Journal

View from my window

Flew via Sao Paulo on Wednesday to Florianopolis, in Santa Catarina State, for the 2008 Eco Power Conference. The other international speakers were Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown, Fritjof Capra, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore  and, on cleantech, Ron Pernick.  Asked to do the final keynote, I had come in late and arrived after they had all spoken – but managed to meet up briefly with Lester Brown after his press conference.  Happily, my session seemed to go extremely well.  Inside, huge interest, especially from young people.  Outside, however, the rain scarcely stopped all the time I was there.  

People told me the rain had been crashing down for perhaps two months.  On the last evening, I was filmed for a documentary, ‘Sector 2.5 – The Film’ by some wonderful people – including Maria Fernanda Gayoso.  The rain was still thumping down as I went out to the airport yesterday, Saturday, and the taxi driver kept turning back over his shoulder to express amazement at the sound of the rain drumming on his roof – and the lack of visibility, as he drove along at 85 miles an hour.  I was glad to get out and onto solid ground after aquaplaning much of the way.

Despite the huge umbrellas they gave each of us to walk out the plane, I was splashed up to the waist.  The tarmac was an inch deep in running water – and I steamed gently for much of the trip back to Sao Paulo.  Finished Mrs Lincoln, by Janis Cooke Newman, almost as the plane touched down at Heathrow.  Astounding book, a forensic exploration of grief – and a completely different angle on a president struggling with epochal challenges.  Almost tempted to start it over again.

Meg (right) was my guide to all things Eco Power   Film crew, with Maria Fernanda Gayoso centre row, left   And me The way is illuminated – but either side the rain goes on

An almost blank sheet – and an incentive

Monday and Tuesday of this week were largely spent in a full-team Volans retreat at 2 Bloomsbury Place.  A number of us were either feeling pretty whacked with travel and/or suffering from flu, but with Charmian in the chair we made a great deal of progress.  One development I was particularly pleased with was the unanimous adoption of the Phoenix Economy concept as an organising framework for much of our work, something I have been working on fairly continuously as I have winged around the world in recent weeks.  Ale(jandro) and I also made a good deal of progress on our Pathways to Scale approach and methodology, with some great new thinking on how that can now play out.

Much of the team in main room   Charmian, Ale and Pamela   Macs may be beginning to take over   Pamela and Kevin   Sam’s version of what world looks like to me – with pupils dilated by eye specialist this afternoon   Allen (Tan), Smita and Kevin   Kevin does The Phoenix

Reagan National 1   Reagan National 2

The G20 summit was still in session in Washington, D.C., as I came out through Reagan National Airport.  Had to fly to Detroit before heading across to London, but trip made widly worth while by conversation on the plane with Alicia Diaz, a lawyer, who I started talking to because she had a copy of David McCulloch’s wonderful biography of John Adams.  I continue to work my way through Mrs Lincoln, which I am enjoying hugely.

Had largely spent the week in DC, for a SustainAbility AGM and Board meeting, including joint sessions with the team and a delightful dinner at a restaurant that only serves relatively local food, albeit noise levels were almost industrial.  When I first arrived, I snuck in visits to the National Gallery of Art, to take a look at Calder’s giant mobile, and then to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

Then took Amtrak to Philadelphia on Friday afternoon, to speak at the Net Impact ‘The Sustainable Advantage’ conference at The Wharton School.  My session was titled ‘Unreasonable People: The Role Entrepreneurs Play in Shaping Tomorrow’s Markets’.  Chaired by Virginia Barreiro, New Global Ventures Global Director at the World Resources Institute, the panel session also involved Agnes Dasewicz, COO at the Grassroots Business Fund, and Ben Powell, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Agora Partnerships.  I began early road-testing of my thinking around the emerging ‘Phoenix Economy’, the focus of a possible new book I’m working on.  Wonderful reaction to the session from the several hundred MBA students and similar that took part.

Calder mobile   Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis, Rutan’s SpaceShipOne and Yeager’s X1   Dark Star, Predator et al   Mark Lee and Sophia Tickell in SustainAbility’s DC office    Bottled carrots in restaurant   Table setting – with Mark and Geoff in background   Meghan and Kate

Flew into Washington, DC, earlier today – having come via Detroit.  The taxi driver from Ronald Reagan/National Airport proved to be a delightful Palestinian, born in Jerusalem in 1959, the only year I ever visited that beautiful, blighted city.  

He had been tricked into exile by the Israelis 35 years ago – and told me how the Israelis bulldozed some of his family members’ homes a few days back, homes that had been built in the 1950s on land given to them by Jordan, on the grounds that the land belongs to Jews.  Hard not to share the sense of grievance.  He had zero hope that President-elect Obama would do anything to rein in Israel, but I said I’m not so sure.  My sense is that Israel sits on a diaspora-spread Krakatoa which will blow at some point, though the magma chambers may prove to lie in geographically distant parts of Iran or similar.

As I tapped away at the keyboard, with an aromatic bottle of Sam Adams at my elbow, it struck me what an intricately cantilevered global house of cards we live in.  And as I sent an email to a new friend in Tokyo, it also struck me – today is Veterans’ Day here – how that this simple act would have been seen very differently a mere 65 years ago.  Treasonable.  

And listening to President Bush doing a Veterans’ Day speech on an aircraft carrier today, it struck me again just how unconscionably flat-footed he and his cabal have been.  Yes, Britain helped cause much of the mayhem in the area originally covered by the Palestinian Mandate, but you’d think someone in the U.S. government would have the capacity to learn the right lessons from history.  He seems to have been awarded the Freedom Medal and given a standing ovation, when I suspect the Court of History will conclude – whatever the motives – the results of his actions could scarcely have been more damaging if he, Cheney, Rumsfeld et. al. had willfully set out with treasonable intent.  

What thoughts, you wonder, were really running through Obama’s mind when the Bushes showed the President-elect and his family around the White House this week?

Having always said that I don’t get jet-lag, the latest trip has had me on my knees, almost.  Maybe it was the combination of the travel with having to prepare presentations as I went, but it’s also possible that I’ve managed to delude myself all these years – a matter of mind over matter, as I have often said. Perhaps, too, it has been the additional strain of the cataracts I have been nurturing for a while, with the left eye now fairly blurred, and of the tinnitus that affects both ears – and is like a receiver left open to the distant radio signals of the galaxy.  Perhaps something significant will come through at some point?  I live in hope.

Still, have used the down-time while flying to work on ideas for a new book – and have been making a good deal of progress, I think.