Remarkable but unnoticed

History will likely have a spot for the first year of Trump's presidency, the saga of Brexit and the astounding impact of crypto-currencies this year.   Two stories that have not had significant attention might yet prove to be far more important than any of that. 


First wheat. Stable crop  for much of the developed world.  All that bread, pastry, breakfast cereal  and cake depends on grain and primarily wheat.   The overwhelming majority of the crop is grown on huge farms in inner continental  climate regions  -the prairies of the USA, steppes of Russia, Ukraine and parts of Australia.  It is big business, big machinery highly mechanised and industrialised.  The pursuit of yield has driven  breeding of high yielding varieties, at least they are high yielding if conditions are right.



Breeding varieties  for a single trait means a few selected genes have been selected time and again, and a few other lost.  So when a pathogen pops up that seems to particularly attack the same genes, things start to look  ugly.  No problem - start breeding in resistant genes to the  pathogen.  And that is hat has been happening for many years with resistance to wheat rusts (a family of fungal diseases).   But then a new pathogen  strain overcomes the resistance you have bred into your high yielding wheat pops up?


It has happened. Since the 1990's UG99 has been slowly expanding its range, from East Africa  into Pakistan and Afghanistan.  It is estimated more than 85% of the world's wheat is susceptible because almost all high yield wheat varieties carry the  Sr35 gene which is where the vulnerability  lays.


Despite this vulnerability and the projected increasing  demands for wheat across the globe as population and per capita consumption rises , wheat prices are  almost at a decade low.  

A different perspective on similar data, but pricing in gold rather than dollars, and hence somewhat mitigating inflationary effects from fiat currency:

Of course there is no certainty about how wheat prices will play out in the future.  But over the next 5  to 10 years the odds look to be very much in favour of significant price rises, and that is going to be reflected in basic food costs.  And that will impact the poorest hardest.


Second on my very short list is something that happened just this month.  AlphaZero teaches itself champion playing The importance is not that it beat other game playing AI's.  It is that it taught itself  to do so very quickly .  This is arguably the first step to a generalised intelligence.  Games are no different from many other spheres of human activity.  As long as there are clear rules and an objective evaluation function  all sorts of situations ought to be  capable of being treated the same way.  It is a game changer in more ways that one.

When policies collide.

Today is Earth overshoot day.  It is the day in the year when humanity collectively has used up our annual available eco services.  That isn't just direct consumption it is also the ability of the planet to deal with our pollution.  It was at 1 in the early 1970's ie back then the planet was just able to handle our impact - there was no overshoot.  Since then the day has got  inevitably earlier.  Another way to look at it is we are collective consuming about 1.7 planet's worth of eco services every year.  Imagine spending 1.7 times your income each year.  You would be in big trouble pretty quickly unless you have a big pile of  wealth behind you.  Even then that pile would diminish rapidly.  And that is exactly what we see in the world - diminishing fish stocks, less pristine forest, fewer animals  both species in many cases numbers. 

The impact varies round the world, country by country.

Of course it is crude, but no less so than using GDP to determine whether society is progressing or not. Looking at that country list I would expect Jersey's position would be around the 3.3 planet level. It would be useful to know as an indicator of how we are doing , are we going in the right direction , can we get to a satisfactory, sustainable position before disaster strikes? 


It happens that we are in Jersey taking the first steps in developing indicator metrics  like the footprint above.  That's the ongoing Future Jersey exercise.   Imagine 2035 purported to do something similar a decade ago.  That fiasco tried to engineer support for one of a pre selection of growth policy ambitions and completely and  ignored future  impacts like climate change.  This  current project has some  hope of working.  The wide ranging  questionnaire and topics at the outset of course means we have at the raw data level a set of incoherent ambitions.  Resolving those tensions and conflicts is where the real work  happens. 


It was a great pity that the IJCI report was delayed and therefore couldn't really feed  into this Future Jersey  activity more fully.  It certainly touches on some relevant  points .  One  area the survey suggested was very good in Jersey was being or feeling safe.  Yet the evidence given to the Care Inquiry and one of its key conclusions arising is  that children in the care system in Jersey continue to be put at risk.


Comments were also made by the ICJI report on decision making, politics and structures in Jersey. Eg form the executive summary " (x) Failure to tackle a silo mentality among public-sector agencies. States departments and institutions have been characterised by territorialism and protectiveness rather than openness to pooling resources and learning. As a result, there has been a lack of a comprehensive strategy to secure the bests interests of children in the island."  Such behaviour and mentality is very unlikely to  work when tackling holistic concerns and policies. 


I think the work of Future Jersey gives a chance to begin unpicking that silo mentality and get to a position of better decision making and cooperative working across States departments.  Intriguingly this opportunity arises from what many would probably see as the biggest weakness of the whole Future Jersey  project - it doesn't change anything!  And that criticism is largely true.


What we should have when all fifty plus of the indicators in the report are developed is a set of metrics to serve as a decision support tool.  Every strategy and report could then be assessed against the metrics to see its impact and ensure aspects outside of the immediate expected consequences are considered.  In theory we then get better decisions.


Quite what mechanics will be deployed to achieve hasn't been described.  We already have a requirement in States propositions to complete a statement of manpower and financial implications. Having a statement of all fifty indicators might be to cumbersome, but it would put the factors up front in proposals.  An alternative would be to have scrutiny review against the criteria.  There are a few concerns here as scrutiny panels are segregated by area of interest and wouldn't necessarily have knowledge across all the factors.  Also scrutiny do not call in all  propositions for scrutiny, and occasionally policies don't even get to scrutiny or even the the States assembly (eg the current Rural economy strategy).  As a third option we could have someone independent - equivalent of the Comptroller and Auditor general using the metrics to review  , but that would certainly be retrospective, missing the main benefit of informing debate in the chamber.


However it comes into being we desperately need a mechanism for reviewing policies and actions in the round. These decisions are hard, sometimes very hard.  I think about the impacts of my actions a lot , but I still find it hard to get to an acceptable sustainable position in my own life.   I've sometimes been called a zealot or idealist trying to align what I believe is necessary with how I do things. But even  with my 'extreme' decisions, even  my footprint doesn't quite get to the necessary 1 planet level.



You can get a footprint for yourself at  http://www.footprintcalculator.org/#!/

The Future Jersey report is at FUTURE JERSEY

An abandoned generation

It gets far too hot in the middle of the day for me to be working in the field.  So I took the opportunity to watch the first by election hustings over a long lunch. I wish I hadn't - it was unsavoury, unappetising and nearly made me wretch. I'm not referring to  the food.  The video is at St Saviour husting

I won't run you through a critique of all the opening 3 minute speeches.   I'll cut straight to the answers given to one very good question from the floor.  What are the three greatest challenges to Jersey over the next 20-30 years? 

I'll summarise the responses in the order candidates gave their replies.  There was a time limit to answer jointly two questions so some could not give three priorities.

M O'K B  Brexit, economy, education
AA           Economy . immigration (no third)
HR           Brexit, (no second, no third)
JY            Brexit, finance sector growth, population growth
SF            Brexit, banking industry, falling productivity
MD          Brexit (no second, no third)
CM          Diversify Economy, education, ageing population
NleC       Alternative for finance industry, Brexit, Inequality, Constitutional reform   (YES That is 4!)
SM          Culture of Complacency, Brexity, population
GdeF       Transport links, creative thinking (no third)
SO           Establishing a film commission , Brexit.


I'll happily accept population, and diversifying the economy is a tolerable answer, but as to the rest, I have to ask really, I mean really?   Brexit may not even happen.  If it does we cannot yet foresee the impacts or manner of it happening, it may even be beneficial.  Compared to the certain increasing challenges of climate change, food security, resource depletion, ecosystems collapse over the same timescale, I want to ask the candidates what f**king planet are you on?  It is certainly not mine! 

OK so you are not really internationalists, but what about local issues?  Does no one expect or hope for any major impact of the COI over the coming decades.  The evidence is there we  had kids in care abused over decades, but it is now just sweetness and light , all dealt with , is it? Justice?  Is there really no challenge or change required in our justice system over the coming decades? What about the galloping rate of science and technical change and the impact it will have - the surveillance and personal intrusion of having everything tracked and monitored?  Have we no ambition on renewable energy, self reliance for the coming decades? What about inclusion, participation, democracy itself? 

My overall assessment.  FAIL , the lot of them.  I'm bitterly disappointed in Sam Mezec and John Young who I had hoped might have a grasp on a few of these issues and be prepared to take them on.  The best prospect on those criteria based on the St Saviour hustings was Christian May.  He mentions climate change in his vote.je profile (as does Hugh Raymond). He talks of standing up the COM and power, but he uses all the CoM current buzz words and favoured topics (like ageing population and digital). When a One Nation Tory (as I believe he probably is) is your best bet you now things are pretty dire.

And as for my children's generation.   They have been abandoned by our aspirant politics it seems.

Future St Helier

Yesterday I was on of the 'chosen few' to attend a workshop style meeting at the Town Hall on the Future of St Helier. It might seem odd that someone who lives and works in St Ouen should be invited, but it was as a representative of a stakeholder group, as were the other attendees.

The last such States event I attended was Imagine Jersey 2035 . Compared to that event this was rather less prescribed and much more open ended questions were posed. Were were divided into table of six or so for each questions, and each on different tables for three three topics. These topics were: Travel and transport; Urban living and the environment; Identity and community. 

I arrived in not too good humour . I have spent an hour in the early morning looking for my cheque book (and failed) so I could run an errand while on one my rare town visits. I also had to ensure I had checked the plant covers, done the watering and updated my online paper before catching the bus. When I arrived there was no name badge for me. I knew this was not going to be an easy day.

We had an introduction from Constable Crowcroft, Environment Minister Luce laid out some criteria, notable when talking of the future we should be mindful of the 20-30years ahead as well as the vision for 2-3 years hence. David Olgivie, the independent facilitator then did some ice-break exercise and elicited a list from the participants of criteria for interaction like listening and courtesy etc.

And then the wall for pro-car sentiment hit us. The topics we each accompanied by the three same questions: What would mater to you and why; what could we change to met what's important to you, If we could only change 2 things, what would they be? That makes sense if you tackle each in turn, which is what I expected the moderator on our table to do. But it wasn't done like that on the first, and really only tried on the last table I was on. A trio of people dominated the input at our table , having come it seemed with their own agenda and list of points to make on traffic and parking , particularly on what could be done. We were told that everyone drives, and residents of St Helier each should have a right to a parking space, like everyone else does. I contradicted those points they were factually incorrect where I could , but there was no means or space to actually make constructive input. When the moderator with just a minute or so left asked each of use what pints we though were the 2, I refused pointing out that my chance to state what was important had not even been made on what matters. Choosing a conclusion form that position is stupidity. This was not well received , but that is the only sensible comment when things had be so poorly moderated the rubric had not been followed.

There was a summing up from all the tables inputting their two main points and so on. From what I could tell from a couple of discussion in the break, carbon emissions, air quality, population fitness, technology changes and home working had barely been raised anywhere. There was a general agreement that a much better bus service is needed. 

The second session was more constructive. Again the input was very firmly focussed on the tangible and the built environment. At least there was an opportunity to comment on the importance health wise of open spaces, the possible sea level rises impact and sea defences, and air quality was mentioned by someone else on our table. It got interesting when SOS and SOJDC started on the finance quarter. They seem not even to be able to agree on whether the revised plans mean the road is to be sunk or not. I had the impression it was not to be sunk, thankfully. With the exception of the future of the finance centre buildings, I once again had no sense of the long term thinking and how the world will be different then and how that might influence decisions we can or should make today. In the summing up thankfully the desire for more trees did well!

The final session was on safety, identify, community. We had some agreement that it had identity and community, but that it was more people than places. There was a lot of talk about night time economy being distinct and different from day time economy. There was also some comment on the need for St Helier as the capital to have more autonomy, especially given it is proportionately under representation in the States.

At the summing up there were a few comments from the floor. Notably they included the lack of youth at the event and the need to have them included in thinking of the future (I agree wholeheartedly), and the need to engage with social media. Deputy Luce made concluding remarks, two of which stood out. 90% of us agree on 90% of what was said , and that the next Island Plan will cover the period 2012-2030. While I don't particularly disagree with much of what was said and points raised , I think the minister is in danger of misunderstanding the significance of what was discussed. It was for the most part short term, it lacked significant consideration of how the world will be by that 2021 plan let alone in 30 years time (2045!). 

The rapid and still escalating impact and power of computing, the rise of world population and the resource demands to go with that, the change we might expect in working patterns (the extinction of professional middle class knowledge jobs!), sea level rises, food insecurity, energy production, basic material shortages, whole new industrial sectors arising, and other technologies becoming obsolete. It is hard to do , and almost impossible project those things correctly. However is it certain that assuming things will continue more or less as they are now is sure to be way off the reality.