Turning thoughts into action

Here are some neat insights from Do Lectures founder and co-pilot David Hieatt. The new year is a good time for focusing on action for the year ahead. These tips might help:

The path of a Doer.

Set yourself a goal.

Set yourself a deadline.

Define success at the start.

Make a plan to make it happen.

Build a team to help you.

Get the team to sign up, head and heart, to the plan.

Understand there will be hurdles, barriers. Accept them. But defeat them.

Work each day toward getting things done. A little can do a lot.

Keep the end goal in your mind at all times.

Understand the importance of your energy. Your stubbornness. Your persistence.

Half way through a project is always the lowest point. You are neither at the start, nor at the end. Energy dips, morale is low. Have a day off.

The next day remind yourself why you started it in the first place.

Focus. Focus. Focus. But focus on the most important thing.

Tell the world what you are doing.

Tell the world your deadline.

Celebrate progress. Any progress.

Never give up.

Look back at how far you have traveled. It will surprise you.

It will also tell you that you are closer to your goal than ever before.

Keep going.

Then one day, after many, many days, you will complete your goal.

You got there in the end.

Your words and your deeds are one. Most people in life are just talkers. But you are a doer. Well done.

Out-lobby the lobbyists

There was an interesting article in today's Guardian.co.uk quoting Rajendra Pachauri's prediction that 2010 would see an increase in climate scepticism. Following hard on the heels of the largely failed COP15 talks in Copenhagen, this might seem strange, but is less so armed with these facts:

Last year the Centre for Public Integrity found that 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence US policies on climate change, while America's oil, gas and coal industry increased its lobbying budget by 50%.

Most of the companies that are paying lobbyists are doing so to increase returns for their shareholders - the yous and mes of the world represented by our pension funds (if we have one) and insurance companies (almost everyone has some). Most of the time, we take no time to get our voices heard by those companies or their representatives. There may have been 2340 lobbyists hired to influence policies on climate change, but that's a small number compared to the 300m or so population of the US. It's about 1/100,000th of the size. Sure, they may have knowledge and more time, and get paid for it, but that doesn't make them omnipotent.

Here's a little Do for your first week back at work: commit to writing 10 letters this year to people who provide you with products or services (Tesco, Walmart, AXA insurance etc) and ask them for information on the actions that they are taking on climate.

It's time to out-lobby the lobbyists. There are more of us.

Feast or famine

That we're facing an uncertain future of food supply has been talked about and pondered over for a decade or more, underpinned by high quality research from Tim Laing, The Soil Association and many others. Today's article in the Observer by the UK government's chief scientist, John Beddinington makes yet another call for action on food security and the need to increase resilience of supplies.

The article quotes Beddington's comments from earlier this year:

"It was an ecological disaster that occurred on the other side of the planet. Yet the drought that devastated the Australian wheat harvest last year had consequences that shook the world. It sent food prices soaring in every nation. Wheat prices across the globe soared by 130%, while shopping bills in Britain leapt by 15%.

A year later and the cost of food today has still to fall to previous levels. More alarmingly, scientists are warning that far worse lies ahead. A "perfect storm" of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.

In Britain, a global food shortage would drive up import costs and make food more expensive, just as the nation's farmers start to feel the impact of disrupted rainfall and rising temperatures caused by climate change. "If we don't address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move to avoid food and water shortages".

As with many similar issues, I sense that it will be a combintation of in-built intertia to anything other than short term threats, lack of information and a lack of ability in systems thinking that will make things far more difficult for us, our children, and more importantly, the billions of people in the global south who cannot buy their way out of trouble.

Here's what you can do:

Little Do: write to the Chair of your local council asking what strategic plans are in place to prevent food security causing major problems in your area, and ask if there's anything that you and your colleagues can do to help.

Big Do 1: learn, or re-learn how to grow your own food in your garden or on a local allotment, and talk to members of your community to find out what they are doing too.

Big Do 2: Get involved with a joint collaboration between the Earth Open Source organisation and Ecosapiens to create a draft national food security response for Wales.

Cap and trade explained

Using her unique ability to communicate complicated things simply, and not do this the other way around, Annie Leonard, creator of the Story of Stuff, has turned her attention of late to the potential nightmare of Cap and Trade, which will allow the financial and deal architects behind Enron and Goldman Sachs to make even more money by trading non-existent decreases in carbon emssions. If you're onot reasonable up to speed on this, find out more.

Effective Lobbying

Julian Rosser – Campaigns Manager, Oxfam Cymru gave a useful quick insight into tips and techniques for effective lobbying as part of an energetic and well received Community Climate Change event organised by the Welsh Assembly Government in Aberystwyth, mid Wales, earlier today. Here are Julian’s tips:

Step 1

Get very clear about what it is that you are trying to achieve.

E.g. objective – getting the ‘Size of Wales Rainforest Project’ up to speed.  Success could involve getting the Welsh Assembly Government to spend a big proportion of their Wales for Africa funding on tree planting. An alternative goal for this could be to get Ed Miliband to oppose the planting oil palm plantations as ‘tree subsitututes”.

E.g. Build an ‘Ely Trail’ to serve the same cycling purpose at the Taff Trail. Who would I need to talk to about potential compulsory purchase of land to enable a path to be built?

Working on the cycle path example: Let’s pick Cardiff City Council as a target, and identify one person who has something to benefit from it who has power and money. In lobbying you need to know who has the power – let’s assume in this case that it’s the Head of Transportation. Work out who or what is going to influence this person?  Councillors? WAG? Money? Pressure from other local people? Things that in that mgrs’ Key Performance Targets? His or her career prospects? How far they from retirement? Are they a cyclist or not? Personal prejudices?

Next stage is to identify allies and adversaries for the particular project. In this case, allies could be local climate campaigners, Sustrans, local health groups, ROSPA, image-conscious politicians, other departments in council, heart charities, NHS, taxi drivers, consulting group. Think at the start about all of the people you could want in. Adversaries here though, could be: landowners, people whose money is being poached by others, tax payers, maintenance budgets, old school hacks, the other village’s cycle group?

Work through the strengths and opportunities for allies, and ways around the negatives / adversaries. One approach is to have enough people jumping up and down shouting about campaigns – the anti-road user charging petition on the Number 10 website had something like 2 million people signed up in 48 hours. One of the more entertaining campaigns that Julian was involved with was the anti GM crop campaign – it only took 9 months to get a unanimous decision against GM through the assembly – work was involved afterwards in finding out what was possible from a legal perspective. Getting  the Farmer’s Union of Wales and Women’s Institute on board early made a lot of difference – the assembly may not listen to Friends of the Earth, but they will listen to Farmers and the WI

Clarity of goals, influence and understanding how to maximise leverage are key.