Climate Change and Conflict
This week has been a big one for reflection for me. After the GO GO GO pace of the last few weeks, I found I needed a breath. Also, many of the meeting requests I had sent out were not available for this week but next so I decided to just do them all next week and take time to BE here in Manila.
The on thing about Climate Change, is that people focus on the technical issues. I have talked about that before in previous blog posts, but going back over my notes, I really see it standing out. Technical problems, Greenhouse Gas reduction, pollution reduction, traffic congestion reduction... all forms of reduction. However, if you take something away, what do you replace it with? What fills the void? I learned that Manila has bad traffic. Traffic everywhere. This is the case in many cities in Asia - and around the world. In an effort to reduce traffic the city passed a law that was supposed to reduce the number of cars on the road. Every day during the week, licenses plates ending in certain numbers are not allowed to be on the roads during the heaviest traffic times. Basically, on Monday if your license plate ends in 1,2 or 3, you cannot be out on the road driving during peek times (I think that is 3-7) and so on the rest of the week all the way to 9. Forgive me if I get the exact numbers/days/times wrong, but this is the general concept. In theory I understand this and I see what the government was trying to do. However, when I asked locals what this meant in practice or how it impacted their lives, they said it just meant you bought a second car and had a license plate with different number on it. Now instead of reducing the number of cars you are almost doubling the number for most of the week as households get two cars instead of making due with just one. The consequence, traffic has continued to get worse not better. I would not say all laws have these types of unintended consequences but I think it is a safe assumption to say the the majority of laws passed do end up having unforeseen side effects that the drafters did not intend. The degree of impact on the society is variable. The reflections over this week have made me think a lot about unintended side effects and the need to think about what will fill the void when what is already in place is removed. Sometimes it can be good (indoor plumbing vs outhouse), or better then what was there. Other times, it can be much worse (the fall of Saddam Hussein). Don't get me wrong, I am not an advocate for Saddam and his regime, I only point out that the aftermath of that "reduction" was not what was intended and what filled the void not so good. So I have to ask with all these calls for reductions, what is going to fill the void? What is the plan and what must we do to make sure that what comes next is not worse then what we have now. And it is key to remember that it is not reductions in just one thing it is reduction through the whole cycle product/social/life. Not just the power plant spewing smoke, but transportation, mining, exploring, etc. So the thought of this week, what comes next? AND (lets be proactive here) what can each of us (we) do to make sure that what comes next is better? Anyone want to post their thought or have an answer they want to share with the class?
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AuthorI'm Dan. Climate Change and Conflict. Archives
April 2015
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