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In a nut shell.  

Commitment,Courage,Confidence,Certainty,Consistency 

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Peter Senge author of the Learning Organisation

Infed on The Learning Organisation

Pour les lectures de langue Française (FR)

(La pensée systèmique de Peter Senge - BlogActiv.eu)

Society for Organizational Learning_P. Senge (En)

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'Sustainable' tropical timber trade a misnomer, says environmental group

The production and trade in 'sustainable' timber products in Southeast Asia is mostly 'a mirage' due to questionable forestry practices and loopholes in import regulations, alleges a new report from Friends of the Earth International. 

The report, ‘Sustainable’ tropical timber production, trade and procurement', focuses on logging in Malaysia and timber import laws in Japan, South Korea, and Australia. It says declining timber production in Malaysia shows that current management practices are inherently unsustainable, depleting future generations of natural resources. Worse is the environmental damage being wrought to the region's rich forests and the deprivations suffered by indigenous communities, especially in the state of Sarawak, where forest dwellers have been forced off their traditional lands. "We are witnessing a global depletion of natural timber resources and sustainable tropical timber remains essentially a mirage," said Meenakshi Raman, Honorary Secretary of Friends of the Earth Malaysia, in a statement. While several key importing nations seem to have in place regulations that would protect against such abuses, the report argues they have have not "resulted in meaningful changes on the ground". A chief issue has been a focus on legality of timber supplies, rather than safeguarding human rights or ensuring sustainability. "A disproportionate amount of emphasis seems to have been focused on eliminating the trade of illegal timber, at the expense of the efforts to ensure the sustainable production and consumption of tropical timber products," states the report. "Consumer countries have also failed to reduce their tropical timber consumption levels to more sustainable levels." "For policy to be able to address the reality on the ground, it cannot afford to ignore systemic corruption, the violations of human rights as well as unsustainable production and consumption patterns," says the report. "Policy has to be fully grounded on governance transparency and a real understanding on the ecology of natural resources as well as the human lives it affects." 





CITATION Friends of the Earth (2013). From policy to reality: ‘Sustainable’ tropical timber production, trade and procurement. 


'Sustainable' tropical timber trade a misnomer, says group

 Read more at Mongabay...

Why a watermelon tells you what's wrong with the climate debate - Zunia.org

Here is a rpiece I like written by the Guardian, UK science and environment editor  James Randerson of The Guardian,UK  The Guardian.com, Wednesday 11 September 2013.

Watermelon is a word that tells you what is wrong with the climate change debate. 

The right believes the agenda is green on the outside but red on the inside – we must take the political poison out of the debate

"For some libertarians, it is the insult that expresses what greenies and climate scientists are really up to. Behind all the acronyms and the jargon, they say, is a conspiracy to promote a nakedly political aim – anti-big business; anti-free market; pro-tax increases. In short, green on the outside but red on the inside.

The full conspiracy theory requires an impressive degree of paranoia, but one of the reasons the jibe is so persistent is that, if we're honest, there is a grain of truth to it – at least among some in the green movement and on the left.

Many of the policy responses to the climate change problem – consume less, regulate businesses, curb big oil and coal, restrict car use – feel more comfortable to those on the left than the right of the political spectrum. And as a result, right-leaning politicians and thinkers are in danger of losing grip on the most important issue of our age. That has already happened in large measure in America. It would be disastrous if it happened in the UK too. 

This is the backdrop to the parliamentary science and technology select committee's inquiry into the communication of climate science, to which I (J.Randerson) gave evidence on Monday. The Met Office is being questioned on Wednesday. The MPs on the committee are trying to get to the bottom of why the public is still confused about climate science when the core science has been pretty clear for years. The thrust of many of their questions was "what could the media be doing better to communicate the science?"

While the precise impacts and timescale of climate change may be uncertain, the basic tenets are well-established science. The projections from climate scientists indicate that there is a significant risk of profound changes to climate if we continue to release greenhouse gases at the current rate.
 
The elephant in the room at the parliamentary inquiry though has been that, consciously or not, there are people on all sides of the climate debate who argue backwards from a cultural or political position. As a result, arguments about the science of climate change become a proxy for what is really a political argument. If you like the prescription, then you embrace the diagnosis. If you don't, you undermine the diagnosis or attack the doctor.

But if it was just a question of putting across complex science to a lay readership whose attention must be grabbed from the numerous other shiny news stories on offer that would be, if not easy, at least no harder than your average science story. Science journalists' stock in trade is making unfamiliar ideas intelligible, compelling, relevant and entertaining. And let's face it, climate science may be complex, but the Higgs boson is harder to grasp than global warming.

REFERENCES:

Why a watermelon tells you what's wrong with the climate debate - Zunia.org

Full article by James Randerson of The Guardian, Environment, 2013/sep/11/Climate-Debate

Green economy: Will it ever be people, planet and profit? - Zunia.org

Green growth and higher standards of living imply rising consumption of resources, food, and energy.

It follows that countries must also introduce fundamental changes in patterns of consumption, technology, and agriculture to ensure a sustainable future for their growing populations.



Such developments have begun in particular regions in countries and then spread outwards, as in Brazil and India.

Two recent examples of the importance of sustainability for economic growth are given below: 

1. During last year's massive floods in Thailand, exacerbated by global warming, which disrupted the country's car industry with knock-on effects for international supply chains. 

2.In Asia, this year, there have been several examples of severe air pollution in cities spreading over hundreds of kilometres. This disrupted both economic activity and affected the health of millions.

The move towards green growth (is already an immense challenge in our developped countries so "needless to say"?) that in developing countries poses extraordinary challenges for experts and decision makers because of the greater need to address the costs of natural risks and environmental and industrial safety, and large variations and unpredictability in global trade. These challenges are forcing the need in developing countries for speedy but different reforms appropriate to their societies and institutions, although this strategic aspect of development is seldom discussed at meetings of legislators and governments.

REFERENCES:

Green economy: Will it ever be people, planet and profit? - Zunia.org

SOURCE: The Guardian_global-development-professionals-network/2013/sep/17/green-economy-development-policy-china

Why India trails China by AMARTYA SEN, Nobel laureate Economics, Professor of Economics and Philosophy,Harvard Univ.

Failing to invest in the health and education of the poor is a drag on economic growth

AMARTYA SEN,  Nobel laureate Economics, Professor of Economics and Philosophy,Harvard

REFERENCES :

International Herald Tribune free at Paris Air Show Le Bourget

World Bank Blog submitted by Merrell Tuck-Primdahl

Quality of Life_India-vs-China by Amartya Sen

What China Could Teach India, Then and Now, Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen on China vs. India

Modern India is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world’s largest democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more newspapers every day than any other nation. Since independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32, and per-capita income has grown fivefold. In recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth rate to around 8 percent per year, before it fell back a couple of percentage points over the last two years. For years, India’s economic growth rate ranked second among the world’s large economies, after China, which it has consistently trailed by at least one percentage point.

MSMDNYC

The hope that India might overtake China one day in economic growth now seems a distant one. But that comparison is not what should worry Indians most. The far greater gap between India and China is in the provision of essential public services — a failing that depresses living standards and is a persistent drag on growth.

Inequality is high in both countries, but China has done far more than India to raise life expectancy, expand general education and secure health care for its people. India has elite schools of varying degrees of excellence for the privileged, but among all Indians 7 or older, nearly one in every five males and one in every three females are illiterate. And most schools are of low quality; less than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of schooling.

India may be the world’s largest producer of generic medicine, but its health care system is an unregulated mess. The poor have to rely on low-quality — and sometimes exploitative — private medical care, because there isn’t enough decent public care. While China devotes 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product to government spending on health care, India allots 1.2 percent.

India’s underperformance can be traced to a failure to learn from the examples of so-called Asian economic development, in which rapid expansion of human capability is both a goal in itself and an integral element in achieving rapid growth. Japan pioneered that approach, starting after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when it resolved to achieve a fully literate society within a few decades. As Kido Takayoshi, a leader of that reform, explained: ‘‘Our people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of education.’’ Through investments in education and health care, Japan enhanced living standards and labor productivity — the government collaborating with the market.

Despite the catastrophe of Japan’s war years, the lessons of its development experience remained and were followed, in the postwar period, by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other economies in East Asia. China, which during the Mao era made advances in land reform and basic education and health care, embarked on market reforms in the early 1980s; its huge success changed the shape of the world economy. India has paid inadequate attention to these lessons.

Is there a conundrum here that democratic India has done worse than China in educating its citizens and improving their health? Perhaps, but the puzzle need not be a brainteaser. Democratic participation, free expression and rule of law are largely realities in India, and still largely aspirations in China. India has not had a famine since independence, while China had the largest famine in recorded history, from 1958 to 1961, when Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward killed some 30 million people. Nevertheless, using democratic means to remedy endemic problems — chronic undernourishment, a disorganized medical system or dysfunctional school systems — demands sustained deliberation, political engagement, media coverage, popular pressure. In short, more democratic process, not less.

In China, decision making takes place at the top. The country’s leaders are skeptical, if not hostile, with regard to multiparty democracy, but they have been strongly committed to eliminating hunger, illiteracy and medical neglect, and that is enormously to their credit.

There are inevitable fragilities in a nondemocratic system because mistakes are hard to correct. Dissent is dangerous. There is little recourse for victims of injustice. Edicts like the onechild policy can be very harsh. Still, China’s present leaders have used the basic approach of accelerating development by expanding human capability with great decisiveness and skill.

The case for combating inequality in India is not only a matter of social justice. Unlike India, China did not miss the huge lesson of Asian economic development, about the economic returns that come from bettering human lives. India’s growth and its earnings from exports have tended to depend on a few sectors, like information technology, pharmaceuticals and specialized auto parts, many of which rely on the role of highly trained personnel from the welleducated classes. For India to match China in its range of manufacturing capacity, it needs a better-educated and healthier labor force at all levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its damaging consequences, including for economic growth.

AMARTYA SEN, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. He is the author, with Jean Drèze, of ‘‘An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions.’’

Sustainability Management Academics & Sage's Journal "Organization & Environment"

Getting to grips with Environmental Impact is by Nature, (with a capital N) a truely millenium challenge this is the place to post. (Note in passing the incredible foresight of the MacMillan brothers when they created in 1860 their now famous Science Journal Nature-Timeline)

As the 2nd issue in 2013 of Sage's Journal Organization & Environment has just arrived in my mail in box, I will share the freely available content with my regular management blog readers at "This-Above-All."

Here is the Editorial address of this years 2nd issue addressing Academics in these fields
Sustainability Management Academics

The "Public Debt Issue_Who is in debt & to Whom? plus questions of probity concerning elected members of the French Assembly(Deputés) or Senate(Senateurs)

For my bilingual readers here is a video link to the enquiry reported by Elise Lucet of France's F2-Antenne 2  public television.

Subject: Tax Evasion or Tax Optimisation or more to be more specific MINIMISATION
NB. Of course the CFO's-Chief Financial Officer's job is to maximise financial leverage and ensure money is well spent within the company, but there is something called "good will", apparently long forgotten. The public must question what this entails and what the company owes the public (customers) and the country (reputation, renown..) eg. the private assets of Greece outlay the Greek public debt!)      

Summary: In 2008 a computer expert at HSBC bank in Geneva, Hervé Falciani, left the bank with a long  list of clients world wide notably those who are strongly suspected of Tax Fraud. The list was in the form of three hard discs, at current data storage performance, that's a lot of data.

Mr Falciani is accused of stealing this data by the Switzerland Justice Department, he apparently has been menaced by death and placed under police protection.

The TV enquiry is also looks at companies implanted in France which are seen to be pushing the limits between Tax Optimisation and Fraud.

Such an enquiry is particularly timely since all Europeans, and certainly in France, are under increasing pressure to "make efforts" to bring our Economies into Equilibrium.

As in all well managed affairs, private business or public affairs the example must come from the top, the "so called leaders".

LEADERSHIP IN QUESTION and I do not intend to do any French President Bashing

Today good leadership is more and more questionable. In spite of the encouraging start to french president F. Hollands reduction in salary -30% (NB. N.Sarkosy increased his presidential salary by something like 140% "I won the battle and take the spoils"? There are of course other factors to be looked into in order to determine the salaried and perks of all elected representatives in total transparence in order to have the clout to change what must be changed)

Even more flagrant is the still apparently excessive and shady treatment attributed-co-opted in the boardrooms of  directors of CAC 40 (40 top companies and their top brass, and collaborators, many of whom may hide behind their financial directors or quality assurance directors in the case of accusation of "fraudulent" behaviour.

This blog author wrote and published in particular:

TWO CASE STUDIES

Two examples of companies present in France were highlighted:
Amazon & BAT British & American Tobacco
Of course pillar of "EU ism" Luxembourg is a main player in this "fraud- tax minimisation"
Amazon have unfair advantage over the small librarian-bookseller.
Having seen this TV programme I shall take Amazon's publicity from my blogs.
BAT is another kettle of fish - Tobacco smoking is proven to be  responsible for a greatly  increased probability of lung cancer, arterial damage and heart failure risk. What motivated me to blog and add my voice to echo this TV enquiry was the present of 3 elected members wined and dinned by BAT
 (one cannot say at BAT's expense since we know where the bribe money comes from, ie the poor cigarette addict.)
while France is actively engaged in increasing tax on cigarettes in order to encourage people to stop smoking (my comment or help finance the cost of cancer care and if possible cure).
M. André Santini, longtime deputy and senator, with a very strong personality (some may say "grande geule" and certainly a fat tummy).and very out spoken in favour of freedom to smoke (even knowing that manufactures do all they can to increase addiction) M. Patrick Balkany, Maire of Levallois-Perret the commune the most  indebted in France and a third person whose name will most certainly figure in the video.
(Bribery if not openly discussed is possible just around the corner).

SUMMARY
Tax Evasion or Tax Optimisation or more to be more specific MINIMISATION
NB. Of course the CFO's job is to maximise financial leverage and ensure money is well spent within the company, but there is something called "good will", apparently long forgotten. The public must question what this entails and what the company owes the public (customers) and the country (reputation, renown..) eg. the private assets of Greece outlay the Greek public debt!)    

INTOLERABLE

PS. Now that I have echoed the deserved slating the national players there are other "Top Dogs" who cry for efforts to be made, the public is now asking our EU representatives and the Salaried EU. Commission what financial effort has or is being enforced as a signal that the EU is playing its leadership role properly, yes properly.
  

Le scandale de l'évasion fiscale : révélations sur les milliards qui nous manquent (in French)