Climate Change

A 10-year-old today has a 50% chance of living to 104. If your 10-year-old grandson is going to live to 104, how would you change your life course?

— Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO, AARP

From Copenhagen to Glasgow what’s changed?

In 2009, I attended the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meetings in Copenhagen with the California delegation. A highlight for me was organizing and moderating what today would have been called a webinar. As the founder of OpenOceans Global, I brought together Governor Schwarzenegger’s cabinet level climate team on a makeshift set with a film crew from a group called Hub Culture. We did a live video stream to the University of San Diego with an interchange between San Diego’s cleantech community, including then San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Tony Haymet playing key roles. Funding came from the San Diego law offices of Procopio. I believe it was the only event of its kind in the U.S. from that meeting in Copenhagen, and it was worthy of coverage from the local NBC affiliate. Putting the production together required video crews and technology on both ends, and funding, never mind the coordination of schedules. This week I received an invitation from Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) to attend a webinar, with high level participation, from the IPCC meetings in Glasgow using Zoom. What a change in technology! But what hasn’t changed enough is progress on climate change since 2009. Hopefully, the Glasgow meetings will mark a new turning point.

What are CEOs thinking on the eve of COP26?

As leaders of countries from around the world arrive in Glasgow for the IPCC talks known as COP26 (the 26th Conference of the Parties), the UN Global Compact and Accenture have released a sustainable study that captures the perspectives of more than 1,230 CEOs from 113 countries and across 21 industries. Here’s a sampling of the study’s findings:

• Their businesses are already experiencing the damaging effects of climate change, and they are ready to take bold action.
• Those impacts are accelerating their transition to more sustainable business models.
• The window of opportunity to turn things around is closing, but key actions can help.
• To make the most impact, policymakers must take critical actions.
• CEOs are navigating increased frequency of natural disasters around the world, which is creating an urgent need to adapt and build resilience—particularly across supply chains.
• Pressure from investors and capital markets is incentivizing more rapid climate action.
• Some companies have formed partnerships with competitors and are addressing biodiversity risks, while hundreds have set science-based targets in line with the Paris Agreement, but thousands more need to increase their ambition to ensure a viable future.

Coal stocks are rising, even as the planet warms

An article in the October 24, 2021, edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune points out a key obstacle in the efforts to address climate change. Coal stocks are rising because the recovering economy is demanding more energy and clean energy sources can’t provide it. As a result, countries are turning to coal, and coal companies are profiting. How do we reduce demand for energy even as we replace fossil fuel sources with clean energy sources? It’s not easy.

The Future of Work / The Economy

We have become a country of people without jobs, and jobs without people.

— Suzanne Clark, president and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Great resignation not predicted to end until 2023

Although the number of people returning to the job market will increase in future months, an October 28, 2021, article in Fortune reports on Moody Analytics’ assessment that the great resignation will not end until 2023. More than 20 million people left their jobs this past spring and summer. A Census Bureau Pulse Survey of unemployed Americans indicated that the primary reason for not working “was because either they were sick with Covid-19, caring for a sick family member, or that they are worried about contracting Covid.”  Cash reserves and government stimulus are also playing a role. Employers will continue to face some labor shortages, “thanks to several factors, including reduced immigration and the accelerated retirement of many baby boomers … this problem isn’t going away.” In a CNBC story on October 21, 2021, the CEO of Whirlpool said he’s starting to get worried the U.S. labor shortage may become structural.

Truck driver shortage is wreaking havoc on the supply chain

Another October 28, 2021, Fortune article says that there is a shortage of 80,000 truck and that the industry will have to recruit one million new drivers within the next nine years to replace retiring drivers. The American Trucking Association says “the $791.7 billion industry hauls 72.5% of all freight transported in the United States and employs about 6% of all full-time workers.” Although ports have now been ordered to stay open all night to address logistics logjams, “new data shows the lack of truckers is causing the slowdown.”

The U.S. economy slowed due to Delta surge and supply crunch

According to an October 28, 2021, story in the Wall Street Journal, the supplies of goods being disrupted by port logjams and truck driver shortages caused the economy to slow in the third quarter. The surge in the Covid Delta variant also contributed.

Paralympic dance performance provides inspiration

As reported in Colossal on October 19, 2021, in “a closing handoff ceremony from the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo to the 2024 games in Paris, choreographer Sadeck Waff worked with 128 performers in a dizzying performance focused on arms and hands.” Thanks to MacGillivray Freeman Films for the lead.

Nettleton Strategies — Helping People to Think

Carl Nettleton is an award-winning writer, acclaimed speaker, facilitator, and a subject-matter expert regarding water, climate, sustainability, the ocean, and binational U.S. Mexico border affairs. Founded in 2007, Nettleton Strategies is a trusted source of analysis and advice on issues at the forefront of public policy, business and the environment.