain would have to capitulate. Operating from Britain, with its navy, Germany would 'never' be stopped.
Our Changing World
Less than 4 years later Hitler was dead, Germany was partitioned, the Berlin Wall was erected and the United Nations was born.
For everyone, East or West, following the first and second world wars, German reunification seemed like something that could 'never' happen. Until in 1989, in "nothing short of a miracle" it did.
The 20th century teaches us that 'never' is a world we don't really understand about a world we don't yet know.
So this century. This critical decade, our own 'finest hour' what could we do?
Where to start?
What of our current energy cul-de-sac?
The Road out is Roman.
It leads in a very straight line.
Away from fossil fuels at a speed we 'never' could have thought possible.
Until it is.
It depends on changes and cooperations we 'never' believe possible.
Until they are.
From there the road leads to degrowth, greentech, cleantech, rewilding & decarbonisation fast.?
6 years ago 'never' led to Mr Trump, to Brexit.
2 years ago it led to a pandemic, lockdowns, furlough, the beginning of the end of fiat currency, and a host of other things we 'never' believed could happen.
Imagine if we let history teach us the folly in our certainty, that 'never' is all in the mind.
Imagine the courage of the man above at a Hitler speech in Germany in 1936.
Imagine the courage to support our young people and act just in time.
We can demand action of those who count on our 'nevers' and hamstring those who pay marketing firms to curtail our courage.
The road starts with blunt objects like slapping a tax on those oil companies who seek to destroy us for a quick buck, it ends with an inhabitable earth.
The Great War, The inter-war period, Hitler, Churchill and the aftermath teach us is that in geopolitics at least, 'never' is usually limited to a decade.
That's just as well, because this century, in this war of ourselves, a decade is all we have.
“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment.
By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
―?Survivor. Viktor Emil Frankl,?Man's Search for Meaning
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