Profit over Planet?

Sometimes you just have to do the right thing no matter how hard the choices are.

Happy Friday friends.

In Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader squares up to Luke Skywalker and says “ Give yourself to the darkside Luke”

Thankfully, Luke does the right thing, makes the right decision, is truthful to his own values, smashes Darth Vader around with the light sabre and returns to the planet of Endor to celebrate with the Ewoks.

Sometimes we face hard choices and are forced to make tough decisions.

This week song illustrates that with the Clash agonising, Should I Stay or Should I Go.

Businesses today are faced with huge commercial challenges forcing really hard  decisions and strategies that try to strike a balance between changing the way they do things to reduce their carbon footprint and impact on the planet.

Being sustainable, efficient and profitable ain’t going to be an easy journey amigos, but if everything was easy, I’d be less round.

Rishi Sunak did a fair job as chancellor during the pandemic I thought, he was a safe pair of hands during an un-precedented global health emergency.

This week however, he has made a cock up of gargantuan, colossal and all the other words in the dictionary that mean massive, proportion.

Chris Waddle would agree that he wasted one of the best opportunities of his career when he stepped up to take that penalty at the World Cup in 1990 and sent it sailing over the bar.

I wonder if Rishi Sunak will agree one day that he has not only made a massive mistake but also missed out on a golden opportunity for his administration to have left a lasting positive legacy on the planet that history could be proud of him for.

Rishi’s press conference this week declaring that he would be further delaying the implementation of important green policies was excruciatingly painful and then compounded by an even worse performance by Liz Truss later in the day.

With an impending General Election, labour ahead at the polls and a country of voters who are unhappy with the cost of living crisis, public worker and NHS strikes and painful energy prices, he is in trouble. The likely outcome is that there will be a change of government.

It is entirely understandable that when people are struggling and facing personal challenges they won’t see paying more for a greener and more sustainable environment and planet as their biggest priority.

But governments should. They are the system that we elect to govern, administrate, organise and deliver the tools and policies for society to thrive, develop, evolve and progress.

When Mr. Sunak took to our screens on Wednesday it was clear that he had chosen profit over planet and therefore profit over people.

He may think this might be a vote winner that keeps fossil fuel corporates and related industries happy. Although this may be a tempting strategy it comes with numerous pitfalls that has devasting consequences on the climate crisis, ecosystems and the people his government represents.

Apart from all that, Rishi has missed a massive open goal of opportunity.

By bringing in promised policies and legislation he could have shown that there can be a balanced approach that considers both profit and the well-being of our planet.

And then we all can have a prosperous future.

Yoda gave the warning  “Once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny, consume you it will.”

I can’t help thinking Rishi set off down the dark path this week. Others must beware the same fate.

Meanwhile, I intend to be partying with Luke and the Ewoks!

Thanks for reading,

Have beautiful weekend.

Mike.