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The thinkerRenowned author and speaker Paul Hawken will address the Thriving Neighbourhoods conference to be held in Melbourne later this month. He spoke to Ecolibrium editor Matt Dillon on the eve of his visit to Australia.

Paul Hawken

Matt Dillon: How did you become a “green thinker” – was there an epiphany?

Paul Hawken: I spent a lot of time outdoors, and starting at age 17 I began working in the civil rights movement, which gave me a crash course in injustice, courage (not mine, the African-Americans we worked with), and community. At age 20 I started my first company, and its purpose was to develop sustainable methods of agriculture and cultivate a market for the products. It is called the natural foods movement now, but at the time it was not so clearly defined. At that time the US food system had reached a low point.

The chairman of the Dept of Nutrition at Harvard, Dr Fred Stare, happily promoted sugar, canned foods, and chemical additives and sat on the board of companies that encouraged dietary habits that lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. What I was doing – linking health and food quality to land and water quality – was simply beyond the pale in his eyes. It was a time in America when there was an almost gleeful disconnection from human life and nature. Food, real estate, transportation, and commerce itself, were not viewed from a systemic point of view, but as autonomous economic sectors that could transcend natural limits.

Maybe it was the formative years I spent in the Sierra Nevada mountains, maybe it was growing up in California and seeing development destroy places I loved, places where one night there was frogs and mockingbirds and the next day bulldozers. But whatever it was, from early on, the disconnect between nature and human society was obvious and I have spent my life addressing it.

MD: Where do you find inspiration?

PH: I find it in humanity and in nature. I believe we underestimate the degree of difficulty that we face with respect to climate, water, food, population, the oceans, etc. But I also believe we have underestimated ourselves, our capacity to change, innovate, cooperate and give. What we hear about with unrelenting frequency is humanity’s failings: greed, killings, war, terror, and corruption. What we do not hear is the remarkable willingness of people to change their lives and work on behalf of others, people they will never know, in order to promote justice and an ecologically sustainable environment. Basically, something extraordinary is happening in the world today and it is largely ignored.

MD: In your work the ecology of Commerce written in the early 1990s, you argue for full-cost accounting for business decisions. Are you confident that we are moving in this direction?

PH: Not as far as I can tell with respect to government. There is very little movement in terms of taxing externalities and when there is . . . there is always a strong push-back from vested interests who invoke the economy, jobs, and the public good to bolster their arguments. In business, there are many internal initiatives to innovate ways to eliminate externalities at breakeven or better, and this is leading to many breakthroughs in technology and process engineering.

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MD: In Australia this is obviously at the centre of intense debate, as we are on the eve of a carbon tax. one of the arguments against it in this country is that the rest of the world hasn’t implemented such a system, so why should we – and we only produce 1.5 per cent of global emissions? What do you say to that line of argument?

PH: The argument against a carbon tax has always bedevilled a rational tax policy. Essentially you want to tax the things you want less of and not tax things you want more of. Thus, you should not tax labour (jobs) and you should tax waste, pollution (greenhouse gases), tobacco, etc. With the exception of sin taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, we do the opposite.

It is true that in a globalised world large companies can pull up stakes and manufacture wherever they wish, whereas small companies cannot. Having said that, I believe that companies in Australia should see it differently.

I remember many years ago a group of transnational Swedish companies approached their prime minister and requested higher carbon taxes, including an oil refiner. Their argument was that the higher costs would drive innovation (to avoid the costs), which would in turn drive higher revenues from export markets. The prime minster was surprised if not shocked and asked them whom they represented. They said they represented the companies of the future.

We forget that breakthroughs only come about when there are limits and constraints. That is when we do our best thinking. Since carbon limits are coming sooner or later (either because of shrinking supply or because of climate change, or both), countries that impose carbon taxes upon themselves early achieve a competitive advantage. And of course, one can always institute a carbon tax rebate for exported products so that companies are not penalised when competing against countries that do not tax carbon.

MD: Do you think there is a danger of “green fatigue” – a lot of people seemed to have turned off from the dire warnings about climate change – it’s too scary to contemplate, or there is scepticism still about the science. Are you concerned about transforming the way people think, and how can this be done?

PH: There is an understandable fatigue about endless bad news. I would like to make a slight correction here, however. There is no scepticism about the science of climate change, at least not from climate scientists, as it is basic physics we are talking about. There is plenty of room for the CO2 we’re adding to the atmosphere. But, as it slowly accumulates, it is gradually double-glazing our planet. Earth’s atmosphere, not counting water vapour, contains by volume about 78 per cent nitrogen, 21 per cent oxygen, 0.9 per cent argon, and 0.039 per cent other trace gases. Nitrogen, oxygen, and argon have

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Are you managing, selling, leasing or subleasing commercial offi ce space?National legislation for commercial office buildings commenced on 1 July 2010*.

From 1 November 2011, the Act will require that before sale, lease or sublease, commercial office buildings with a lettable area of 2000m2 or more, will need to disclose an up-to-date energy efficiency rating in a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC). BEECs are valid for up to 12 months, must be publicly accessible on the online Building Energy Efficiency Register, and include:

• a NABERS Energy star rating for the building• an assessment of tenancy lighting in the area of the building that is being sold or leased; and• general energy efficiency guidance.

The NABERS Energy star rating must also be included in any advertisement for the sale, lease or sublease of the office space.

The legislation will create a more informed property market and stimulate demand and investment in energy efficient buildings.

For more information about the Commercial Building Disclosure program visit www.cbd.gov.au or email info@cbd.gov.au.

*Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Act 2010

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thinkchange

no greenhouse effect; thus 99 per cent of the atmosphere provides virtually no insulation.

We need a plan, not fear.

We need to join together,

not fight. We need

alignment, not winners and

losers. Consensus takes

time. Hard to do when the

auguries of the future are

already here.’Of the atmosphere’s main natural constituents, only water, carbon dioxide, and ozone have warming properties; we want and need these warming properties. Without them the Earth would be a freezer. These three warming gases share a common characteristic – they each have three atoms. All molecules absorb energy at the frequencies at which they naturally

vibrate. Simple two-atom molecules like nitrogen and oxygen vibrate at high frequencies, like tight little springs, so they don’t absorb much of the waste heat that leaves the Earth as lower-frequency infrared energy. In contrast, CO2, H2O, and ozone (O3) absorb heat rays especially well, because their three atoms create a triad configuration that can flap, shimmy, and shake at the right rate to absorb and re-radiate most of the infrared rays that the warm Earth emits. The problem is that they are very effective, so small increments in the atmosphere make a big difference in the amount of heat that is trapped.

The area where there is confusion and legitimate disagreement is interpreting how warming in the middle atmosphere will impact weather on Earth. But instead of arguing about that, we should have a no-regrets policy so that we are protected regardless of who is right in their predictions. Right now we are like the crew of the Titanic cruising through the night in iceberg-infested seas debating

about the severity of an impact. A better idea is to slow down and take a different route. The big difference with respect to this metaphor is that climate change lasts for centuries, not a night.

MD: You once said we probably have to slow down to address the most urgent issues of our time – could you explain what you meant by this?

PH: We need a plan, not fear. We need to join together, not fight. We need alignment, not winners and losers. Consensus takes time. Hard to do when the auguries of the future are already here.

MD: What are three keys to building thriving neighbourhoods – and by extension, cities and countries, do you think?

PH: Anything that allows people to live convivial, meaningful lives produces civility, peace, intelligence, and cooperation. Our current mega-cities were designed by default, by greed, by

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strange and perverse incentives of the 20th century. They were not designed for people; they were designed to make money for a few people, mostly developers and large property owners. Older cities are more humane because their development was pluralistic with respect to ownership.

I see AIRAH as inefficiency

arbitrageurs, with endless

opportunities to capture

the savings in the 97 per

cent of energy that is

currently being wasted’MD: Is there anywhere that is

getting neighbourhoods right?

PH: Yes, all over the world. Portland, Oregon is one. Curitiba, Brazil I wrote about in Natural Capitalism. Vancouver, Canada; Malmo, Sweden; Freiburg in Germany; Zurich and Geneva have Paul Hawken says Curtiba, Brazil, is one city that is getting neighbourhoods right.

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amazing neighbourhoods, as do hundreds of Italian hill towns and small cities. I worry about new “green cities” that come off the drawing board, however. The best cities are organic, not centrally planned.

MD: In your commencement speech to the 2009 class of Portland university, you said, “At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.” How can we easily do that?

PH: If you are going down the wrong road, speeding up won’t help you. And that is what we are doing globally with respect to economic development. You actually have to stop and turn around.

And that is what we have to do. You have to create inter-generational financing and bonding so that we are paying ourselves to restore our environment, sequester carbon, and rejuvenate the land and seas. Economic development is whatever we make it to be. Zynga creates Farmville on Facebook and Zynga is valued today at over $2.5 billion. There is nothing there. It is all illusion. So if we can create thriving economies playing with illusions, think what we could do if we turned our attention to Earthville.

MD: Do you have a message for AIRAH members and ecolibrium readers. What can they do?

PH: Always reach further than required, extend beyond standards, even green standards and relentlessly improve and innovate. At present, we only usefully

employ 2–3 per cent of all the energy that is produced. The rest is wasted. I see AIRAH as inefficiency arbitrageurs, with endless opportunities to capture the savings in the 97 per cent of energy that is currently being wasted. ❚

Paul Hawken is impressed with Malmo, Sweden.

WoulD You lIke to knoW MoRe?The Thriving Neighbourhoods conference will be held from October 25–26 at the St Kilda Town Hall in Melbourne.

For more information go to http//thrivingneighbourhoods2011.org