How to Change Your Own Mind
The other 'trans' (as in energy "transition") movement isn't going away. Now what?
This is the first of a series that answers the best question I’ve had all year in a way that may help you do the same. It came from a well-wisher on LinkedIn congratulating me on a business milestone. He asked “what’s the biggest lesson you learned for the past year?” Looking back, it was how to stay open to other views long enough to form a position I could support, not just “sell”, to others. Doing this caused me to change my position on some issues that I was sure were settled.
What is the point? Getting to that Valley of Reason that the media labels the Center, the Middle, or just not The Extremes doesn’t mean splitting the difference. To me it means finding some ideas we can work with instead of just throwing virtual rocks at each other. Posting the latest update on a ‘cleantech’ or ‘fossil’ project that’s stalled or cancelled (offshore wind, CCUS), or criticizing the engineering or technical issues involved in changing the status quo can bring a warm feeling of relief. Sort of like a toddler smiling after a trantrum. But it won’t improve the situation that caused the ruckus. And it delays progress and puts politicians in charge of something they have no clue about.
Let’s wade in - the meme/quote that pulled my personal chain every time over these past months is the “you’ll own nothing, and like it”. In my search for rational thought, I tried to pull in sources that were definitely outside my personal comfort zone. Understanding these opposites might unearth some points that weren’t in my usual sources, and maybe some of them would make sense. But this one got me every time. Until I decided to move past the first shot of outrage and dig in.
Who would use this as a way to actually gain support? Even people who are all about controlling the world for the rest of us aren’t complete idiots. If they have that kind of money they also have good PR people who would cloak this in something that sounds better. Once I decided this was yet another version of someone’s smear campaign, I found an article in the Globe and Mail, “How ‘own nothing and be happy’ sparked a misinformation campaign that targeted the World Economic Forum”, published August 5, 2022. What a surprise.
But, it’s hard to fight the thought that figuring out how to live well without using quite as much energy might be a way to make progress on concerns around not just global warming, but pollution, traffic congestion, and crowding that go along with a world with 8 billion roommates. “We”, as in the people running big governments, seem to be trying a path that does this indirectly via higher prices. Not just for existing sources, but also for supposedly “renewable” ones. Allowing the assumption that all it will take to fight global warming is switching out fossil fuel for electricity to remain unchallenged for way too long hasn’t helped us move forward. But I don’t to be told that I “have to” give up some part of my way of life for the greater good, especially since it doesn’t seem like others will. How can having less be better?
Enter another point of view - and one that has me looking past the 2 sides of the transition argument and their projects of choice to other ideas that expand the solution set. Instead of more, more, and more of the new and different, we should start with examining what’s already here that we can eliminate to make room for something else. In his book Subtract, Author Leidy Klotz points out “Every day, across challenges big and small, we neglect a basic way to make things better: we don’t subtract.” For a lot of reasons, human nature resists taking away, especially as a starting point for change. But there are times when subtracting can solve a problem in a more elegant way than just adding more. The important issue is that this be a rational choice, not a ‘force put’ that drives an answer before the right questions are asked. Together, instead of in separate silos that compete like sports teams.
As for the ‘rational’ part, there is an engineering discipline working on that, too. Now, the “you’ll own nothing” meme has lost its power - owning less might be a good thing, as long someone isn’t trying to define that for me.
A reminder, that “energy” in and of itself has no utility. It’s what we do with it that does. Years ago, as part of the Clean Air Act, US refiners were being forced by regulatory fiat to reduce the amount of sulfur in motor gasoline to eliminate acid rain caused by sulfur dioxide. That process took 30 years, and culminated with the near elimination of sulfur in the diesel used in marine transport on the open sea in 2020. Through that lens, a 2050 target for changing how we use our current fuel sources doesn’t seem as silly. At a conference discussing the public’s less than favorable view of the industry, the president of one of the Big Integrated Oil companies was asking the audience how to improve its image. From the back came the answer in the voice of the customer. “I make my living in this industry, and we own 5 cars. But the bottom line is that you aren’t selling oil and gas. You’re selling heat, light, and mobility (he didn’t mention materials). And that’s what I’m buying - I don’t care who supplies it or how it’s made.”
And as prices inevitably rise to support the investments that will be needed to provide energy, regardless of what kind, to a world of 8 billion people, most of us will be looking at choices. Fear that we’ll be ‘rug pulled’ and shut down without other choices is real, and realistic if we keep throwing memes at each other instead of having an actual conversation.