Category: Blog posts

The RoI of paint

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Luring you in with my jargon chat there. Not here to talk about the French king of paint. RoI is what the cool kids use to talk about a return on investment.

In economics world, where we are rational actors, the talk is about return on investment. If an organisation or an individual invests £x, how long will it take them to see a return on that? Investing £x means maintenance or running costs will be x% lower and therefore you can calculate how long it will take to generate savings which add up to original investment. Aka your return on investment.

All sounds really straightforward and scientific. Hard crunchy numbers which are inarguable. Intentionally so I think. Constructing approaches which reinforce the impression that this is an objective approach in a world which seems to think objectivity is good thing. As Christie, Smith and Munro (2008) reflect, detachment, objectivity and scepticism are simply forms of emotion work which have been privileged within accounts of the scientific method, and I would argue more broadly too.

Yet how those numbers get developed, who is in control of defining what does or doesn’t weigh on the scales is also fundamental. In another lifetime I was trying to develop a project using the feed-in tariff – a governmental mechanism to provide an above-market price for renewable energy generated. When the feed-in tariff was first introduced the rates were really high, such that it would only take about 10 years to break even on the tariff, with another 15 years of income given the feed-in tariff lasted for 25 years. This was far and away a better deal than lots of other investment opportunities. It was so good that we didn’t even try to claim bill savings from the energy generated because there were a lot of variables in consumption patterns and we didn’t have sufficient confidence in the indicative numbers we generated.

It wasn’t our first rodeo doing this kind of project so we felt confident that we had covered the different elements to build up the cost profile that people would expect. Over time in discussion with senior decision makers, we were asked to add all kinds of costs in which were normally outside the scope of costs for this kind of decision. More and more costs got added on and the numbers that popped out the other end of the evaluation got worse and worse. We looked to offset this by adding in projected cost savings on energy but eventually the model broke. It became clear that they just didn’t want to do the project, so they kept going until the RoI looked so bad that people said there was no way they could support the project. They ‘weren’t sure’ about the technology but could turn it in to numbers that looked empirical, feel like they were doing their job properly and meant they didn’t need to engage with their lack of knowledge.

Yet there are many items we spend money on where even attempting that kind of calculation doesn’t make sense. Paint for instance. Or a vase. Maybe it’s easier with paint. We can at least try and make a guess at whether one kind of paint might last compared to a cheaper one. That’s not entirely straightforward though either. What does it mean for paint to last? Never gets any marks on it at all? To bounce back after marks have been attempted to get cleaned off? Or something more ephemeral – it lasts longer because we really like the colour and it fits with the place and how we want it to be? Continually works as we look to shift things around in terms of the look of the place?

We can do some research to get feedback on how long paint ‘lasts’ but is that a meaningful metric for how people actually make decisions? For many people, the premium for some paints like Farrow & Ball is worth it because of the vibe the paint has. It makes people feel they are buying some of that lifestyle which the relative difference in costs compared to cheaper paint allows, in a way the cost differential between their home and one more in keeping with the atmos isn’t.

Of course, paint is much cheaper than lots of other things people can do to their homes. So transformative as well. A tin of paint, a few hours and a totally different space. Hard to think of something which can make as much of a difference as quickly. In terms of bang for your beautifully coloured buck it scores highly. When people move into a new place there can often be talk about wanting to make the place their own (Cook, 2021). Paint is such a strong way to do that, literally getting attached to the place. The act and practice of making the place your home.

It’s therefore unsurprising that people will be prepared to spend a bit more on paint and might not think about the RoI, compared to more expensive things like heat pumps or solar PV. In both cases the question might be around whether they can afford it or not, it’s just that in the latter case the upfront cost is much higher and therefore it might not be possible to satisfy the want.

For many people, they’ve already got a heating system which works. Making the change to a heat pump or getting solar doesn’t solve a problem or give them an opportunity. It will make their home slightly differently warm. It might bring with it indeterminate concerns about running costs or how it works. It’s a lot of cost, in a world where choosing the heat pump or solar likely means choosing not to do lots of other things. Of course there are an increasing number of people for whom it isn’t a choice in the first place but for those who have enough in the bank or can borrow, it is a choice and one it can be hard to justify.

Of course we’re talking about costs which are orders of magnitude different but does that mean the thought processes which lead to the choice are totally different?

Friction burns?

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A recent report by Citizen’s Advice found that 72% of people would be open to making environmental improvements to their homes in the next five years. Absolute scenes – there’s the market transformation we need. 72% is just brilliant news, if we’re thinking about the Technology Adoption Curve, which of course we are, then we’re deep into late majority territory where this is just all very mainstream and normal. How do we go about getting the supply chain ready to do all of that work in that short space of time?

Hang on though, there’s a kicker. People went on to say that they would prioritise kitchens, bathrooms and other measures over environmental measures. Stand down the supply chain. Or maybe – as you were…

What I’m interested in is why people would prioritise kitchens, bathrooms and the rest over environmental measures. In some ways it seems obvious, kitchens and bathrooms are more appealing and desirable. There are magazines and shows which do makeovers and it’s all very lifestyled and lovely whereas lots of us – most of us? – find heat pumps ugly. It’s also crucial to eat and clean yourself, so there’s that. However, it’s also crucial to be able to keep warm, with lots of health conditions linked to, or exacerbated by cold weather. It’s also crucial to be able to use electricity in today’s society.

There’s more reasons besides but I’ve been wondering if there’s something about the comparative friction between kitchens, bathrooms and other aspects of home renovation, compared to energy and environmental measures. Friction on a day to day basis but maybe also societal frictions.

On a day to day basis, if you don’t like the look of your kitchen, bathroom or elsewhere, you will be constantly reminded of it. It might become a low grade hum that you get used to but this can then be amped up whenever you’re reminded of how much you don’t like it. Whether that’s visiting a friend who has a nice(r) place than yours, or seeing them on TV, in films, social media or magazines. There are potentially lots of times when you’ll be reminded of how you don’t like your kitchen or suchlike in a way that doesn’t happen so much with energy or environmental measures.

As Pennartz notes in ‘At home: An anthropology of domestic spaces‘, an aspect of a space being pleasant is how easy it is to be convivial in it. If the space makes it harder to do that, say the kitchen is designed for just one person then that doesn’t feel very sociable and there’s a friction between the desire and the reality.

There has been a shift away from gendered spaces, with men also likely to be in the kitchen. As such, that sense of friction between what people want and how the space operates affects both genders, and therefore more people, more often.

There’s also the friction in use. If a kitchen or bathroom isn’t set-up as you would want then this can catch you each day. Whether it’s a cupboard that doesn’t shut properly, a shower that doesn’t properly attach to the wall so you have to hold it to shower yourself, or whatever else it may be, there can be things which every day, sometimes multiple times a day, create friction and frustration.

Where is the friction with energy usage though? People who pay by direct debit don’t need to really engage with their bill on a daily or monthly basis, as it’s smoothed out across the year. It’s hard then to get any real time friction between the usage and the cost. Not least because, as costs continue to rise, people can reduce their energy consumption and still see rising prices. Under the current pricing structure with standing charges fixed irrespective of consumption, this regressive pricing structure makes that particularly true for those on lower incomes or using less energy.

People don’t have the social friction of not having a heat pump because most people don’t have one either. There’s also not so much of a friction around having a home that isn’t so warm. People will often choose to put the heating on when they’ve got guests, to make sure they feel comfortable.

There’s also not so much friction from the supply chain when trying to get more environmentally friendly measures – for instance a replacement boiler rather than a new heat pump. There are just over 20,000 qualified heat pump installers in the UK, compared to over 150,000 gas engineers. It’s therefore much easier to find someone who can repair or replace your gas boiler on a like-for-like basis. Homes are set up for boilers rather than a heat pump. If you want to switch to a heat pump if your boiler dies you’ll end up with friction. The heat pump can’t go into the space you had your boiler in. You’ve then got a random space you need to sort out, which might or might not be useful. Mine is in a wall cupboard with no base, so the boiler bits can disgorge themselves. If I switched to a heat pump I’d then have a cupboard I can’t use. More friction arises trying to figure out where a heat pump and hot water tank can go. This has been made easier by the removal of a planning requirement which says it needs to be at least one meter from the boundary

Is friction different to hassle though?

The ‘hassle-factor’ is often cited as a rationale for people not to do something, in relation to the home or more generally. Friction seems different to hassle in terms of the ongoing impact, particularly in relation to the visibility of a heat pump or solar. The hassle might be there to get it put in but then once in that hassle would go. The friction might remain when you see it on a daily basis and find it really ugly, or it’s taking up space and it takes a while to get used to the new configuration of the spaces and knock-on impact on the various practices. With larger properties with lots of land that might not be an issue – it can be hidden away somewhere and that friction doesn’t arise as often. For people with less space that might be experienced as daily friction which has been introduced into their lives.

Energy usage can create a sense of friction. A room which isn’t a comfortable temperature creates a sense of friction. This can be between the need for it to be warm and cosy and the sense of how it is. As expectations have increased about the level of warmth we should be feeling in our homes, there can also be a friction between lifestyles – the clothes we wear at home, and the temperature of the space. Whilst for much of history the initial focus would have been on putting on more clothes or being more active to get warmer, people are now more likely to focus on the heating to get their required level of warmth.

The friction between want and reality can also lead people to not use rooms at certain times or temperatures because they are too uncomfortable. This can also manifest in making it harder to do certain activities – studying can be more difficult when it’s cold for instance, as can other more sedentary actions like reading or watching TV.

This leads to a friction in use but most people focus on ways to reduce their energy bills by changing their tariff or provider as the way to reduce that friction. By cutting the costs of energy it’s therefore more affordable to use the same amount of energy, or more – hence the rebound effect where people take cost savings from more insulation as higher levels of comfort.

Inherently though, most people don’t experience friction when using their boilers, which is the main fuel source for most people. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that actually people aren’t using their boilers very effectively or efficiently and if they were they could cut their costs significantly. That actual friction is not visible to them though – the cost of their energy bills are hard to relate to any actual friction as most people can make the boiler switch on and off, so the fact it’s not working as efficiently is somewhat hidden to them.

This can then lead people to feel like changes to their heating system is someone else’s desire or need rather than their own. Someone else is experiencing a sense of friction between what they think should be happening and what isn’t happening. Being asked to do something about it means that people can feel they are being told to choose something that isn’t a priority for themselves, over things which are. This can create multiple frictions – between their own sense of themselves as people who care about these things and yet are choosing to put time, money and energy into other things; and on a financial level between the things they want to spend money on and what they are being told they should be spending money on. Potentially this also creates a friction which then impacts upon their voting actions – looking for those who help to reduce that friction for them.

On a daily basis then, people are perhaps more likely to feel a sense of friction by other factors in the home than energy or environmental issues. Even where they do manifest as friction they can be mediated by other actions in a less time, money and personally energy intensive way, so it’s perhaps not a surprise people don’t prioritise home improvements with environmental dimensions more often.

Not writing

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Feeling distracted, thoughts fractured and half thought and racing away with and from me. Wanting to write and focus and also to think all of the things and explore all of the avenues and rabbit holes and luxuriate in that.

Hot weather and maybe my mind is playing along, feeding off it. It doesn’t feel like the weather for rigorous discipline and deep, thoughtful work. Any time not lounging in a comfortable chair in the shade with a long tall glass of something delicious feels like an absolute triumph. Surely I should be carried through the streets, people showering me with flowers and kudos, writing epic tales to be passed down.

Jumping from one thing to another, exacerbated by screen attention grabbing which persuades me into frittering away time after time on things the better angels of my nature know to not be what I want to actually be putting my time into.

We are creatures of the weather, only able to live and work and be in a very narrow set of temperatures. It isn’t at all surprising that in those circumstances I, we, would be less able to function. When my brain is boiling, eyes feeling like they could melt at any moment, skin red and sweaty at though the blood within is melting – can I really be surprised that work feels hard. No wonder the recent polling suggests less enthusiasm for heatwaves as they become increasingly common. Having that discomfort on a frequent basis when it’s not a break, a chance to discover new ways of being, have the ordinary be transformed – even if not into something good, at least into something unexpected.

Not sustainable to give myself days and weeks and months off whilst the weather is like this. Another reason to not write. And that’s it really. That I’m pushing myself into doing things I’m not sure about, think I can’t do or I’m not good at. So of course it all feels more discomforting. My brain is in the business of finding things to show me that it’s ok and healthy not to write. To try and do what it thinks is looking after myself when actually I want to see what happens if I just keep trying, day after day.

And this is all nonsense, nothing of any interest or use, apart from to me. Seeing the excuse in the hot hot heat. Finding the inspiration to keep working and trying and figuring things out – a reminder of why the work I want to do is needed, even as the changes I’m trying to address make it ever harder to so…

An uncomfortable silence

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I went to see ‘London Road’ at The National Theatre, a musical using verbatim language from residents of and around London Road. 79 London Road was where the serial killer Steven Wright was living when he was arrested for the murders of five women.

The play doesn’t really focus on the murderer, and those who have been killed hardly feature at all, and rarely with much compassion. In one sequence, one of the women from the road talked about how they were glad the women were killed – they had all been working on the street or the local area as sex workers – and the person living on the road found it uncomfortable and unpleasant living there. There were a number of extended silences, giving the audience time to contemplate what she’s saying, to feel the messy, difficult implications of it. The silences increased the sense of intimacy, hearing private views that she knows she ‘shouldn’t’ be feeling, or we would probably want to hear. It felt like the audience was holding it’s breath as she spoke. Letting her say what she had to say. Curious about it. Wondering if she would pull back, come to more socially acceptable views. Instead the kept restating her views, going further each time, the pauses giving more of an impression they were considered views.

An even bigger silence later on, as one of the sex workers reflected on how the murders had made them get out of that work, mostly – they still saw a few regulars. A moment that seemed to grow and grow, perpetually it felt, about to end, yet somehow continuing to expand. Like blowing a bubble, the shape of it wobbling as it grows, so fragile and ready to pop at any moment, yet somehow, for that fraction of a second which feels bigger, continuing to exist and grow. A reminder of how powerfully a silence can hold people, how rare it can be. Discomfort and waves of wondering when it will end, a tension at times that feels like it needs to end and then shifts into a wanting it to continue – it’s so big but surely we can make it ever bigger and larger. At times almost wanting to laugh because it felt so long, improbably so.

Moments of silence can be hard to experience, whether they are gentle ones like those in a safe, lovely theatre, or harder ones with other people where the stakes are high. Not knowing, filling it with our own dread panic. The voices of our insecurity, where it’s hard to be curious, there’s more risk in the response.

More and more there’s discussion about how smart phones and screen time generally are affecting our ability to sit with discomfort or boredom. Leaving us rushing to fill the silent moment with distraction and action, noise and other people doing things. Not having to wait to see what becomes of the silence because we can fast forward or scroll on through other people’s lives and thoughts.

The play was a reminder of the messiness of emotions and reactions. Not tidying things up for people but giving the people represented in the play the dignity and responsibility of their own emotions. Providing the audience the space to feel their own responses, however uncomfortable they might find them. The power of holding some space and allowing things to be as they are.

Calm emergencies

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Much of the work around seeking to engage people on climate change has been trying to inject a sense of urgency. Creating a catalysing moment to break through the incrementalism. 100 months until x. This is the crucial decade for climate. The doomsday clock is now at one minute to midnight.

Everything, everywhere all at once is understandable and true, but it’s not sustainable for people to deal with, or live like that, on a day by day basis. Most people, even those who agree that climate change is a massive priority, struggle to find enough time in their days and weeks to engage with the issue even briefly.

Reading ‘Fire Weather’ by John Vaillant I was struck by the little moments of relative calm in amongst the terror and carnage. I can’t think of a book I’ve read where I spent as much time clutching at my face, putting my hand to my mouth in shock, shaking my head or willing people to get out. Reading descriptions of people taking their clothes to the dry cleaner and arranging the date when it would be collected next week as they watch the fire advancing outside; people running backwards and forwards from their home to their car to get some last things that seemed somehow vital in that moment; or just standing watching the fire at the end of their road. People comparing stories at the emergency shelters they had escaped to of things they had brought with them that they couldn’t fathom. Even in the midst of that raging fire, the like of which that town had never seen before, nor had most of the firefighters, people still couldn’t grapple with the immediacy of the emergency.

In ‘Scarcity’, Eldar Shafir talks about how it’s difficult to make decisions when you’re in a situation of scarcity. Whatever the source of scarcity, whether it’s financial, time or food, the brain gets frazzled and finds it hard to make any decisions. It’s so distracted by trying to deal with the impact of the scarce situation it can’t justify providing lots of brainpower to address issues, even ones which are seemingly related to the source of scarcity.

Thinking about it now, I wonder whether those moments of seeming relative calm in the book were actually that. Perhaps they were more moments of panic that looked like calm. That people just couldn’t make sense of what was happening or work out what needed to be done, what their options were. The situation had moved from one they could understand and navigate – for the people with their dry cleaning, they could think through what they already knew of their plans and availability, how they could fit their day together to find space to collect their laundry at particular points. Those kinds of situation are ones that are everyday for many, and so the range of options is easily accessible. Even the fact it was a wildfire in that context, it wasn’t the first time they had them in that scenario – just not at that level of ferocity.

For those kinds of situation which are outside our imaginings or the day to day, even in the moment, it’s hard to make sense of them. We can overlay our reactions from the everyday on to them but they don’t fit well – responses that had seemed fine, now seem incongruous, ridiculous. Why arrange to collect the dry cleaning next week when the fire looks like it could engulf the building in the next 10 minutes? But that can be all we’ve got in those kinds of situations. The habitual response. Responding to the social cues – everyone else in the shop is talking about drop-offs and collections and pointing out a particular part of some clothing that needs special attention – so to be the one freaking out would be weird and uncomfortable, even if it might make more sense in that moment.

At a collective level, Vaillant shows how the local firefighters found it hard to understand they were in a different world. They started fighting the fire in the ways they had done with previous smaller, less intense fires and found it hard to adjust. There were indicators around the speed it was moving at, the heat and intensity of it which could have shown them they needed to recalibrate. The structures they were operating in, from the different organisations with overlapping responsibility but no clear way to agree on decisions, mitigated against other perspectives or approaches finding a way through.

And then for situations with less immediacy – the wildfire isn’t rampaging at the bottom of your street – what looks like calm on the outside, or maybe even on the inside too, if we don’t look or think too deeply, can instead be another kind of panic. Wandering along with the same responses that just don’t fit now. Organisational structures which can’t recalibrate for emergencies but keep on with the busy business as usual in the meantime.

A sense of fragility underneath all of that calm and structure and order and process. Just with less reason to sense the fragility or understand the need for change…

A manageable tragedy

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When the tree at Sycamore Gap was felled there was a huge outcry. Investigations and art work. Trying to understand why and how. Anger and shock, sadness and disgust.

Then people collected seeds from the tree and have been growing them. There were 49 saplings which have been grown from seeds of the felled tree that organisations could bid for. One tree for each foot in height that the tree was at the time it was felled. Over 500 applications received.

What remains of the tree has been protected and there are signs that the tree is regrowing. I saw it a couple of weeks ago myself when I walked the Hadrian’s Wall Path from coast to coast – Bowness to Wallsend. Along the way places I stayed often had pictures up of the Sycamore Gap tree showing one of the recognisable sights of the walk. When we got there it was being guarded and filmed by people in hi-vis with clipboards.

Should the shoots be left to regrow, which will lead to a more messy outline than what was there before? Or should it be properly felled and a new one put in place that will have the same look as the previous one? If the former, is it the same tree or not and does it matter?

What is it we are trying to do with all of this? Are we trying to protect the tree and help it recover, or are we trying to recapture the way it looked before? Making a wrong right or just trying to make sense of something that, even after the trial, seems mystifying?

The scale of interest in one tree feels high. It’s a recognisable tree given it’s location. Caught on film lots of times. Voted best tree. Boundary between countries and a marker along the way for those walking Hadrian’s Wall

The fact it’s just one tree, one recognisable tree, seems to be at a scale that people can engage with. Unlike the much larger scale environmental issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree feels manageable. It was there and now it isn’t. There isn’t a faceless organisation who did it, or some weather event. Instead it’s two people. Manageable. Trying to understand their motivations. Wondering about the relationship and dynamics. National outcry. Shock and rage. Front page news and long reads about the tree and the trial – the comedy defences put forward, grainy footage of the moment the tree came down filmed by people claiming not to have done it.

The Global Forest Watch estimated that between 2001 to 2024, the UK lost 585 kha of tree cover. That’s equivalent to a 16% decrease in tree cover since 2000. Much more than one tree lost and yet hardly any coverage or action…

We forget ourselves

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‘They’ get mentioned at work a lot. I work on environmental issues, in a team of people doing the same. I’m not a lone environmentalist, I’m surrounded by people who are all aware, or should be aware, of the same things as me.

I hear lots about the fact ‘they’ need to get their homes retrofitted, ‘they’ aren’t recycling or lobbying their politicians at local or national level, ‘they’ can’t be bothered to even do the easy things. ‘They’ are hard to reach or won’t engage or only want to talk about other aspects of their home or go on about double glazing.

At work I’m constantly surprised at how people working on environmental issues forget how they themselves act. How few people are vegetarian let alone vegan – and how defensive many people can be in discussing making a change, even just for some meals or at environmental events. Most people still fly for pleasure, and do so frequently – and how little people want to engage in the impacts of that choice or do anything differently as a result. I thought I’d be an outlier having not retrofitted my home. Yet most people will do home improvements which involve spending lots of money but don’t include energy in the scope of the works.

Living lives on a day to day basis which don’t look much different to those who aren’t spending their working lives on climate and environmental issues. Not having the justification that they don’t have much of the detail or an understanding of what needs to be done – in some areas at least, even if not all of them.

Despite the subject matter we’re working on, it feels quite culturally normal to not live in a particularly environmentally friendly way. Challenging that feels very uncomfortable and mostly doesn’t happen. Some of that is understandable – if you’ve got to work with people day in, day out then most wouldn’t choose to be confrontational about things when you don’t need to be. Part of why, for me at least, I often don’t ask is because I find it so depressing when I do. It’s the same arguments as I hear elsewhere from people who don’t have anywhere near as much knowledge, interest or motivation than those I’m working with. What I’d expected to be a source of motivation can often exacerbate my concern about how much inaction there can is.

There’s also a lack of curiosity in so many people about the factors which limit their own environmental activity outside work. They are able to live with the cognitive dissonance and prefer that to trying to make changes in how they live. Giving explanations which excuse their behaviour – joking that planting a tree or two will offset the flights they are taking later in the month. A knowing joke but still ‘they’ make it and take the flight…

The potential marathon

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My beautiful husband died just over 12 years ago. His death hit me hard, and hit me hard for a long time. I felt like I had a sense of the dimensions of the impact of his death. Thinking about my career, I’ve come to realise I hadn’t fully appreciated how it had affected me in terms of the extent to which I find it difficult to make longer term plans.

His diagnosis – already terminal by that point – came only 6 weeks after I’d finished my MSc. I’d already started job hunting but as soon as we got the news I stopped that immediately. Being able to have a job where people already knew and trusted me meant that when things were unstable and I needed to not be at work it was manageable, my incredible manager helped make it manageable. I could still work and support us both, vital given he wasn’t eligible for benefits and was working in a contract job – so it was only me who could provide an income for us.

After he died, for at least a couple of years, I just didn’t have any interest in getting a new job. I didn’t have much interest in anything in truth. I certainly didn’t have the energy to voluntarily start a new job and feel like I could bring a positive energy to it.

That gradually shifted and I started looking and applying and thinking. Eventually getting something and moving on and feeling like it was a positive reflection of my progress and recovery that I’d got to that point. That it was right that my life looked a bit different to when he was dying, that I was carrying on and properly trying to live and thrive.

When that job started to feel like it wasn’t right for me I started getting my job search on. Similar kinds of roles but different organisations. If people asked I sounded like I had a clear direction – the same subject, public or community sector but maybe a different kind of role. That felt ok. Then when a couple of job searches didn’t get me out of my current predicament, as privileged and first world problems as it is, I then had to try and figure things out a bit more.

Paying more attention to the bored, sinking feeling when I’d read a job advert that theoretically was a good fit and trying to figure out why I found it so uninspiring. Trying to wrangle with what it means to look around and not have people that I want to steal a job from – what kind of career path is it if there aren’t any jobs I see that I want?

Reading and thinking about how to make a change, there’s lots about goals and ambitions and dreams. Realising that I don’t have this big picture sense of what I’m aiming for career wise. No massive ambitions or sense of what good looks like or things I’d like to achieve by the end of my career. Trying lots of exercises to try and figure it out. In lots of ways I would think of myself as ambitious, wanting to push myself and do good things, learn and make a difference.

Yet again and again I would hit up against the sense of how impossible it feels to think longer term. It’s all so precarious and at any moment could fall apart. I can do longer term planning for things like a mortgage or pension. Which I think had hidden how much I didn’t do longer term planning or dreaming or scheming in other areas. With a mortgage, I think it’s because after the initial slog of saving up to buy somewhere, it’s usually cheaper to pay a mortgage than to pay rent. So in the moment it still makes sense to be doing the longer term thing even if I die two minutes later. Before Chris got ill I felt like I was thinking longer term – hence signing up to do a Masters. Since then, I’ve just not felt able to think longer term in a serious way – it just doesn’t feel possible. I bump up against the part of me that doesn’t trust in the future so I make a funny face, side-eye to show I know this is all ridiculous and then couldn’t quite get past that.

And there’s something good and true in that disbelief or mistrust. Simply setting aside those feelings doesn’t seem like a good idea, however uncomfortable it is to deal with them. It gives space for uncertainty, reminds me to be grateful for what I’ve got now, or at least try to. Gives some distance and perspective, a way to try and come back to what really matters and remember how lucky I am to be alive, briefly in time and space but as fully as I can be.

Instead it’s been about trying to find a way to sit differently with those emotions. To accept that it’s all fragile and contingent and make plans and think about hopes and try to translate them into reality anyway. Allowing myself to wonder and accept it’s all a work in progress. Making plans and committing to them, whilst trying to accept there will always be unfinished things. Life is a marathon not a sprint, even if we don’t all get to finish the marathon.

We don’t get to tie a bow around everything and actually that’s ok. It means we keep on living, right up until the point we’re no longer alive – and that’s about as much as we can hope for.

The tyranny of the blank page

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Part of making this space for myself is to have a place to write. To see if I can. If I do. Where it leads, whatever that might look like. Not to worry, as I often do, about working out each of the steps and thinking about them and trying to imagine where it will lead and take control I don’t have. Instead, just to do something and let it unfold.

Writing here involves, to state the obvious, actually writing.

So many times since the last piece I wrote I’ve thought about writing. Felt frustrated I was somewhere else, doing something else, and couldn’t write. Balled up frustration at myself not making the most of this space, opportunity, life. Trying not to let that cascading frustration escalate but to do something about it. To write.

Here I am.

Realising that a big part of why I’ve not been here is the worry about what I’d write next. About wanting to make sure that it straight away starts to take shape and what that would look like as a sequence of pieces. Looking at notes to try and calibrate things – that idea might be too soon, that one isn’t quite ready – on and on. Thinking and wondering and, obviously, not writing. Not using this space for the very thing I set out to do and this is only the second piece in.

The worry of doing the wrong thing, thinking about the potential impacts of the imperfect path stopping any action being taken. Feeling concerned about doing something that might not be the best path forward is something that I’ve come to realise weighs more heavily on me than I’d realised. My beautiful husband Chris died just over twelve years ago at the age of 32. I’d not quite appreciated how deeply that sense of the fragility and temporary nature of life had sunk into my bones, into my DNA. Or maybe I knew in some general or other ways but not quite in that dimension. I’m lucky enough to have a mortgage and a pension and be able to save. I book holidays and other lovely things far in advance. It’s not exactly seat of the pants territory for those type of things. Which meant I’d not quite realised how, in other dimensions of life planning, I find it harder to do so. That to do something which might not be the best thing or represent all that I am or could be, to accept that one moment can’t hold everything, is something so obvious yet clearly not something I’ve properly been able to accept. Looking at the blank page is then just an ideal situation for that kind of worry to crystallise. Every cliché and misplaced comma is a reminder of the transience.

The tyranny of the blank page holding me back. The idea that whatever next goes here needs to be right. Not defining what right is, holding it loosely enough that it can be something I beat myself with but don’t properly examine. The blankness of the page feeling a mirror of myself – blank and lacking in ideas, or at least of ideas that merit being written down and got out of my head. Lacking ideas that are useful or will make a difference. That fear of the blank page, the road not taken, the words left unsaid, so many metaphors – clichés I know, but I write on regardless to just keep writing – which lead us to we think we’re doing the right thing. Looking after ourselves by keeping ourselves away from things which could open us up to ridicule.

Having this space and intention and desire has helped me come back to here. To write. Here I am.

Reminding myself that really the page isn’t as blank as I think it is. There’s so much to say and think about, yet it can be so hard to remember that. Trying also to hold as truth that it’s not necessarily about having the answers or ideas, so much as creating or holding a space to ask questions. Reminding myself of the need to play and try and see. Then when I remember that, it’s easy to write. It’s always felt easy to write when that’s the case.

To write then, is to actively engage with all of that annoying, potential-filled imperfection and time passing, time that is perhaps being wasted. Trusting that what’s gone before can be turned into something that can be used, or maybe even beautiful or useful.

It’s been heartening to read in Hattie Crisell’s generous book ‘In Writing’ actual writers talking about how they have to grapple with themselves and the blank page and the nonsense they feel they’ve written to try and make sense of things. Thinking they can turn something that’s fragile and messy into something that can make sense, resonate and connect with others. Reading about how writers that I’ve read and enjoyed and admired and savoured have felt their own first drafts were awful. Doubted they could make it better, hated themselves and their work along the way, and even then felt disappointed by the end with the gap between their idea and what they ended up publishing.

To be shown, again and again that it’s totally normal and all part of the process that things need to be edited and amended. Cutting sections and ideas, with whole character and plot lines going to better serve the overall piece. Taking time away to get a different view, seeing it as its own thing rather than a part of yourself and all that gets weighed down with.

Doing all of that however requires doing the work. The sometimes slow, sometimes seemingly non-existent work. Painstaking and unclear at times, at others a clarity that feels effortless but is the result of all that’s gone before. No work, no words, no chance to try and make that idea into something that’s actually really real or useful or creates some kind of motivation, connection.

Much of which felt familiar from thinking about what’s needed on climate change. People turning up and doing the sometimes slow, sometimes seemingly non-existent work. Just trying and seeing and learning and iterating. We need to get more and more people involved and doing things. Actually taking action and trying, day after day.

Then – I think maybe not, the worry and calibrating against what’s needed steps in. I think then that we don’t have the time to faff around, we need to get things right. The urgency of the situation, the science and daily looking around the seeing. The news stories and the accumulated heartbreak of stories. There isn’t the time to get it wrong, we need to take action which is actually going to meaningfully make a difference. The more we cut carbon now the more chance we give for more people now and in the future to lead lives of dignity. It’s not just about meeting arbitrary carbon reduction targets but it’s also about the shape of the decarbonisation curve – the more we can manage the transition the gentler the curve, which is better for people, planet and the social fabric of our lives. Which brings me back to the blank page.

Why we need new stories

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When I first started working on environmental issues – what seems like a millionty years ago, it seemed like the issue was technical first and foremost. That hasn’t felt true for a long time.

All around there are stories of environmental impacts and how they bleed into and out of social, cultural and economic ones.

Yet we’ve got the technologies that might not get us all the way to net zero, or do so in the most elegant way, but can still get us a very long way towards where we need to be. Technologies that are becoming ever more efficient, with problems increasingly identified addressed, worked around or managed. From the story of solar PV continuing to defy ever greater expectations in deployment, to heat networks and heat pumps, there is an ever-growing array of options to decarbonise energy systems.

Around the world governments are making funding available to reduce or remove costs for these technologies. Cost is often cited as the next barrier, yet free measures and new forms of financing are increasingly available to reduce it. Increased take-up of measures then allows the supply chain to invest, innovate and bring costs down, further helping to widen the potential market. We still can’t give away free measures though – and huge amounts of money can be spent trying to do so.

Meanwhile, around the world more and more people are saying they believe climate change is real and that action is needed. They think that governments should take action and take the lead. Yet that isn’t what lots of people are voting for. Instead people are voting for politicians who say we need to ‘drill baby, drill’. They are voting against politicians who propose to put in place small measures which are still a long way away from what the science suggests is needed.

There are all kinds of reasons for that – and that’s what I want this to be a space to explore. Maybe it’s just a cyclical thing – a year in which there are billions of people voting, at a time when living standards are feeling relatively under pressure. Incumbents all around the world have lost votes and in many cases have lost office as people protest that the status quo isn’t working for them, however much they might or might not like who they are voting for.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are going to continue to compound societal and economic pressures in a negative feedback loop. As the impacts of those two linked global shifts continue to manifest ever more often and violently, it’s likely this is now the most stable climate system we’ll experience in our lifetime. Records continue to be broken, we see the world making and remaking itself as it adjusts to the climate impacts. Places we once knew become strange to us as the seasons shift out of kilter and different creatures and ecosystems that were so aligned become disconnected.

Waiting until things calm down and it all goes back to normal and then the old stories will feel true again doesn’t feel sustainable. The urgency of the climate imperatives, the science, suggests that we can’t wait, delay is just increasing the risk and harm, hurting ever more people and hugely increasing the numbers of people who are vulnerable.

We need to find stories that resonate with people in, because of and throughout the changing seasons. This feels like a space to explore that. About storytelling and psychology, science and sense-making. Trying to understand how thoughts and needs connect to actions and deeds.