Aren’t you the security guy?

“Aren’t you the security guy? What’s all this global warming stuff got to do with that?

That’s a far couple of questions, and ones that I was asked recently. There’re a couple of ways I can answer, so I ay as well cover off all the bases…

Firstly, in case anyone accuse me of jumping on the latest bandwagon and doing my own little bit of greenwashing, I should say (with all due respect) that anyone who has to ask about my interest in the state of the environment probably doesn’t know me well.

Common sense told me some two decades ago that we were overburdening our environment. I got my first scuba qualification at the age of eighteen, and in the years that followed did a lot of diving off the NSW (Australia) coast. At the time I lived in a small town called Bundeena, completely surrounded by national park, and in a house where the front garden literally bordered onto the bay. At high tide, if you leaned over the front wall of the garden you could spit into the water. Bundeena is situated with the Royal National Park, which is the world’s second declared national park (the first being Yellowstone). My friend Rudi w was trying to start up a dive business based out of Bundeena, and through him and his efforts at building a diver’s ‘community’ I met many retired snorkelers and spearfishermen. They would tell stories lamenting the decline of the marine environment in the bay, compared t their youth. Even accounting for fishermen’s tall tales, there was clearly some truth amongst the stories they’d tell over a cheap schooner (near enough a pint) of beer at the local. Around this time Greenpeace was targeting Caltex over marine pollution from their refinery on the Kurnell peninsula.

A favourite walk of mine was from Bundeena out through the bush to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. These cliffs, or The Balconies as we called them had a view that stretched from Sydney (North and to the left) to Wollongong (South and to the right). If the midpoint of the view was twelve o’clock then Sydney was at about nine and Wollongong at about 4pm. Over the period of about eight years that I spent visiting The Balconies I saw brown smears that marked both Sydney and Wollongong converge across the vista. The blue gap between the brown of industry’s influence eventually shrinking to the five minutes on either side of twelve o’clock. It seemed that time was running out even back then.

It is said that travel broadens the mind and awakens a sense of social awareness. I’ll be the first to admit that I have done more than my fair share of aeroplane based travel. The eleven plus years of my time with (the software vendor) CA saw me eating more airline meals than I’d care to count. China, India, Thailand, South Africa, North America, all over Europe – been there and got the CO2 footprint to go with it. Sparing the details; suffice t say that I witnessed and absorbed enough sights such that I am under no illusions that the planet can sustain the heaving numbers of people that are already with us today. Anyone who has looked out the window as the aeroplane clears the Asian Brown Cloud cannot fail to appreciate the scale of the pollutants pumped into the atmosphere by human activity.

Of course all of that might be construed as romantic, environmentalism unfounded in either science or business were it not for the depth and breadth of evidence. Anyone who has bothered to educate themselves on the current research, and the forward thinking of various individuals cannot fail to settle on an uncomfortable truth. With the exception of (the UK’s) The Independent most news outlets give climate change and peak oil short shrift. Even The Independent undermines itself through unabashed advertising for tourist flights, motoring and so on. Relying on any of them as a sole source of information will never give a clear view of the serious risk we now face.

On the business front it would be easy to point to the growing ‘greening’ of so many companies as evidence of the direction of the wind. Were it not however for the fact that so many ‘green strategies’ are no more than that – opportunistic strategies brewed up by the marketing and sales divisions to chase a “green dollar”. There is little evidence of strategic thinking, nor of true awareness or embracement of the extent of the problem we face, I wonder how many companies will sacrifice even one dollar of profit in order to stick to their green strategy. Or how many will abandon it when the next market driver that seems to offer larger, quicker profits appears. The acid test of any company’s green strategy is their answer to those questions.

The industry that has nurtured me and paid my bills thus far in my career is guilty of this too. The capabilities of ICT enable so many aspects of the required social change, but imagination, ambition, and a level of seriousness is lacking in the overall approach. More on that later.

I clearly recall a dinner conversation at a conference (NISC – by Sapphire) a few years ago. At my table was a gentleman who was in charge of risk analysis for one of the UK’s major banks. We discussed all the various issues he and his department tracked for the bank, in order=for it to calculate its risk exposure. Amongst the usual suspects were two that stood out for both their insightfulness and the surprising fact of their inclusion. Namely; the chances of London’s Thames Barrier being overtopped and London flooding; and global warming.

This has been a long post, but I will close off with one other thought. I happen to be holidaying on St. Mary’s (largest of the Scilly Isles, off Cornwall) as I write this. I spent today cycling the small island and enjoyed a picnic lunch amongst the remains of a Neolithic village. It was inhabit 3500-4000 years ago. At the time it was built what are now the various islands of the Scilly group were one; the sea level being much lower than today. How strange that so many of us view such things with curiosity and acceptance; tourist curiosities that we seek out and expose ourselves and our children to. How few of us think through the fact that there very existence points to the possibility of dramatic change in human condition and in the planet’s environment.

Am I the security guy? Perhaps, but I prefer to address and manage ‘risk’. Moreover I am a logical, curious, cynical, strategic thinker. I cannot perceive a single larger, more urgent, more important risk to humanity than that posed by the twin threats of anthropogenic climate change and peak oil.

GreenIT is wrong

GreenIT is the shortsighted, unimaginative spasm of the IT industry's marketing department in a post-Y2K, post-SOX, post-OnDemand, post GRC world.

We can't afford this folly.

I am away for a week. While I am away I'll be writing this up as a full WP to be posted on in about a week from now.

The view from the peak is not pleasant

Jigsaw piece...

The Peak Oil theory was pioneered in the 1950s by a geologist named M. King Hubbert (1903-1989), who worked for none other than Shell.

Shell's geologist Hubbert based his Peak Oil concept on the rather obvious point that you cannot extract oil that you have not discovered from the ground. So Hubbert reviewed mountains of data concerning oil discoveries, and oil extraction and production, dating back as far as the 1860s. Hubbert noted the common trend in oil field development for a new field to come online and oil production to increase as the field was drilled and developed. But then, over time, the inevitable effects of depletion would kick in and cause the overall production of the oil field steadily to decline.

Hubbert's Curve

In the days before sophisticated computers and elaborate spreadsheet programs, Hubbert crunched his own numbers. He cumulated the reserve figures for oil discoveries in the U.S. and the production histories of thousands of U.S. oil fields dating back almost a century. Hubbert observed and demonstrated, through a process called "reserve backdating," that most major oil discoveries in the U.S. had occurred by the 1930s. That is, even though reserves may not have been listed on a company's books until much later, they were, in geological fact, part of the original discovery many years before. And Hubbert focused on the point that after the largest oil fields had been discovered, in terms of both surface area and volume of calculated reserves, the "new" discoveries thereafter tended to be smaller oil deposits, or extensions of previously discovered oil fields and oil-bearing trends:

In a paper that he prepared and delivered in 1956, over the objection of several Shell executives, Hubbert postulated that total U.S. oil production would increase until about 1970 and then reach a "peak," from which it would then steadily decline in volume over time:Hubbert updated his 1956 predictions in the early 1960s and came up with essentially the same forecast of U.S. oil production peaking by 1970. Hubbert did not anticipate the 1968 discovery of the oil field at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. But his numbers were prophetic, and eerily accurate, for the lower 48 states. Almost on cue in 1970, overall U.S. oil production peaked and commenced its long trend of irreversible decline, barely changed even by the development of Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s.

Thereafter, the U.S. has imported more and more conventional oil to meet its daily needs.

So the discovery side of Peak Oil theory holds that mankind has identified and located, if not actually discovered, most of the conventional crude oil that thestimated by some knowledgeable commentators at about 2.2 trillion barrels, about 90% has been discovered and about 1 trillion barrels haveere is to find in the crust of the Earth. The production side of Peak Oil theory holds that mankind has produced, and, of course, consumed, something near half of it. In terms of really big Peak Oil numbers, out of a worldwide resource base of conventional oil that is been extracted and consumed over the past 150 years or so.

Application of Hubbert's work to world oil fields predicts peak oil globally in or around 2004. With an accuracy of +/- a few years that would be...now.

I spoke about this a few weeks ago at the GSS conference. Now, CNN reports that the International Energy Agency is studying depletion rates at about 400 oil fields in a first-of-its-kind (by them) study of world oil supply. After my speech, a gentleman in the audience with 37 years experience int he oil industry (20 at the exploration end of the equation) congratulated me on my insight. "I don't know how many others here understood that, but I did. And I know you're right. And just about everyone in the oil industry knows you're right".

The view on the other side of the peak is not pleasant. Oil prices ain't coming down..

New Whitepaper - Energy Waves

I've written about one of my jigsaw pieces in depth in a new white paper entitled "Energy Waves" available from the String Think page on the ThinkingString site. This is the first in a series and I will be adding more soon.

Conference roundup

The first piece of follow needs to be to update you on some of the conferences I've been speaking at this year. These have been a mix of IT security industry; IT governance; and IT trends type events; and I have presented on a mix of bread and butter IAM related topics as well as two that drew more heavily on my climate change research.

I'd like to particularly Stafenie Geuhs of COMPUTAS for inviting me to an excellent NET-ID 2008 event in Basel. Here I spoke about vendor selection and trends in the IAM world. It was very good to see my old acquaintance Helmet Broder, formerly a SUN fellow and all round expert conference speaker. COMPUTAS conferences are reknowned for their excellent food and beverage, and the attention to detail that makes everything go very smoothly.

The Research Labs of my erstwhile employer (CA) invited me to keynote the second day of their ISGIG conference. Attended by an amazing audience, all with more letters after their names than I have in my name, I had the privilege of both sharing my thoughts on IT and social trends and the relevance to telecommuting and virtual relaty technologies in a business context. Jon Collins of Freeform Dynamics was on hand to provide insight, and it is always a great experience to bathe in Jon's knowledge as well as enjoy his excellent company.

Most recently, GSS Holdings of South Africa invited me to keynote their two day IAM conference. Dangerously they gave me a generous length of rope and asked me to present a topic entitled "People and Technology in the 21st Century". And this, after I'd been spending some time playing with my jigsaw puzzle. And the audience of 120+ came along on the ride to examine 100 year economic trends; peak oil; climate change and IT. This event not only allowed me an excellent opportunity to field test some of the jigsaw, it also provided a few pieces. I will write this up separately under the title "Load shedding". I always enjoy working with David Lello (CEO of GSS), and his team. Later this year David is relocating to the UK along with his wife as he expands GSS to Europe, and Northern America. I am looking forward to working with him and the team more often as that happens.

Along the way I have also been thinking about how to run all these conferences without me, or the audience contributing to the planet burning (attribution: GM). More on that later too. I commend all these conferences to you, but couldn't make that recommendation without also noting the massive CO2 footprint associated with the running of a conference. This is a common aspect of the behavior of the IT industry (and indeed any major trade) that is not sustainable. Note to self: need a sustainable conference model..

Investing in time

Both of my regular readers have been pointing out to me the dearth new entries. Does it point to a whirlwind level of business and busyness, such that I am too starved of time to even post a line or two? Or too starved for motivation?

And right that they should take offence at my silence. In my defence, I have been doing a jigsaw puzle. But we'll get to that later, first I need to posthastily update on a few issues or two.

Firstly; conferences. I have participated in a number of conferences this year. Each was a pleasure to take part in; see relevant separate entry for details. I'd just like to quickly say how much I appreciated all the invitations to speak, and commend each of the conferences to you in future years. Though I'd like to see all of them run very differently next time; but more on that later.

There have also been a lamentably long string of security issues worth comment on; technical, social, regulatory, and environmental. Some of these have got a lot of attention in my mind during the last few months, so I'll come back to some of those.

Meanwhile, I have been working on my jigsaw. It is an especially challenging one. Jigsaw puzzle design has come a long way since 1760, when a London map-maker and engraver by the name of John Spilsbury made the first one. Jigsaws continued to be cut from thin boards of hardwood for nearly a hundred years before cardboard puzzles came onto the market. Experts in jigsaw puzzles all agree on a few reliable tips and techniques;

• sort the pieces
• identify the boundary (edge) pieces and build the border
• if a piece doesn't fit, turn it around and examine the join from the back. This often helps to understand where a piece could correctly go.

The puzzle I've been working on doesn't have edge pieces - I'm finding more pieces that fit in beyond where I thought the edge of the picture was. My puzzle has an unknown and potentially infinite number of pieces. That fits in with my last point; this is an expanding picture and while I'm not sure how far it'll extend, but I do know that the more pieces that correctly fit the clearer the picture will be. I'll explain each one later. What I should explain now is that my jigsaw is a mental one; a construct not of cardboard nor of hardwood, but of observation and thought.

All this wouldn't be worth talking about if there weren't some conclusions eventually. These are worth getting out there now, and then filling in the details later;

1. anthropogenic climate change is real. It is the biggest risk to the current social order. It is the biggest risk the broader environment and all that lives in it faces. Period. Climate change is urgent. The consequences of us continuing to follow our current trajectory will be a miserable existence within the timeframe of a few generations.
2. Almost everyone I speak to know this to be true, even at a basic level of understanding.
3. There is an enormous task ahead that will require mobilisation of an unprecedented scale. Everything done to date, even by the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and committed, falls ridiculously short of the required level of engagement. Numerous obstacles are being erected to slow progress.
4. There is no clear plan of action or path forward. Thus we are mostly paralysed; like an animal in the headlights we are aware of an impending problem but its just so relaxing to watch the lights.....

Of course many have pushed long and hard to raise both awareness and action levels. Some of then have provided some of the jigsaw pieces, and all deserve respect. Thankyou to all of them for going first.

The question we all face today is where to start and what to do. I do not profess to have all the answers - I can only address anything in my own sphere of expertise and experience for a start. So I'll start with an area that I do know a little about - IT.

Every fews years the IT vendor community slowly wakes up to whatever they perceive as being the latest scary hook to hang a marketing message onto; Y2K; e-Verything; regulations; governance; homeland defence; mobile etc etc. At the moment the industry has recognised Climate Change as the next-big-thing and so now we have GreenIT. Any vendor that hasn't washed themselves green thus far will be splashing out the colour wheel soon. The problem is; GreenIT is going to make as much difference as us all holding our breathes for a minute to delay breathing out a lungful of CO2.

GreenIT is a dangerous distraction.

More on that later too, as I appreciate it is not fair to throw out such a statement without supplying a few more of the jigsaw pieces.

So, much to talk about. And the short answer to the question; "Why aren't you blogging?" is..."I've been thinking"....