The Long Read: Is It Time To Retire Sustainability? The Sustainability Game Lynn Johnson 3 July 2022 In a 2021 video about climate change and biodiversity loss, George Monbiot said he thought less than 1% of people fully understood the scale of the emergency we are collectively facing. He blamed the media, saying, “They allowed this entire shitfest to happen". I agree with this, but I also believe that, at least for the extinction crisis, global conservation organisations must shoulder part of the blame. In April 2017 I wrote an article, Want To Know Why Conservation Is Failing? Read On… I stand by everything I wrote all those years ago [...]

Would You Let Your Home Decay Around You? No - Are you sure? Lynn Johnson 9 June, 2022 As rational animals we believe we wouldn’t live in a home obviously decaying around us and not do something about it if we could. But this is exactly what we have done, and continue to do, with the only real home we have. The interesting question is why we can compartmentalise what we do so easily. An example of this compartmentalisation became apparent in the recent Australian federal election. Many of the suburbs who voted out Liberal Party MPs, in some municipalities for the first time in the party’s history, did so [...]

Broken Chains Lack of supply chain control laid bare. Lynn Johnson 8 May, 2022 The global pandemic has laid bare how international free trade relies on fragile and poorly understood supply chains. These supply chains are optimised solely for efficiency and just-in-time availability and, as a result, lack both transparency and resilience. Supply chains started to break down almost immediately at the beginning of the pandemic, causing basic items to be rationed in supermarkets. Adding to the strain, international, online shopping exploded. As lockdowns have ebbed and flowed in countries around the world, production and distribution in this global trade system has buckled. The scale of the current disruption due to lockdowns [...]

The Sustainability Game: Creatives, Keep The Blood Off Your Hands Because, if you are helping to sell it, then you are helping to kill and exploit it. Lynn Johnson  10 April, 2022 That much business behaviour today is neither ethical nor sustainable in any industry is hardly news to observers of corporate conduct. Faced with a situation where we are already exceeding planetary boundaries, any push for ‘more’ (growth, consumption, sales, profit) has to be considered not just unethical and unsustainable, but suicidal. And yet, everlasting economic growth remains official government policy everywhere and is the default premise of any business operating under capitalism. Given the profit and growth driven ideology [...]

Broken Systems A Corporate Criminal Justice System Has Never Existed Lynn Johnson 21 March, 2022 Over recent years there has been an ever-growing dialog about how to deal with the transnational, organised crime associated with the trade in endangered species and environmental goods. As the legal and illegal trade in endangered and exotic species are so intertwined that they are functionally inseparable, some time ago I found myself exploring why so few inroads have been made in dealing with this transnational organised crime. One question I started considering more-and-more was, could the reality be that there is just too big an overlap between transnational organised crime and white-collar/corporate crime for [...]

Our Dopamine Addiction Is Killing The Planet. How Can We Detox? Lynn Johnson 5 January, 2022 Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that sends signals from one neuron to another. Whatever your drug of choice, chocolate, nicotine, amphetamines, social media, power or shopping, dopamine is the final common pathway for all pleasurable, intoxicating and rewarding experiences. It is believed to be the most important neurotransmitter when it comes to the experience of pleasure, motivation and reward. But it isn’t ‘pleasure’ all the way because the same areas of the brain that process pleasure also process pain, and pleasure-pain work like a balance. When that pleasure-pain balance tilts to the side of pain after the [...]

The Legal Wildlife Trade Mainstream Media D-Notice Lynn Johnson 21 October, 2021 Those who love a British political thriller, particularly one which includes tension between the government and the press, the term, “it’s had a D-Notice slapped on the story” will be familiar. For the individuals who don’t know what a D-Notice is, here is a little background provided by the BBC’s Secret Britain Series. The "Defence Advisory Notice System" - as it is now called - is supposed to be entirely voluntary. In reality, though, it's very rare for any of the mainstream media [MSM] organisations to ignore the committee's requests [not to publish a story]”. Why does the [...]

Image peterschreiber.media The Failure Of Investors How can you call something an investment when it is driving biodiversity loss? Lynn Johnson 14 October 2021 We cannot overcome the biodiversity loss, associated with the legal trade in endangered species, unless we can change the minds and strategies of the individuals and groups who invest in these wildlife and timber markets. In the end, getting investors committed to tackling biodiversity loss, associated with legal trade, maybe a key action to dealing with the extinction crisis. Investors have started to exert influence in relation to climate change policies and carbon emissions targets in the companies in which they invest. They have been under increasing [...]

Out For The Count. The Annual, 24-Hour Wildlife Count. Lynn Johnson 6 September, 2021 Extreme weather events, from fires, to floods to storms are devastating what’s left of the world's nature reserves. Just one example is an Australian study which estimated 3 billion animals were killed, injured or displaced in the 2019/2020 summer bushfires. All this has happened at a time when governments worldwide pledge much for the environment, but in reality, do very little to aid its protection and rehabilitation. Those of us who care have lost trust in what our political representatives say. So, what can we do? Is it time more of us pushed for [...]

If Rich People Wanted To Save The Planet… They would be doing it now. Lynn Johnson 23 August, 2021 Instead of the ultra-rich doing their utmost to secure a viable future for all, we have what some have termed, for obvious reasons, dicks in space. The problem is that these billionaires are being held up as visionaries, but isn’t this vision simply feeble? Aren’t they saying, I don’t have the skill to fix the complex problems down here on earth, so I am just going to build my own rocket and run away? It comes across as immature and narrow-minded. This image isn’t enhanced when you consider the scale of tax [...]