The April 11, 2010 issue of The New York Times Magazine cover read “Building a Green Economy” by Paul Krugman.  The editors must have taken liberty with the title since his actual article was titled “Green Economics; How We Can Afford to Tackle Climate Change”.

The message we found in the article is that we must take action to address climate change, we can do it, and we can’t afford not to. The real question however is how to change the way Americans think in order to create the political will to take effective action.

At Insight Rising, we believe that the only way to advance toward sustainability is to lead people to change the way they think about how sustainable practices can improve their businesses and personal lives.  Furthermore, we agree that we have to change people’s thinking in order to reach the level of political will necessary to these solve problems.  This will be a daunting task.

Mr. Krugman does an excellent job of presenting the facts that “we are currently facing a rise in global temperatures, that will be little short of apocalyptic”.  He then states that “to avoid the apocalypse we must wean our economy from fossil fuels”.  To do this, we need a revolution in the way people think!

A 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center found that a minority of college educated Americans believed that humans were a cause of global warming.  When tabulated by political party, 75% of Democrats believed that humans were the cause and an amazingly low 19% of Republicans agreed with that belief.  So, the number of people necessary to change their thinking to create a change in societal thought  to successfully address climate change may be insurmountable.

Mr. Krugman’s article also provides a discussion of doubts about climate change and the level of misinformation being disseminated by those who want to head off climate change actions.  Fossil fuel providers and the lobbyists who work for them fund research organizations to dispute valid research, work to kill political action, and sway American’s thoughts about climate change.

Mr. Krugman writes “any successful solution must be based on a system for giving everyone a self-interested reason to produce fewer emissions”. This may help to motivate some people but there is great reason to doubt that it will.  Krugman observes that many studies have found that consumers fail to take measures to save energy, like improving insulation, even if they save money by doing so.”

The point is that economic incentives do not change the way people think.  They are either too stupid to “get it” or too focused on the ingrained values of seeking personal pleasure or demonstrating their status when making investment decisions.  A 2008 study by the Shelton Group found that many more people would choose to install granite counter tops instead of making energy saving improvements if they had a little extra money for home improvements.  Wow, how do we change thinking like that?

Mr. Krugman’s article is really focused on the better approaches for providing economic incentives such as emissions taxes or cap-and-trade systems and the optimal timing for implementing them.  However, unless those of us who are concerned about climate change figure out how to work together to change the way American’s think, nothing is going to happen!

Consulting services like those offered by Insight Rising will do little to drive a major impact on the consensus of thought.  We have to come up with a clear, understandable, and undeniable message that individual actions are required of every business and household.

We hope that you will add to this discussion and help to change the way people think in America.

Insight Rising offers speaker services and training programs in addition to sustainability consulting services.  To deepen speaking skills we joined the National Speaker’s Association (NSA) Academy last winter and our founder, Bob McNeice, developed new speeches and programs based on the excellent resources provided to academy members.  Because one never knows how an audience or an individual client will receive a speech until it has been presented to an audience, Bob started making presentations.

Jeff Tobe, a Pittsburgh, PA based Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and President of Infinite Speakers Agency is coaching Bob on how to move into the exciting world of professional speakers.  Jeff attended a couple of Bob’s presentations and his input has been invaluable.  His most recent insights were truly revolutionary for Bob and they changed his thinking about presentations.

Over many years we have made countless corporate presentations within our companies, to industry groups, to the management teams of prospective customers, and to special interest groups. We were trained to make corporate style presentations for covering a lot of information in a manner that sold both personal and company credibility.  In essence, we were speaking as the “Company”.

The corporate presentation style imparts knowledge and covers the required amount of detailed and often technical content within an allotted time. When Insight Rising entered the sustainability arena we attended public appearances of many of the thought leaders of the emerging field and modeled our presentations on these “knowledge imparters”.

Jeff Tobe was recently in the audience for a short talk Bob delivered to a group of business people.  We developed the talk for routine presentation to lunch meetings of civic clubs and business groups.

When Jeff and Bob had a private casual conversation after the talk Bob asked for Jeff’s comments about the presentation (notice use of the word “presentation”).  Jeff had comments regarding the amount of content crammed into the talk and then sat back and looked at Bob like he was thinking about how to tell him that he needed to consider a different career.  His statement was very simple.  He said “I made the note that you seemed “professorial”.

Jeff opened Bob’s eyes to the fact that he is now making professional speeches and engaging with an audience instead of giving presentations.  This is an elementary but crucial distinction.  This new awareness lifted a burden that we have been carrying since our inception.  We now have a different viewpoint about how to think about speaking.  Jeff enabled us to realize the importance of making a connection with an audience in order to have them think about their own beliefs regarding sustainability and their role in creating a more sustainable world.

Jeff’s comment caused Bob to suddenly “get” what he had already heard numerous times!  Bob knows that he knows his topic and, he has the business and life experience and expertise to know how to relate sustainability to the real world.  All he has to do is be authentic and connect with another person to help them gain a new understanding.

Almost professional speakers coach new entrants to the field that the most effective speaking is to make a make a personal connection with one person in the audience.  They also encourage sharing personal stories and experiences in order to make that connection and to illustrate points in an authentic manner

Thanks to this revelation, we’ll save our “presentations” for teaching events when a “professor” needs to be in front of the class. In the meantime, we look forward to speaking from our authentic selves to engage, inform, and possibly even entertain an audience.

We hope you and Insight Rising have the opportunity to engage about sustainability soon.  We need to work together quickly to change the way people think about a sustainable environment, economy, and equitable enterprise.

Please connect with us on this important mission.

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania’s press is getting the idea about sustainability.  Will business leaders in the region start to open their eyes?

Today’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette and last Friday’s Pittsburgh Business Times certainly sum up the business opportunities for sustainability!  The Post Gazette’s Top 50 Issue was presented around a green economic and sustainability theme.  The theme included elements like:

• Now is the time to invest cash in sustainable measures to save money in the short term and improve earnings over the long term – companies should determine how to evaluate ROI (including all current incentive programs) to select the most profitable initiatives and prioritize their implementation..

• A change in thinking is required at the CEO level to meet the new stakeholder demands for sustainability – professional advisors and NGOs should connect at the CEO level and claim the “go to position” for logical sustainable business thinking.

• Now is the time to invest in green technologies –the opportunity is there NOW to work with growth firms by catering to their need to reach the green markets.  The same opportunity exists to work with larger firms in the regions who are developing sustainable products.

• Shareholders and Boards are requiring management to incorporate sustainability into their planning process and reporting systems (including SEC and proxy reports per an article in the Pittsburgh Business Times) – companies must now consider sustainability reporting and sharing sustainability information to meet the informational demands of its customers and other stakeholders.

• Government can drive sustainability initiatives – all companies should become active in working with and advising political leaders and organizations to the participate in changing the governmental view of sustainability and local and regional growth.

• And more, more, more…

There were a large number of advertisers in the paper who say something about their being green or their general support for sustainability.  No one was advertising saying “we will help you create new profits as your company progresses toward sustainability”!  This is precisely what Insight Rising can accomplish.

Insight Rising has identified all the tools for providing leading edge analysis and reporting,  short term energy related savings, communicating to insure that stakeholder demands are satisfied, and strategically integrating sustainability into a company’s ongoing planning system.  I invite you to leverage our work over the past three years to put your company at the top of the sustainability hill.

This time to act is now or be left behind.

The situation in Haiti was totally unsustainable before the earthquake!  Nothing was substantial and everything was wrong:

• The capital and most populous city was built on a geographic fault that had been know about for generations.
• With no transparency of government massive corruption and lack of accountability and responsibility could go unchecked; no one could be held accountable, no one was responsible for this catastrophe in the making.
• Unchecked population growth was driven by lack of education, healthcare, and low life expectancy.
• Without regulation or the existence of building codes, possibly the most unsustainable buildings in the world were built on the side of steep grades. Buildings simply collapsed in on themselves and its people.
• There was no method for equitable distribution of increasingly scarce resources of every imaginable type.
• There was little or no engagement of the population to find solutions to their problems.  It is eerily like the Easter Island population collapse where its people exhausted all their resources to keep building idols; it was all they knew to do, as they were cut off from the world and other ways of thinking.  Only in the case of Haiti, the whole world was watching but no one was talking (or listening).
• There was no protection of the natural environment (or respect for its faults), along with loss of almost all natural vegetation driven by the need for basic fuel.
• With what seems to be no concern or the population – with no healthcare, no education, no safety nets, there seemed to be no hope for a better life.

The unsustainable results?  Over 200,000 dead, and after a multinational rescue effort, only 133 rescues after 11 days. An entirely devastated country that everyone, including its citizens and the international press, is trying as hard as possible to get away from.

It took a disaster, but every element of sustainability (or lack thereof) became visible on a global scale.  And, global warming was never in the mix of potential causes. It was all caused by the way people didn’t think or act – the underlying requirements for sustainability.

The nations and individuals around the globe have taken notice and have come to the aid of Haiti’s short term needs.  Most visible has been the outstanding response of the medical profession and its aid organizations who are working tirelessly to “stop the bleeding.”

Now, let’s hope and demand that sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable institutions guide the recovery of what (judging by the lush landscape of its neighbors) could be a real garden of prosperity.  We’ll get a first glimpse of what will or will not take place based on the actions of the international Haitian recovery meetings in Canada this week.

It may take an army of sustainability consultants, developers, educators, and the support of the global community to drive a recovery.  Insight Rising’s sustainability consulting services certainly can’t touch the scope of the problem, but we can’t help but be turned inside out about how evident it is that we must work toward changing the way people think and act to create a sustainable future.

We hope that you will comment and join us in the dialogue and the call for sustainable actions.

Insight Rising

January 25, 2010

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