Climate Tipping Points

There are a number of slow motion train wrecks happening around the world at the moment. Considering them could make us depressed, so it is just as well I still have the optimistic words of Steven Pinker ringing in my ears, lauding the wonderful march of human progress. That march will undoubtedly mean that many of the trains won’t crash in the end. But what if one that does is so great that humanity itself is threatened?

I like the expression of a slow motion train wreck. It describes a situation with some key characteristics. Above all there is uncertainty. There is a wide range of outcomes, some of which could be horrific, but the path towards the outcomes is unclear. While it is possible to define actions that would mitigate the risk, these are not obvious and some may have downsides, and sometimes it is not clear who can initiate such actions and which particular actions would be most beneficial. We are all on the train, and have a degree of agency, but our fellow passengers have as much responsibility as us and we are not in the driving seat.

One great example of a slow motion train wreck is Brexit. Years ago, when Cameron first mooted a referendum, disaster seemed highly unlikely, but somehow one event led to another and the train drivers missed chances to reset course. Even now, there is a sense that disaster will be averted, and it is not even obvious what any disaster would look like, or even if all the outcomes are all that bad. All UK citizens, even all EU ones, have some agency, but there is no single obvious path to avert the crash.

Look around and you find many other slow motion train crash situations. The possible failure of antibiotics is one. Untrammelled capitalism may be one. The Chinese political model may be one. The unravelling of the post cold war nuclear treaties is one. Others are not so sure, but could develop. Examples might be the gender imbalances in India and China, or abuse of a dominant social media channel.

But the biggest slow motion human train wreck is surely climate change. Pinker himself acknowledges it. He shows evidence of human progress, but argues that derailment is possible, and he dwells on nuclear war and climate change as possible culprits.

Climate change has all the classic elements of a slow motion train wreck. Uncertainty is the main one. Scientists simply do not know what might happen, because too many factors overlap and interact. Think about it. In November we had a storm that was supposed to give one inch of snow but sent down ten and caused chaos, but last weekend the opposite occurred, making the mayor look a fool when he closed schools. If something as simple has that has such uncertainty, then the whole climate for the whole planet has much more. If the outcomes are anywhere near the extreme end, it won’t just be the mayor looking dumb, it will be all of us.

Climate change has all the other required elements. It is happening in slow motion. It seems the solutions are within our grasp, but they are not all that easy to implement, and some actors have motives that complicate action. We are all agents, but our individual power is frustratingly small. Nobody knows when it might be too late, and even what being too late might imply.

The scientists do their best to help the discussion, but they are betrayed by their own disciplines. Everything is uncertain, so they talk in riddles and possibilities and in ways that are too easy to argue against. Many environmentalists are even less helpful, arguing for unlikely changes that voluntarily undue many of the gains humanity has made. This can be naïve and arrogant at the same time, and exposes them to ridicule and charges of hypocrisy whenever any of them get in a car or a plane.

Indeed, a recent book by David Wallace-Wells makes a very interesting point about individual action, arguing that it is a distraction. We feel good when we recycle, or bicycle, but the reality is that no individual action can have more than a trivial impact, and focusing on that gets in the way of identifying and lobbying for the actions that really could reroute the runaway train.

The concept of tipping points has long been part of the debate about climate change. They have become a way for scientists to try to describe secondary effects that could be unlocked and become serious.

But an article in the Economist this week set me thinking about climate tipping points in another way. As we are sitting in our train, what would make a step change in actions? What tipping point could change the climate of action?

Action happens because decision makers want it to happen. Scientists do a lot of good things away from the public eye, but for climate change they can do little more than sound the alarm. Then, action can come about because of politicians, businesses or communities, all of which can be influenced by lobbying groups. And tipping point triggers can come from knowledge, moral choices or market changes.

All of the factors have influenced all of the groups for several years, but the actions have lagged behind the needs. This is normal in slow motion train wrecks, because actions often have short-term costs and create losers, and because it is possible to be a free loader and rely on the actions of others.

Even in moderate scenarios, it is gradually becoming clear that this is not enough, and that humanity is taking reckless risks. So something is needed to change the game, to tip the scales towards more drastic action.

I have long thought that the most likely such tipping point would be a disaster or series of disasters of such magnitude as to shake decision makers out of their stupor. Suddenly, voters would demand action globally, and politicians would have to respond.

The problem has been that each disaster so far could be attributed only partly to climate change and has only impacted a part of humanity, usually not a very rich part. Perhaps this will change: Miami could flood irreparably, or California fires hit larger population centres.

But the article alerted me to a different kind of tipping point. Perhaps investors will demand that businesses will have to start taking real near-term risks seriously enough to quantify them, insure for them and try to mitigate them. This may be just starting to happen. The Californian power utility essentially became insolvent overnight, when it emerged that their legal liabilities for forest fires would be crippling.

So far these risks have been of the type that businesses have chosen not to investigate, since markets have not demanded it and any investigation would only unearth the need for costs. But as soon as markets will ask the question, a measurement industry will spring up and everyone will have to respond.

That will give more momentum to renewables, and, more important, business and its lobbyists will demand government action to reduce the worst risks. And business pays government, so government will respond. There will be laggards, like Mr. Trump’s friends in the coal industry, but they will become drowned out by the mainstream.

That is my new hope for a tipping point, and I think it might be what spurs the step change in action that we need. Whether it will be enough is another matter. I have faith in human ingenuity that it probably will be. But the sooner we reach the tipping point, the better the odds of averting the worst outcomes.

  

  

      

The Gift of Volunteering

I believe that the thing that has changed my life the most over the last few years has been the volunteering work my family undertakes at a local end-of-life residential care home. Last week I made that statement to someone, and his response, reasonably enough, was “How?” I mumbled something about becoming more mellow. But then I thought I should try to formulate a better answer for myself, because, if it is true, I ought to be able to understand why and how and maybe to extract other useful lessons.

Four years ago our local mass was visited by a couple of nuns, one of whom made a quirky speech, seeking volunteers. Sister Elizabeth Ann was far from polished, but was utterly charming, and we were intrigued. There it would have ended, but a few months later my wife called them up and the family ended up visiting the facility one Saturday morning to learn more and for some training. When the nun tasked with explaining how to work a wheelchair turned out to be seventy-five and appearing to be not far short of needing such a chair for herself, we were hooked.

Queen of Peace is a residential old folks home near the Queens-Nassau border run by some nuns from an order called the Little Sisters of the Poor. It is a big facility, with a seminary in one building and accommodation for 100 residents and 20 nuns in another building, one that also houses a beautiful chapel, and common facilities like dining rooms.

The residents range from 80-110 and tend to progress through the floors. Some have lived there for twenty years, but others die only months after admission. The fourth and fifth floors comprise apartments where residents live quite independently. On the second floor the level of care becomes higher and those residents have meals served to them. The third floor has the highest level of care and oversight. Residents are not required to be Catholic, but those that are (and some that aren’t) can join the nuns at daily mass. When a resident is close to death, nuns form a bedside vigil. Many residential nuns are also quite elderly, but others are younger, and the novices from the seminary appear and offer extra energy on occasion. There are medical and service employees, and also some volunteers.

We show up every Saturday evening when we are free to help serving the evening meal to second floor residents. When they were with us, the kids did the same for the third floor: seemingly the weaker residents benefit the most from having young folk around them. In truth, the nuns and staff could serve the meals quite easily without us, and our role is partly to help but mainly to offer conversation and friendship. Over the years we have got to know many residents well and they look forward to our visits. After dinner, we visit the old friends who have moved up from floor two to floor three. Then once per week I show up to cantor the daily mass, and I am also on a list of volunteers available to act as drivers, usually ferrying residents to and from medical appointments. We try to show up on days when they might be short of volunteers and the old folk need cheering up, such as New Year’s Eve. Finally, one of our choirs performs a free concert for the residents each year.

So how has this rather humdrum activity changed our lives so much? The evidence that it has mainly comes from our moods. We look forward to each visit and are sad when we have to miss a Saturday. While there, stress seems to vanish and we become more peaceful and serene. We always talk fondly after every visit, not just on the way home but sometimes for days afterwards. We often refer to residents in general conversation, some alive and some now dead, and always with fondness. All those thoughts and conversations feel kinder and gentler than other interactions.

What is the secret sauce in Queen of Peace that makes those good things happen? There are several contributing elements and a few common themes.

Some of the experiences make us calmer and better people. There is something humble and generous about serving. We are not looking for accolades, it is simply calming and a joy to see gratitude on faces. Everything happens at a slow pace as well, something that helps to remove stress and build patience. There is plenty of gentle humour and humility too. Most residents are deaf and that makes them speak more loudly then they are aware, so often I will serve a table, leave, and hear a loud conversation afterwards, sometimes along the lines of how “that guy” has no idea how to make a good sandwich or some other failing.

Talking with the old folk also has many valuable lessons. One is not to judge based on appearances. Many residents are severely disabled physically but are still sharp mentally (and some the opposite), and it is a good reminder that everyone has an interesting story and warrants our respect. A lot of wisdom comes from those old mouths. I have a bad habit of stopping listening to people when bored or distracted, and serving at the home has reduced that. It is also a good exercise in finding something to say, in accepting people as they are, and in being cheerful and positive. Another benefit is becoming comfortable with disability – I used to avoid eye contact with such folk and even to shiver internally; now I can engage openly, which is usually what disabled people want.

Another theme is acceptance of decline, pain, and ultimately death. It is sometimes tough for the residents to accept that, for example, they need to transition from a walker to a wheelchair, and life can seem to become a series of small defeats to them. But the nuns help them through it with kindness. Actually, kindness permeates among the residents. One old bird was a curmudgeon when she first arrived, but some of the grace of her new friends and the nuns has rubbed off on her. Seeing this gives us hope and joy. Then, as death nears, the nuns help them prepare, so that often the end is not a source of fear or misery but more of a gentle passage. Seeing all this helps us put our own small troubles into a wider context.

Through it all the key word is love. Queen of Peace is a wonderful place full of human love. Nowadays, when one resident is sick or angry or frightened, I just try to remind them that they are surrounded by love, and often that is all that they need to hear. Perhaps that all that any of us need to hear, all the time, whatever our age or fitness or situation. Becoming a small part of that circle of love and witnessing its power maybe the greatest gift of all.

Sometimes I wonder if the magic comes from the volunteering or from the nuns. Certainly the combination is powerful, and I wonder if we would get the same sense of love and peace if, for example, we volunteered in a prison. We have started manning the food bank at our local church, and there me meet a rougher class of person and there are no nuns around to help. But somehow the magic still works. So my conclusion is that the nuns help to create something truly special at Queen of Peace, but that the service involved in any volunteering situation can offer serenity. That also fits with my experience in a twelve-step programme some years ago.

The experience at the home illustrates another truth, which is that we all tend to converge with our environments. I am sure I was at my least respectful when part of an aggressive, fear-filled business atmosphere. Luckily, most arenas that I inhabit today are much more mellow. We should not be surprised that kids growing up in deprived surroundings often fail to escape them. We should be slower to judge these people and quicker to help them.

I am not sure that my answer to the “How?” question would be much more succinct as a result of the thought behind this blog, but perhaps I can make my claim with a little more confidence than before, and feel more secure in the implied claim that volunteering can be a great gift for all of us. If I had to summarise it in a sentence, that sentence must include the word love. For love is where it all starts, and the nuns at Queen of Peace demonstrate love more than any group of people I’ve ever had the privilege to be among.

Mortality, Bucket Lists, and Perfect Weeks

The start of this year has been a time of medical procedures for me. Mainly this has been a coincidence of timing, with regular check-ups happening to fall in the same window as some self-initiated projects such as investigating hearing aids. Still, the combined effect has been to remind myself of my mortality. Every appointment or procedure has a small chance of leading to very bad news, and this tends to get into my head.

Mainly this sort of thought is rather unwelcome, but it does have some benefits. We are often reminded to live every day as if it is our last, or similar sound guidance, but we don’t often take time to really reflect on what these things imply, still less to actually do anything about it. A long spell of thoughts of mortality helps to focus the mind on what actions might be practical.

The most common outcome of such processes seems to be the production of bucket lists. I am a bit suspicious of these, partly because their existence is such a boon to commercial interests like the travel industry. It also chimes with that other trend, that of non-stop photography, instagram, and the like. But are we all seeking after fleeting highlights rather than anything more meaningful?

I think back to our visit to Machu Picchu, a staple of bucket lists. I am glad we went; the site was spectacular. But my fondness for that trip is much wider than the couple of hours peering at some ruins through clouds. It was a good week of family bonding, the Lima vibe and cuisine were great, and I also loved Cusco.

I suspect that listing bucket list experiences might miss the point. I guess I would like to see the Northern Lights. But I have seen many firework festivals and recall none of them, only instead some of their family contexts, and I am not sure about spending a fortune to spend a whole month in freezing cold places with little daylight and less to do in the hope that the Northern Lights might make a fleeting appearance that I can take pictures of.

Another one might be bird watching in the rain forest. Well actually I did that last week, on Tobago. After the second hour of trudging through mud with occasional sightings of birds that might have been rare and colourful but were still just birds, most of us would have sacrificed the remainder of the tour for a good cup of coffee. I was glad to have done it, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a life highlight.

But last week I think I stumbled upon a better approach, at least for me. The week on Tobago was a dream. It was a music week, where a group of us paid to be coached as a scratch choir by a top conductor. The location was as unspoiled as could be imagined, with no shops, a few restaurants and empty beaches. A typical day started with a two minute walk to an ocean swim then continued with breakfast, singing, coffee, more singing, lunch, siesta, sunbathe, swim, read, more singing, dinner and drinking. I turned off my mobile phone and just spent ten minutes per day on my laptop on news and e-mails. The company was excellent, full of interesting people. The music director became a close friend. Most importantly, I went with my wife, and we enjoyed hours and hours of relaxed time together.

Of course, the singing would not be for everyone. Some might have preferred a bit more development, maybe a few shops or at least a more reliable water supply. I found the temperature ideal, but it might be a bit warm for some.

But this is the point. We would all conceive a different perfect week, but I managed to find one that worked for me, and it is repeatable and even somewhat affordable. I discovered my perfect week by experiencing it, but it would not have been beyond my imagination to construct it in my mind and then make it happen.

I suggest this is a good exercise, more valuable than creating a bucket list. Then I suggest repeating it for different time periods. Maybe the bucket list could be converted into a series of perfect days. But what would comprise a perfect month, or a perfect year?

My perfect month would involve more singing and more quality time with my wife, but I would add some gentle travel, perhaps around the Spanish cathedral cities or Italian renaissance museums. More variety of cuisine would be built in – every evening meal on Tobago was lovely, but they were all more or less the same. Maybe the reading for the month would have an educational element related to the travel.

As we extend the time horizon outwards, I would have to include some regular volunteering, plenty of time with kids, especially my own, watching some live sports, and some singing projects looking for top quality performances.

Only having set down these goals in the form of perfect time periods comes the time to consider consequences and constraints. Some are obvious, notably money. Some emerge once ideas are thought through: a fifteen city European tour sounds great, until you consider the time spent in traffic snarls, security lines, or tossing and turning in unfamiliar beds. But there are others too: opportunity costs, clashing commitments, duties, and health outcomes. It may be OK to have a dream week stuffing cakes down your throat, but any longer than that might start limiting healthy life expectancy. 

But the most important consideration is relationships, notably family and especially life partner relationships. What if your dream month looks very different to that of your partner? Well, it probably will. And, like everything else in a good marriage, compromises can result. In my dream week, I know I will have to upgrade the hotel and maybe choose somewhere less warm as well.

There are so many benefits to this approach. Perhaps the most important one is the opportunity for dialogue within a partnership. Too often we just live out our lives, taking easy options, making assumptions about what others want, and then complaining afterwards. To borrow from a business idea, the urgent consumes the important. But if we are thoughtful and open about what would be ideal for each of us, that gives a great starting point. Then you can chip away at differences, as well as other annoying factors like cash and jobs and family commitments and health. The discussion can also help to shape thoughts about major life choices.

The obvious time to do this exercise is close to retirement, at a point where a major time constraint might be disappearing. It can also help to take away some of the fear of retirement. But there is every reason to carry out the exercise every few years or so at any stage of life, and whether or not you are in a life partnership.

I struck the jackpot with my week on Tobago, and can pray for many repeats, if I am right that my wife enjoyed it nearly as much as I did. We can also look forward to some wonderful months and years, duly budgeted and compromised so as to be a bit less than perfect but still great. Just the anticipation of such things is a wonderful gift.

Of course, all of this comes with the caveat of God willing, as all these medical procedures have reminded me. But that should only encourage us to dream, as at least then we have a fighting chance of realising those dreams, putting us ahead of the many who don’t get around to it and then run out of time. My advice for today is not to be one of those people. Get dreaming.

Brexit and Establishments

No sooner had I written about Brexit and lauded a Guardian Weekly article by Fintan O’Toole, than I opened my next edition of the same magazine and found another article by the same guy on the same subject, equally brilliant and thought provoking.

The central claim of the article is that Brexit is not really about Europe at all, but Britain's (and predominantly England’s) reckoning with itself. Europe is just the catalyst for that reckoning.

He makes a brilliant comparison between the recent events in parliament to the scene in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland where the dodo organizes something called a caucus-race. All the characters have descended into a vale of tears, and are urged to try to dry out by running around aimlessly in a race with no rules. After a while, the dodo cries out that the race is over, at which point everyone asks him “But who has won?”

The story also reminds me of a game that panellists play each week on a British radio show called “I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue”; amazingly, the show is still running according to Wikipedia. In that game the panellists shout out London Underground stations until one of them closes the game with the station Mornington Crescent. Those not in the know try to work out the rules of the game, whether a station needs to be connected to the one before by line or geography or alphabet or in some other way, but the truth is that there are no such rules, the stations are just chosen at random. This is a lovely example of British humour.

O’Toole finds the machinations of the British establishment over Brexit in the Dodo game. Everyone is running around, displaying enormous passion but little logic beyond a competitive hatred of the other participants, and with little prospect of a resolution. When Theresa May’s deal was roundly rejected, to the great joy of many players, one newspaper coined the term “Brextinct”, just like the dodo itself. But the reality is that the game has no real end and certainly no winner.

O’Toole claims that the root cause for all this is that Brexit is not really about Europe at all and hence won’t be resolved simply within the context of the debate about Europe. The debate is about Britain itself, the sort of country it wants to be now that it is growing up.

O’Toole quotes various unresolved questions within Britain as having been left to fester and collectively led to dysfunction. He mentions the precarious balancing act of the union of four (well, three and a half) countries, the regional inequalities epitomised by the financial City of London, resentment of immigrants, and the hollowing out and consequent incompetence of the ruling class. He could have added the royals, the Church of England, the relationship with the US, residual colonial attitudes, hangups about sex and many other factors.

I loved the analogy and analysis, but then I wondered how unique it is to England. The Irish have just as long a list themselves, starting with partition, the Church, alcohol, petty corruption as a norm, and the attitude to the English. The US has race (including native Americans, the true elephant in the room), militarism, social issues including abortion, and immigration.

Most nations have a long list of unresolved undiscussables. What may be unique to England, for now, is the presence of the catalyst, in the form of the EU. It may be only a catalyst rather than a root cause, but without a catalyst there is at least uneasy stability.

Wondering about how undiscussables work, I recalled another Brexit article from a couple of months ago, by Bagehot in the Economist. His diagnosis for the sorry state of the UK (including not just the Brexit mess but the general incompetence of current leaders), was that the establishment had fractured.

Bagehot tried to define what an establishment is. So does Wikipedia, but I found their attempt rather technical. I prefer something like an informal or even unconscious network of people who define and police a set of norms and boundaries for a society.

It is easier to see who constitutes the establishment. In the UK, it includes senior civil servants, royals and advisors, judges, blue chip business leaders, the BBC, Christian Church leaders, university academics and deans, and the military. For a time trade union leaders were reluctantly included. The list is similar in most counties but the balance is different. The series The Crown, among other wonders, beautifully depicted the British establishment of the post war era.

An establishment is self-serving. It is usually reactionary, and it wants to maintain its privileges and preserve unequal opportunities for its children. The opera still gets subsidies; public schools still enjoy charitable status; offshore tax clampdowns are limited.

But it can also be argued that many establishments are a net positive, when respectful of institutions and offering some openness. A society can more easily progress when the boundaries are known and stable. A good establishment is patient, thinks long-term, and is not too showy or arrogant. When disruptions come along, an establishment shows tolerance until an invisible line is crossed, at which point ranks are closed and power wielded.

Essentially there is a grand unwritten unconscious deal between the establishment and the public. We’ll let you stay in charge while we believe you have our back and you deliver benefits to us. Singapore, Dubai and China all work this way. 

Often, the very things that define the boundaries set by an establishment are the undiscussables. You can also characterise them as the too difficult column. An establishment can allow change, but not too much too fast and not without lots of stabilisers and consideration of unintended consequences. As a result, some issues are parked, but can explode should a catalyst arrive or should the establishment splinter.

Bagehot argues, with merit, that this splintering has happened in the UK. Some trends, usually good trends, make holding an establishment together harder, such as social media, globalisation, and better education. Bagehot does not agree with me, but I think the UK establishment committed an own goal under Thatcher in the 1980’s. One part got greedy and has remained greedy since, copying the US. Another part has lost respect for that part. The contract with the people has broken down. And when things like Brexit come along, the ranks don’t close like they used to.

Considering this helped me to understand what an establishment is, how it works, and how it can be good or bad. The Downton Abbey establishment of Victorian England was hopelessly inequitable, but enabled progress overall. The establishment in Pakistan, dominated by the military and fear of India, has held the nation back. The collapse of the establishment in Venezuela has led to awful suffering. The one in China, post Deng, has enabled the historic economic and social progress, but at the expense of building up undiscussables that will explode one day.

So thank you Bagehot and thanks again to Fintan O’Toole. It is good to be reminded that sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. The world has made fantastic progress over the last 75 years, even if the cost has been some undiscussables. Establishments have even carefully moved on some of those, such as acceptance of homosexuality, even in Ireland. Reactionaries have their place.      

Some Thoughts about Brexit

I haven’t previously blogged about Brexit. Partly, that is because there have been so many column inches on the subject that it is tough to find something original to say. The Economist and Guardian have been stuffed with Brexit articles ever since Cameron promised the referendum. The general tone has been of despair and “I told you so”, as well as plenty of introspection about deeper causes and the British character.  There has been a lot of good stuff, and a lot of more thoughtless or mundane material and of repetition.

Still, I am British and the relationship with the EU can be argued to have dominated the politics of my country for my whole life, so I can’t just ignore the subject. I have come up with four thoughts.

Firstly, to understand Brexit supporters, I recall my mum and her beloved Daily Mail.

My mum was born in 1930 to an aspiring working class family. She was fed a constant ‘Brexit diet” throughout her life. Her education featured pink maps and suggestions of British superiority. She endured the war and was led to believe of the special wonder of the Queen and of Churchill. She was suspicious of the black faces that started appearing in the 1960’s. She always lived in genteel towns that suffered gradual declines and were prone to nostalgia. As a Daily Mail reader, like most of her friends, every day saw headlines ridiculing the EU and targeting foreigners, either as benefit scroungers or job stealers or criminals or culture destroyers.

It is no surprise that my mum was a typical patriotic Brexiteer. She died four years before the referendum but there is no doubt which way she would have voted. She was a bit incurious, did not have a top education, and was rather over credulous of easy excuses, but she was a typical product of her time and not worthy of hate of disdain.

I remember this when I struggle to understand how Brexit was voted for. Nearly all of the people associate with would never have voted to leave. Many would be quick to condemn exit voters as dumb and worse, racist or even fascist. Judged by modern standards, my mum might have been a bit of all of those things, but, given her circumstances, it would have been unusual if she had been anything else. We should not blame my mum or people like her. The ones who should have known better were people like Paul Dacre and Boris Johnson.

I try to use similar thoughts when I try to understand how Trump became US president. I find it helpful; it stops me casting hate too readily.

My second thought is that Brexit is most consequential for Ireland.

I buy neither that the UK economy will enter a tailspin as a result of Brexit, nor that Britons will somehow be cut off from Europe and have to sacrifice their holidays and Brie. We were OK before the joining EU and will be OK after leaving it, although Brexit is undoubtedly a negative and the transition may be tough, and politics will remain a mess for some time. But doomsday stuff never rang true and was seen through during the campaign.

For me, the strongest argument is that living in peace with neighbours is a winning strategy for humanity, and, even without thoughts of economics, this should have been enough to keep us in. But perhaps that is rather a woolly and remote argument for people struggling to get through the week.

Ask most English people what the Brexit arguments are, and they will barely mention Ireland. But this is where many consequences lie. Sadly, the British have ignored or belittled Ireland for hundreds of years, and caused much suffering as a result, especially to the Irish.

It was inevitable that the exit negotiations would get stuck at what is called the Irish Backstop. The Republic is in the EU. Northern Ireland won’t be, if Brexit goes ahead. The hard Brexit brigade insist on escaping from the rule of free movement – remember, for my mum and her ilk, immigration is the dominant argument – and a consequence is no fully free trade either. So either Northern Ireland stays in the EU or its custom union, which cannot be accepted by Unionists since it is a big step towards a united Ireland, or a full land border between North and South must be reinstated, the first step back towards conflict and disastrous for the both parts of the Irish economy.

None of this was avoidable, yet the British carried on regardless until the buffers were hit. This also happened in the famine of the 1840’s and more recently in the Troubles. I lived in Belfast for a time in the 1980’s and saw first hand how an unsustainable policy leads to catastrophe. Of course Irish opportunists made things worse, but the root cause was clear.

So I blame Cameron. For political expediency, he has undone the historic work of Tony Blair, and carried on the British tradition of throwing the Irish under the bus. Contrary to lazy English stereotypes, the Irish are smart, witty and internationally popular. They will win the tactical battles, and even the long-term strategic ones, but it will be ordinary Irish people who suffer along the way, as usual.

My third thought is about the British character. It is really just an excuse to share some of the column inches I have admired. We already can deduce a lot about the British character by considering the evidence of the first two thoughts.

I read a nice quote from a Danish politician who claimed that Europe only had two types of nations, small ones and ones that haven’t yet realised they are small. This does indeed explain a lot about Britain’s history with the EU, from its initial reluctance to join to its suspicious behaviour as a member and now its readiness to leave recklessly. We really haven’t yet come to terms with the reality that world maps aren’t pink any more.

But my favourite article about Brexit and the British character was in the Guardian Weekly back on 30 November. Fittingly, it was by a witty Irishman, Fintan O’Toole, in an extract from a longer essay entitled Heroic Failures. The British are portrayed as paranoid masochists, many of whom are so traumatised by the 1940’s that the only alternative to domination that they can envisage is subordination. The article is full of wit and of wisdom, even if full of generalisation. The descriptions certainly fit my mum though.

This inability to accept harmonious partnership may be a common theme in declining great powers. I predict similar issues in the US over the next generation or two.

My final thought is that I don’t see an easy exit from the mess we have reached.

With no parliamentary deal in sight, I trust that May will seek to delay Brexit day, maybe for as much as a year, and that the EU and opposition will gladly agree. But then what? The Brexit brigade will cry betrayal and stir up yet more distrust of elites, and in any case a second referendum would be hard to formulate and create more division. So I suspect that there will be a general election later this year under a new Conservative leader, which at least will force Corbyn to articulate a policy. But that may solve nothing either, since for sure a new negotiation with EU would lead to the same impasse, while a decision to stay in for now would keep the Brexit brigade fired up for years to come. So don’t expect this to end any time soon, and not neatly either. The political story that has dominated my life as a Brit will probably outlive me.             

Major Project Management

This month I have enjoyed following the New York press and the excellent morning show on New York 1 TV. There has been much coverage of an apparent reversal in direction for a major subway maintenance project. An important line linking Manhattan to Brooklyn was due to be closed completely for over a year, with all sorts of ramifications. But the MTA clearly did not account for the conquering hero, governor Andrew Cuomo. In December he organised a one-hour visit to the tunnel, and over the New Year he announced that his team had discovered an alternative way to carry out the project and the line could stay open.

This led to some initial good cheer, followed by many questions – New Yorkers never take good news lightly, cynicism always returns quickly. How could the MTA have been so dumb not to have known about this not-so-new technology before? Should we trust a radical fix that Cuomo’s team seems to have come up with so quickly? Why did all the time and money of preparatory work have to be wasted? What about all those people who had already moved house in anticipation of the shutdown, or the landlords who had agreed rent reductions? How was Cuomo able to operate over the heads of the MTA board, when he is usually at pains to point out he does not control it?

This was all good stuff and highly entertaining, but, just like the new Amazon jobs, New Yorkers were being side-tracked onto something they could complain about rather than simply celebrating a positive development.

I enjoyed the story because it recalled my last days in Shell, when somehow I found myself working in its major projects department, responsible for investment projects of billions of dollars, many reminiscent of the MTA L-train tunnel renewal.

That I ended up in major project management, and even found something useful to do there, says many things about me, about Shell and about project management.

About me, I guess it showed that my career had run out of steam and that the lack of a main discipline had finally caught up with me in a company with an engineering culture. I had already signalled my intention to retire early, but it still showed some confidence in me that a position of some consequence was offered, so I guess I had some credibility. Even so, it was quite tough, because the place was absolutely packed with engineers, talking jargon and acronyms that I struggled to understand. I was always one statement away from ignominy.

About Shell, it shows they are a kind employer – I was vulnerable, and they sorted me out. I saw this many times with others, and I found the human decency inspiring, and believe it is rare in corporate life nowadays. It also shows that the company places creativity over discipline – no logical HR process would have supported the move, but it still happened because someone made it happen and leaders trusted people to make things work.

About major project management, it showed what an undervalued discipline it used to be, but also how empty a discipline it is, an apparent contradiction.

Major projects spend billions, kill people, are critical enablers for income streams, and often go badly. Leaders might have the most consequential jobs in their companies. Yet when I joined Shell Global Solutions in 2001, I remember an organisation chart with about 10 VP’s and about 50 direct reports to those VP’s, and the report at the very bottom of the most far right column was the one in charge of major projects. Go figure.

I think part of the reason is that there is so little academic theory of major project management. For most STEM subjects, colleges can devise theory to support bachelors and masters programs and further research. But for major projects, the theory is restricted to a lot of process and protocol, some basic stuff about budget management, and lots of case studies.

In that respect it is very like my home discipline of strategy. In my MBA, I remember the strategy module to consist of a few four box models and many case studies. And strategy is also undervalued, especially in organisations where qualifications count for a lot.

This even affects schools. If there is one thing we all have to learn to do it is to manage projects, from renovating a house to planning a wedding. Those of us who learn to manage projects well have a big advantage in life. But teaching it is wholly absent in school, like so much else that might be useful despite not leading to college research fellowships.

Most of the process in major projects is in preparation. A lot of effort goes into defining extremely clear and detailed goals, and then conducting many reviews to home in on a design and plan that best delivers them, involving the eventual users and owners and all the experts and contactors. It can all take years, before a final execution phase of maybe months.

The key roles are the project manager, who pulls it all together, and someone called the decision executive, representing the owner. A good decision executive understands the business needs and knows how to ask questions. A good project manager is like an orchestra conductor, and the most important attribute is broad shoulders – knowing when to take a personal risk. Most are either risk-averse process managers, or its opposite, cowboys.

In my time in projects, I was supposed to pioneer one new style of review, called target costing, in which cost was modelled as a key constraint rather than an outcome. It could be powerful. On one of the few projects I was able to complete the process, it led to its scrapping, because it became clear that 90% of the benefits could be delivered by 1% of the cost plus a couple of workarounds.

I experienced something very similar at my lovely car workshop yesterday, when I learned I could either fix the occasional floods of rainwater invading my car by investing $500 or by using some duct tape, prayers and towels. My car is barely worth $500, so it was another triumph for target costing and duct tape suppliers.

The practical challenge with all these reviews are the incentives of the key players. The decision executive may not know what questions to ask, and may be motivated by shiny new buildings or avoidance of disaster. The project manager often wants to avoid disaster too, and can shy away from complexity and creativity. Progress towards completion can become paramount too quickly. That is one reason that introducing things like target costing can be tough – it only carries risks for project managers.

All this brings me back to Cuomo and the L-Train. A routine project has just been subject to an extraordinary review from an outsider. It is too late in the process and there has been sunk cost. But essentially Cuomo has challenged the goals, namely the prioritisation of continued service versus cost or other goals. Often these reviews will reveal overlooked opportunities, since the incentives of everyone until now had led to the stifling of creative ideas. It is a good outcome, but not an ideal process. But hey, life sometimes does not follow ideal processes, so well done Andrew, you deserve your uptick in the polls.

I remember the same trade off in Shell when we were rebuilding petrol stations. When the engineers led, the stations had to close during redevelopment, often for ten weeks or more. The upshot was that customers found new habits and it often took years for the new station to become as busy as the old one it replaced. Some smart people intervened, and it became normal practice to keep the place open through the renovation with a couple of pumps. Engineers moaned, but the outcome was better.

Mr Cuomo, while you are at it, could you have a look at the upgrade to the Kew Gardens highway interchange? This complex road junction has been a building site for as long as I’ve lived in New York, six and a half years and counting. I would guess that disruption during the project was not prioritised highly enough among the goals, and a review would reveal ways to finish it more quickly, and to translate that learning into future projects.

A challenge in major project management is to let in such reviews in a timely way, and not so many as to drown projects in bureaucracy. That starts with goals and incentives, and strong decision executives and project managers. These disciplines deserve more consideration, in schools, colleges and companies. I often directed smart and brave young people towards major project management because the opportunities to develop are huge and the limitations few. Procurement and strategy are other fields with those characteristics. If you are looking for an interesting career direction, you could do worse than exploring one of those.           

New Year Moods

The turn of the year can be an awkward time. I must confess to having more miserable memories of New Year’s Eve and of New Year’s Day than happy ones. This year was typical in that respect. On Monday night I became quite grumpy.

New Year has many things working against it. For the Northern Hemisphere, the weather is invariably terrible. The holiday comes straight after another holiday, meaning that some of the obvious activities have already been used up and some of the familial relationships are already strained. It can fall in the middle of the week so does not fit the neat three day weekend pattern of most holidays. And the whole point is for everyone to stay up late, which is fine for people between 16 and 60 but not for those on either side of that range – and most families have plenty of both the old and the young.

Childhood memories of New Year are not good. My parents did not throw or get invited to parties and we did not have a large extended family, so we tended to sit at home and watch TV and try to pretend that we were really wide awake in anticipation, before working out the earliest socially acceptable time to go to bed after midnight. The TV choices were always truly terrible, with review programs interspersed with specials that were too bad to play at Christmas, and topped off with Scottish dancing. I guess that set me up for a lifetime of self-fulfilling expectations of grumpiness.

New Year in Scandinavia was a rare joy. Nordic people do rituals well. New Year involved plenty of drinking and some dancing, but not too much or with too much loud music. Many hosted a barbecue, typically crazy given the usual temperature, and there were lots of fireworks. Somehow the expat crowd was a good size for such gatherings and most people I knew seemed to be in the magic 16-60 age window.

By contrast, New Year in Holland was a nightmare. I positively hated it and dreaded it. A generally sober and organised people went collectively barmy, and the place became a war zone for the night. Everywhere else, fireworks involve large organised shows plus some stuff in back gardens, but in Holland it means every seven year old hurling small fireworks with abandon, ideally under passing cars. Restaurants responded by closing at eight and buses stopped running at nine, while driving meant dodging the terrorists. The only hope was a party invite within walking distance.

Last Monday night was rather typical of our US New Year’s experience. We went for an early evening trip to the old folk’s home where we volunteer, to help with their New Year party. It is cute: they organise a ball drop for 7pm, so that the old folk can enjoy a glass of champagne and even a wheelchair dance, yet still get to bed close to their normal time.

That left us free to drive to New Jersey to the party of the sister of the wife of the brother of my wife, a gathering of more than fifty in a small house. Philippine reunions always feature many kids, lots of food, karaoke (absent this time), problems with remembering the names of close relatives, and two or three lolas (grandmothers) who sit proudly on sofas pointing out which of the assembled throng are their offspring. We like that branch of the family very much, and try to spend time with my brother-in-law whenever they visit from Canada. The kids always bond well, but for the adults there is not much chance to enjoy a quiet chat amid the mayhem.

This year I was grumpy before I even got there, on account of a horrible drive in heavy rain. Visibility was shocking, not helped by our ageing car's foibles, but mainly due to terrible US highway street lighting. I also have to confess to a difficult new relationship with Waze, the route finding app. I have always been a GPS refusenik, preferring to use old-fashioned guides like maps and directions and compass points. OK, I know that is weird. But recently I have come to accept that Waze has some limited uses, for example when lost or when there are multiple possible routes and possible heavy traffic. Finding the house of these relatives did not qualify, but my wife typed in the address anyway, and Waze started to talk to me. Because of an accident on the Cross Bronx (nothing new there), it kept trying to direct me away from the obvious (and, in the conditions, safest) route.

Despite the best intentions of the weather, the car, and (especially) Waze, we arrived, and I had the good sense to choose to find a bedroom to lie down in for twenty minutes, since otherwise my sharp tongue might have ruined various family relationships beyond repair.

I emerged in better humour, to enjoy great food and some warm wine – not as much as I would have liked, aware of the drive home. I managed to chat with my lovely in-laws as much as space and prevailing noise level allowed. But then I noticed it was only 10pm, so I found myself on a sofa half watching network TV. Wow, it made Scottish dancing seem good! At least the dancers were not interrupted by terrible adverts every five minutes. The hosts were in Times Square, wet, wet, wet, and pretending to be having the time of their lives, introducing a series of tired acts performing tired songs with no passion. Diana Ross looked liked she had endured dozens of facelifts, and that more or less defined everyone – they were celebrities failing to be remotely authentic, just as celebrities tend to, all the time. I looked around the room and saw many people doing the same thing, acting, without any authenticity.

Soon after midnight, the TV switched to a lazily written episode of Saturday Night Live, not even live but a recording. The network, exhausted like those poor presenters, was obviously telling us it was time for bed. On my sofa, a distant relative joined me to ask whether Moslems were invading the UK as well as the USA. I was awake enough not to start a fight.

I managed to get the family home safely, including only minor further arguments with Waze, but I still felt grumpy. However, by Wednesday I was struck at how little it took to resume a positive mood. I tuned in to New York 1, and heard how 2018 saw the fewest shooting deaths since 1960 and that annual traffic deaths had reduced from over 300 to under 200 since the mayor launched his Vision Zero campaign. I wonder what they could achieve if they used streetlights.

So, apart from getting a rant off my chest, can I learn from these various New Year experiences? There is a lot. Sometimes it rains, and I should get over it. There is not much maturity in arguing with an app, so I should just work out how I want to use Waze and stick to it. Family is a gift, and deserves more grace than I gave it last Monday evening. Grumpiness is not a good trait.

One realisation is about a contented semi-retired life. I like my routine, and I struggle in times of the year when the routine is disturbed. I like my regular TV shows like New York 1 in the mornings. While it is lovely to have the kids home, it is also lovely to have my routine undisturbed.

There is another realisation about authenticity. I think I already reach out to situations where I can encounter people being unforced, whether in my choice of friends, movies or situations. I can use that realisation, in learning to accept other situations without getting grumpy, and in seeking even more authentic opportunities. Network TV on New Years eve is probably not near the top of the list for those; indeed New Year’s Eve itself is not all that conducive.

Finally, I should come to accept that the magic 16-60 age range will soon no longer include me. Indeed, it won’t be long before I might be the lola character in the room, so I’d better start accepting that, and doing a better job of remembering the names of my relatives.

I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2019. I resolve to do a better job at not being grumpy, at least for the first 364 days of it.