In the rush to be seen as Thought-Leaders, need to stay grounded and humble!

 By Colin Wilson 10 January 2024

Happy New Year everyone! This blog is a copy of my response to an invitation to a Climate-change-response advocacy workshop for executive coaches. Responses and challenges to my words are welcome.

Colin.

Thanks for the invitation. A bit short notice for me. Before jumping on this, a little critical thinking, a question and a concern…

 The premise is:…

• Some dispute the scale of the challenge, but the evidence is hard to deny. The world’s resources are stretched.

Of course we need to care for the planet as ever, and even more keenly than ever as population rises, land use expands and pollution/CO2 is a factor, but isn’t this the Erlichian fallacy? Every decade that activists gamble on ‘stretched’ or ‘alarm’ then within 10 years their narrative (Ice Age alarm from temperature measurements and CFCs, fossil fuel running out by 2000 etc etc etc etc) has to change radically – as the apololypse hasn’t happened and their predictions prove empirically false. In terms of stretched resources, Erlich famously chose 10 commodities at will that were becoming stretched and would rise in price due to scarcity. After 10 years every single one was cheaper to buy than 10 years previous. That shows a reduction in ‘stretched’, as price falls demonstrated greater abundance in every case. The earth’s resources have always been a stretch! – a struggle for man to access and sustain. That’s basic economics. Nothing new there. New challenges yes, but remember it kills poor people to deny them access to eg energy through supply interruptions, and in far larger numbers than say through the possibility of flood caused by CO2 rises. That’s on our conscience. World population will fall soon. Far fewer people die due to natural disasters than ever before, as developed and developing nations have become more prosperous overall, rapidly since 2000AD. Lots of climate-response markers are newly positive along with the nasties.

So there are challenges as ever. Perhaps the answer lies in promoting free thought and human ingenuity, and mitigating effects, as has happened many times before – rather than ‘collectivist control’ that is so attractive to the ego of ‘thought leaders’. As coaches don’t we already do that naturally and hence support the changes needed for ingenuity and husbandry?

Also, I attended more than one workshop on the topic recently – it was clear to me as a Supervisor of Executive Coaches and Organisation Consultants that ‘cancel culture’ was well in force, with divergent views (and even questions) like the above inhibited by subtle action and inaction of protagonists, and self-cancellation in fear. With several similar experiences in mind (in and away from coaching contexts), I am not confident this workshop will be a safe space for anyone challenging the basic assumptions promoted as fact and morally-imperative, then running with them.

I can see the activist narrative being seductive to Coaches and Supervisors’ egos and ‘will-to-power’; but we need to think clearly as well as feel outraged or scared. The premise of categorical collectivist activism isn’t safe and is therefore potentially highly self-damaging to ourselves, to others and to our profession.

I am open to persuasion but so far counter-arguments are not at all convincing. I hope to hear good arguments to what I raise.

I’d be interested in the response of the session’s protagonists to my question and my concern.

With many thanks for the good you do. Onwards!

Colin