by Alex Evans | Oct 11, 2007 | North America, UK
The new edition of Prospect shows a soft spot for Sir Nigel Sheinwald, erstwhile foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair and now arriving in the US as our man in Washington. As Prospect’s DC gossip column notes, Sir Nigel is:
…preceded by his reputation as a bruiser. Everybody on the diplomatic circuit has heard that he snapped, “Are you in favour of suicide bombers?” at one middle east expert in a Downing Street meeting. After a term in Brussels as our man at the EU and, most recently, a stint as Blair’s foreign policy adviser, many foreign ministries have first-hand knowledge of Nigel’s ways. The Russians have been talking up his hasty departure from Moscow after a car accident in which a Russian died, and the Spanish complain that he was thuggish to them over Gibraltar. The Germans nod when his name comes up, and note it is quite something to be called arrogant by the French.
by Alex Evans | Oct 11, 2007 | Influence and networks
John Robb has a hair raising post about a new generation of computer worm called the ‘Storm Worm’. “What makes it special”, he writes, is that “he Storm Worm’s method of operation is sophisticated, so much so, that it is nearly immune to defense, suppression, or eradication — demonstrated in that it has already infected up to 50 million computers and slaved them into a massive botnet”.
Scared yet? Wait: the best is still to come. Because “the really dangerous aspect of this isn’t the smart way the Storm Worm is operated, it’s what the network will be able to do once it activated”. Here’s a breakdown of what makes Storm Worm special, courtesy of Bruce Schneier (via Robb’s Global Guerrillas site):
(more…)
by Alex Evans | Oct 11, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system, Influence and networks
Remember Global Business Network, the California-based outfit of former Shell scenario planners that produced the widely-discussed report about abrupt climate change for the Pentagon? Well, they’ve just published a new set of scenarios on energy futures. The report sets out four stories about possible futures:
- ‘The Same Road’, a business as usual scenario in which “the world continues much in the same direction it appears to be going now in regard to energy and environmental concerns around climate change”, i.e. without much happening;
- ‘The Long Road’, in which “the world undergoes a significant shift in economic, geopolitical and energy centers of gravity”;
- ‘The Broken Road’, the story of a future in which “the world continues in much the same direction as today, but is then hit by a severe event that overturns established systems and rules”; and
- ‘The Fast Road’, in which “reasoned decisions and investments about energy and climate risk are made early enough to make a difference”.
It’s a nicely crafted set of scenarios, and it’s worth reading the whole report. But what’s especially noteworthy here is the canny theory of influence underpinning the exercise. For although the work was undertaken by GBN, together with participating companies including Dow Chemical, General Motors, HSBC, Merck, Mittal Steel, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Shell and Toyota, the work was actually commissioned by the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program on energy efficiency.
Really smart move by the EPA. For the companies ended up concluding just what EPA must have hoped they would: of the “steps that all business should take now to ensure energy success regardless of the future” [emphasis added], their number one conclusion was:
Master the fundamentals of energy efficiency. Build an energy efficiency culture through executive leadership – appointing an empowered corporate energy director and team, setting aggressive goals, measuring and tracking energy performance…
…you get the picture. What EPA figured out here was that instead of simply hurling reports about the desirability of energy efficiency at said companies, it would make more progress by making them the co-owners of a broader conversation about energy futures: one that drilled right down to their core assumptions about energy, climate change and what sort of future they’d choose if they could. That, of course, provided both a more attractive offer to the participating companies, and a terrific chance for EPA’s energy efficiency staff to put their case. Well played, EPA.
by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Google has a superb new toy called Google Trends, which allows you to track how often a particular term is searched for on Google (here its .co.uk variant), and how often it crops up in the news. Here’s a little sample which shows the frequency of searches on ‘climate change’ (blue) and ‘global warming’ (red) – high resolution version here.
Annoyingly, Google Trends doesn’t quite manage to label all of the spikes properly. (As far as I can tell, the little spike in early 2005 is Kyoto entering into force; the big spike mid-05 is the Gleneagles G8, combined with Hurricane Katrina; and the increasing incidence of news stories in late 2006 is a combination of Schwarzenegger announcing clean tech plans, media stories about glacial melting and the Gulf Stream, and – above all – the Stern Review.) But what a great tool, all the same.
By the way: David and I are currently working on a research paper for the London Accord, which will be ready in a couple of weeks. It’s designed to look at the social and behavioural trends that really underpin climate change, and to identify ways of getting better at understanding what drives them (as David likes to put it, “we’ve spent millions on understanding the science and technological dimensions of climate change, and about 54p on understanding the social dynamics”). We’ll post it here when it’s ready.
by Alex Evans | Oct 9, 2007 | Influence and networks, South Asia
At ForeignPolicy.com, Blake’s been doing some research into the standard media assumption that China is Burma’s biggest trading partner. While China is indeed the main provider of Burma’s imports, it turns out that it’s the destination for just 5.3 per cent of the exports coming out of Burma. So what’s the number one export destination? Thailand – for no less than 49 per cent of Burmese exports. Blake concludes:
Bottom line: Be very skeptical when reading accounts of how China, or any country, can put meaningful pressure on the junta.
