Sustainable Mining Now
It is often said that “If it’s not grown, it’s mined”, a telling reference to the fact that human society is more dependent than many might like to think on mining. Indeed, virtually every electronic and mechanical device in a home or office; school or hospital; plane, train or automobile would be difficult or impossible to create without the products of mining. And so it is that my friend and colleague, Gord McKenna of BGC Engineering, and I have a very particular interest in contributing to a dialogue about the evolution of the mining industry – an industry that is increasing resource extraction geometrically – such that we better reconcile the need for the products of mining with the need for natural capital assets and the flow of life-sustaining ecosystem services provided by nature. Very shortly we will be publishing our new book, Sustainable Mining Now, that we hope will spark real dialogue within the industry globally about how to think about, and achieve the seemingly impossible: sustainable mining – mining that creates financial and social wealth and wellbeing in a way that does not undermine or otherwise damage the aesthetic and productive capacity of natural capital for present and future generations.
Posted in The Strategist on February 5th, 2012
Head Full of Doubt, Still Waiting for the Promise
I believe that we have not yet had a meaningful conversation about community and collective action and how this colors our approach to climate change. As a result, we continue to joust for metaphorical turf in a tiresome and ultimately unwinnable tragedy of the commons. As a species we are a community that transcends boundaries or borders. We share (or should share) something in common – an abiding desire to achieve sustainable management of the Earth’s atmosphere. All of us live in communities of place, past, purpose, perspective, and practice and the quantity, quality, and reach of connection in any of these communities depends on how connected people are in each community and how much connecting each person does with other people in each community. This is not an abstract concept; I passionately believe that to address global climate change people must be invited into a conversation that firstly optimizes the possibilities of belonging, engagement, and making a difference. Only then can the more tactical and tangible actions be identified. Can we dare to imagine world leaders engaging in this kind of deep conversation, a conversation that is about nothing less than raising consciousness? I choose to believe that we can, that we must. The alternative is to live in a state where, as the title of this essay suggests, the head is full of doubt and we perpetually wait for the promise of something different, something better.
Posted in The Strategist on December 21st, 2011
The Historical Roots of the Occupy Movement
George Santayana famously observed: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it”. I’ve thought about those good words during much of the Occupy movement because it seems to me that too many people cannot remember the events that brought us to this moment. And so it is that the protestors have been criticized for lacking a coherent narrative, and moved out of the spaces that were their metaphorical beachhead. The forces of the ruling empire want us to believe that the protest movement is in fact not that at all; it is nothing more than a disorganized group of disaffected youth and any pretentions to a movement are misguided. I think not. The Occupy movement may well be characterized as an international protest directed at economic and social inequality, but I see it as something more – as a profound meditation on how human society lives, works and plays and how we came to this hinge point of history. Let me explain.
Posted in The Strategist on November 25th, 2011
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