1 Growth is no more the enemy of the planet (Chris
Huhne in The Guardian) Until now the story of human prosperity has been all
about cheap, abundant energy. However, something big has been happening. For
the first time in history, we are growing richer while using less energy. That
is unalloyed good news for budgets, incomes and the planet. We have reached a
technological tipping point.
From the middle ages, living standards just edged up
at a snail’s pace, and we did little damage to the planet, because growing
forests absorbed carbon from wood burning. The population was small. We led
lives that were, in Hobbes’ phrase, “nasty, brutish and short”. Then we started
burning coal on a large scale in the 18th century, and the industrial
revolution made the graph look like a hockey stick: suddenly incomes were
doubling in decades, following centuries of stability.
After allowing for inflation, real GDP in England
and Wales doubled from 1830 to 1864, again by 1898, and again by 1951, despite
two world wars. This unprecedented prosperity and welfare was inextricably
linked to the burning of fossil fuels, and therefore to the beginning of carbon
emissions and global warming. And we are paying with the steady rise in carbon
and temperatures compared with pre-industrial levels.
The good news is that we can increasingly see a
future where technology does most of the change for us. Readers of the Digest
of United Kingdom energy statistics will find an extraordinary table in the new
edition: the two-century link between growth and energy has broken. The UK
economy has doubled in real terms since 1985, but total energy consumption is
exactly the same as it was in that year. Indeed, energy consumption has fallen
since 1970 while the economy has nearly trebled in size.
2 In tech, Asians are left out at the top (Kristen V
Brown in San Francisco Chronicle) When Buck Gee was a vice president at Cisco
Systems, he one day looked around his desk and noticed that he stood out in one
key way: Gee was the only Chinese American executive in Cisco's US product
development group. In fact, there were very few Asian American executives at
all.
Since then, Gee, who retired from Cisco in 2008, has
been a man on a mission. Asians are generally well-represented in technology
companies among the rank and file, but few ascend the corporate ladder to the
top. Gee wants to change that. The recent release of data on the diversity of
employees by more than a dozen tech companies has lent new vigor to Gee's
campaign to shatter what he calls the "bamboo ceiling."
He points to Yahoo, where Asians hold 17 percent of
leadership positions while making up 39 percent of its US workforce. That
pattern persists across most tech companies. "A long time ago, Asians were
considered the model minority," Gee said. "But certainly, at least in
business, we're now the missing minority."
In a paper Gee published this year, he noted that
factors preventing more Asian Americans from moving up the ranks include a
traditional deference to authority, ineffective communication skills and an
aversion to risk taking. Many Asians, he said, are brought up with an emphasis
on acquiring skills and achievements, but not on the "soft skills"
necessary for managing people at a high level. But the biggest problem may be
that no one seems interested in talking about the lack of Asians at the top.
3 Why Gen Y finds it hard to be hired (Sylvia
Pennington in Sydney Morning Herald) While over-50s say the odds are stacked
against them when it comes to getting a job, the going is equally tough for
those at the other end of the age spectrum - school leavers and young people
with minimal work experience.
Older Aussies believe ageism and a risk-averse
labour market are some of the reasons they're out of favour with employers. But
why are Australian businesses also saying no to the notion of taking on and
training up a young 'un? Too expensive and too much aggro, says the founder of
the MiniMovers removalist chain, Mike O'Hagan, who used to pride himself on
giving a couple of school leavers a go each year.
“When you have a downturn in the market . . . hiring
young people is going to be one of the first things you stop,” he says. The
lacklustre work ethic and entitlement mentality of the latest Me Generation
have also soured his attitude in recent years. Many youngsters have had their
sights set too high, both at school and at home, and view a good job as their
right, regardless of their ability, O'Hagan says.
Latest jobless figures from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics suggest plenty of employers share O'Hagan's views, given the growing
number of youngsters languishing in the job queue. The national youth
unemployment rate for 15 to 24 year olds looking for work has risen to a 12
year high of 13.1 per cent, more than double the general unemployment rate of 5.8
per cent.
Kids who've seen their parents on Struggle Street
are often the best bet, agrees Peter Coronica, the former long-time owner of
Melbourne's Café Florentine. “If they're from too affluent a family, you know
they won't work hard,” he says. “They think they're too good to be a waiter. They
treat work like a game of hopscotch . . . they're often searching for something
that doesn't exist.”
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