Don't think about it

Whilst trying to get my thoughts about climate change in order, I came across a book, ostensibly about transport and mobility, that clearly expressed several points that I was inarticulately groping for. It's always wonderful when that happens. The author is a Danish academic called Malene Freundenal-Pedersen. She examines transport choices from a sociological perspective, which provides a very interesting contrast to the predominantly technical, pseudo-objective approach transport planners use. But more than that, she describes some important general characteristics of 'late modern' life in the developed world:

1. Individualisation. (Emphasis on individual choices and the need/entitlement to create your own lifestyle that expresses who you are as an individual.)
   
   
2. A disassociation of time and space. (Technology allowing communication, work, and leisure pursuits to take place practically anywhere.)
   
   
3. Reflexivity. (This is a single word for the fact that we are aware of the society we live in, and are both influenced by it and influence it. The term implies a self-consciousness and need to substantiate or legitimise the conditions of society.)
   
   
4. Risk awareness. (Linked to reflexivity, as we are constantly re-evaluating risks based on a constant flow of new information.)

But the most important, to my mind, is the fifth: Ambivalence. This can be seen as a response to the first four factors, which in combination tend to produce insecurity and anxiety. A mass of information, a deluge of risks, a cavalcade of apparent contradictions, and an onerous set of expectations are hard to handle; unless you choose to ignore or deprioritise certain things. This is everyday ambivalence. For example, on a daily basis I'll contemplate which of my library books are close to being due back, whether I need to buy more peanut butter, and what I need to prepare for the next day. At the same time, I know but choose not to dwell on, for example, the facts that women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours but only earn 10% of the income, that China's economic boom is causing environmental catastrophe, and that there are approximately one billion people in the world without enough to eat. Overwhelming, unpalatable information of this kind abounds in the media, but usually loses the competition for attention with minutiae of life. As Freundenal-Pedersen puts it:

Ambivalence can have an overwhelming impact on everyday life and result in paralysis if not dealt with through routines.

As I understand it, ambivalence helps us get around the guilt that should result from awareness of the damage our comfortable lifestyles wreak. Thus, climate change is a phenomenon mired in ambivalence. Although the scientific consensus is unequivocal, we can't feel or touch climate change as such, struggle to fit it into our risk assessment frameworks, and cannot reconcile it with our individual lifestyle choices. The implications of this initially seem extremely gloomy, as it seem that before we even try and remake our economic and political systems to respond to climate change, we have to somehow overcome our collective social mindset and dominant culture.

I've said previously that I think imaginative, utopian thinking about the future is necessary to address climate change. We need to imagine a better world, and Freundenal-Pedersen neatly points out what that is so difficult in today's society:

Modern society has shaped us into individuals, with no room for utopian visions or communities shaping these visions. As individuals, we are too preoccupied with creating our own individualised picture and reality of the kind of life we wish to inhabit; a life which focuses on unlimited freedom and possibilities and opportunities to buy whatever we desire...

Without imagination and aspiration another, more real and significant menace is born when these imaginings, dreams, and utopias disappear, and we subsequently forget how to play and live life beyond the frames already existing...

We are getting swept into a cocktail of freedom as an individual good, with guilt becoming the regulator for how free we can actually act.

Things are not hopeless, though.

Many of the individualised citizens in late modern everyday life still dream about and long for strong communities, close connections, and less fear of the future.

How do we address our ambivalence? By telling new stories, contemplating better lives, and designing utopias together. Freundenal-Pedersen terms this 'social learning', which could be as simple as discussing collectively what you think would make the world better. We use narratives, often generated and reinforced by the media and advertising, to justify our daily choices to ourselves. These are changeable. Indeed, arguably reflexivity and constant access to information via technology allow narratives to evolve relatively quickly.

Now, I enjoyed this sociological theory, but it's only useful if the implications can be used pragmatically. In reality, do social understanding and norms shift slowly or abruptly? Conveniently, there is a striking example of an abrupt, institutionally-induced shift observable right now. It occurred shortly after 11th May 2010. Prior to that date, UK politicians spent their general election campaigns ducking the prospect of government spending cuts. Once the coalition government was in place, the emergency budget appeared and suddenly significant across-the-board cuts were presented as essential. The media, which has pounced on any mentions of cuts during election campaigning, appeared to turn upon the public sector. It was painted as bloated, wasteful, unnecessary, and an impediment to growth. Public services, including the welfare state, were without exception presented as unaffordable, overgenerous, and in need of reform. I don't think the scale of this shift in public consciousness has been adequately acknowledged. Prior to the election, talk of cutting benefits was basically taboo; now this is taken for granted. David Cameron has taken very effectively taken advantage of the UK's ambivalence towards the public sector.

In a slightly perverse way, the successful sale of of the austerity story to the British public gives me hope that a similar shift can occur in relation to climate change. Ambivalence can be exploited to drive through huge institutional change without the need for a public campaign, or even widespread public acceptance. You could even use the 2008 Climate Change Act as an example - it got widespread public support, but was subject to a virtually unprecedented level of political and media consensus. How many people really thought through its implications for their own daily lives? Would it have gained the same support if The Daily Mail had claimed, not without justification, that it would raise petrol prices? (I realise that this train of thought isn't giving much credence to democracy; how that interacts with climate change deserves and will get its own post.)

Freundenal-Pedersen suggests a renaissance of utopian thinking in civil society is necessary to slowly overcome ambivalence. Much as I like this idea, I consider it neither sufficient, nor fast enough. Reawakening utopian dreams is important, but most people will likely remain ambivalent about the infrastructure underpinning them. To have any hope of radically reducing emissions, I think we must also look to institutions.

All quotes from 'Mobility in Daily Life' (Malene Freundenal-Pedersen, 2009).

Social Science Fiction

The future is intrinsically fascinating to me and fiction presents it more vividly than most non-fiction. I will admit to something of a fondness for dytopian literature. Utopias are compelling too, but well-written ones are much harder to come by. So here is a slight digression from my climate change posts, a list of dystopian fiction recommendations. What issue most concerns you? These are all futures that we should try to avoid; pick your poison.

Acute housing shortage? Strikingly depicted in Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. New York is stiflingly overpopulated, the oil has run out, anyone is entitled to squatters rights over the tiniest empty space and abandoned cars are prized as homes. I strongly suspect this book was written as an extended argument for the better access to contraception.

Endemic pollution destroying human health? Try The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, a master of the genre. Constant food contamination scares and outbreaks of disease steadily push down American life expectancy and promote political instability. Overconsumption has poisoned the basic essentials of life. This novel has a particularly memorable, distinctly dark ending.

Capitalism gone to extremes? I give you Market Forces by Richard Morgan, in which Naomi Klein's worst nightmare manifests itself and civil wars offer the best investment opportunities. Über-macho traders duel with cars and kill anything in the path of profits. Although written prior to the credit crunch, probably reads more plausibly in light of it.

Dependence on the internet and obsession with celebrity? Gwyneth Jones' Bold As Love series is less depressing than most dystopias, but still depicts the collapse of civilisation and regression to subsistence-based feudal squalor. The catalytic event is the destruction of the internet, and events that follow include a civil war with armies led by pop stars.

Desertification and a precipitous fall in agricultural productivity? Earthworks by Brian Aldiss uncompromisingly shows the starvation and hopelessness resulting from inadequate food and crippling inequality. Unusually, it is centred on Africa, which adds to its punch.

Ground war in Europe with 21st century weaponry and guerilla methods? Kaleidoscope Century by John Barnes brings it to life. This novel is notably uncomfortable to read, in part due to the nature of the narrator. This is a Europe wracked by the horrors of failed states; war crimes and endemic AIDS.

Extreme weather triggered by climate Change? The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd is to my mind the most immediately plausible of the bunch. It realistically explores how carbon rationing would work, through the eyes of a teenage girl. The tragedy is that it is already too late and climate change has taken hold. The discomfort of reducing your carbon footprint is neatly compared to the terror and danger of droughts, storms, and floods.

Withdrawal of public services and urban ghettoisation? The most effective depiction is a French action film, Banlieue 13 (District 13). Although predominantly an action flick, one of my favourites in fact, the premise is excellently realised. A deprived neighbourhood is walled in and has all public services withdrawn, as politicians no longer want to have to deal with it. Naturally, heavily armed drug dealers take over. To my disbelief, I recently read a US planning commentator recommend this exact approach, couched as allowing poorer areas to embrace the benefits of gated communities.

What I think characterises all these novels, as well as the dystopian genre in general, is the sense that things will only get worse. As I've said before, I think this mindset must be overcome in order to make progress in tackling climate change. Dystopian novels try to make a point and act as a warning, it isn't often that they propose a solution to whatever terrible situation humanity finds itself in. Wallowing in disaster is not a luxury that non-fiction, and reality, can afford. The vividness of dystopian novels is deceptive; the real world is much more complicated and ultimately interesting.

If you would prefer not to contemplate hellish theoretical futures, I suggest a recent, wonderfully snide novel of the banking crisis called Other People's Money by Justin Cartwright. Much too gentle and of the current moment to be a dystopia, it nonetheless dissects our relationships with banks and money beautifully. The old certainties of the banking system are dying. This novel could be read as a eulogy.

What do we want? When do we want it?

The first set of questions that occurred to me when considering climate change concern the future. What sort of future do we expect? What do we want the future to be like? Do we value the future less or more than the present? How far into the future do we consider it worth planning? How much risk to our desired future are we willing to tolerate? To what extent do we consider events beyond our lifetime as beyond our influence or interest?

Do we have a duty to future generations? I believe we do, as we should as species take responsibility for the problems that we've created. That's a grand statement, but translating it into policy is incredibly difficult. It's also easy to state that life is expected to improve as time passes, and that we should invest resources now to try and ensure this is the case. The counterargument generally raised to this is the current egregious state of inequality in the world. Billions still lack clean water, food, and basic bodily security. This is encompassed by the Millennium Development Goals, which are as follows: end poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality, child health, maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and global partnership. Climate change isn't explicitly mentioned, even under the seventh goal. Is it more important to meet these goals first, before we contemplate emissions reductions? Should our lack of willingness to solve today's problems be an excuse to dismiss those of the future?

In my view, it is deeply unwise to separate climate change from other long term global problems. Clearly climate change is already impeding the achievement of the Millennium Development goals and will continue to do so. Notably, the countries worst effected by climate change are those who have contributed least to it. Subsistence farmers will starve before subsidised agribusinesses notice much of any change in productivity. It is a horrible irony that the United Kingdom, where the Industrial Revolution began, will likely remain attractively temperate whilst millions are displaced from Asian coasts and equatorial Africa. This raises the ethical question: when we contemplate an abstraction of the future, are we really considering the welfare of our whole species? Do we just care about our own children, or those of our own country?

If we in the Western world genuinely believe that reducing our greenhouse gas emissions today is too expensive and would involve sacrificing too much of the comfort and convenience to which we have become accustomed, then so be it. However it is not acceptable to presume this without considering the full ethical ramifications. If we put off reductions in emissions, we are tacitly assuming that the future will be more dangerous, that currently entrenched problems will become more difficult to solve, and that our own wellbeing is both more important than that of future generations in general and those of developing world in particular. If we are to be that selfish, we should at least be honest with ourselves about it.

In the UK we have the 2008 Climate Change Act, a piece of legislation that commits successive governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels, before the year 2050. This is an extremely important thing, as it provides the first inkling of a vision for the future. Although it in no way ensures that the target will actually be met, setting out a framework for the future that is desired, expected, and planned for is a powerful step. The aim of the Act is to prevent each government from deferring action on climate change until the following term of office. If it can survive the current coalition intact, the Act will have started to do its job.

When the Climate Change Act was passed, it demanded consideration of what we expect the UK to be like 42 years in the future. Now 2050 is 38 years away. Consider how much has changed in the last 38, let alone 42, years. In 1974, society, technology, and politics were very different. The rate of change seems only to have accelerated since. Within the constraints of an 80% emissions cut, what do we want from 2050? Personally, I want greater equality, lower consumption, and a fundamental reassessment of economics. I want fossil fuels to be seen as quaint and outdated. I want understanding to be valued above ownership.

From a less idealistic angle, we could simply require security and prosperity in 2050. If ignored, climate change will diminish or even destroy both. A future of rapid warming and dramatic climate shifts is unlikely to be attractive to anyone. And yet approaching the future in this way, as something to be feared, seems to promote paralysis and short-termism. Climate change becomes something too terrifying to contemplate; might as well enjoy life and waste energy while we still can. It seems to me that getting to the point of meaningful action requires greater thought. Once you've accepted that the future will be different, it is vital to consider how you want it to be different. In the current trajectory of increasing emissions and floundering economics, I see a huge failure in imagination. Things won't stay the same. If we value the future at all, we have to consider how we want it to be. In the UK we at least have the Climate Change Act as a starting point.

What is climate change to you?

This term's lectures have got me thinking about climate change as an abstraction and about how we individually try to make sense of it (or not).

I've spent a fair amount of time reading and thinking about climate change, but have always had the sense that there is more I could investigate but choose not to. For instance, I haven't watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' as I assumed it was meant to convert doubters and so wouldn't be so relevant to me. Whether that's true or not is rather beside the point, it was a rationalisation I made as a result of thinking I knew enough about climate change. Essentially, I thought that knowing more would just depress me. I was being, perhaps rationally, a coward.

I get the impression I'm not the only one who has done something like this: avoided reading or hearing any more about climate change because it is just such a vast and terrifying concept to process. Individually, such avoidance seems rational as individually we can do relatively little to alter the scale of climate change, even if we can imagine it. But collectively humanity has caused a quantity of greenhouse gas emissions that are altering the climate. In theory we must, as a species, be able to deal with this. There are a vast array of obstacles preventing us from doing so, and the first is understanding what climate change is.

I do not mean the science. (If you want a crash course on that, try here.) I mean the translation of that science into understanding, into policy, politics, culture, and everyday life. Climate change is a process, it has no fixed beginning or end. It is not directly priced, it has uncertain timescales, and it forces us to confront many difficult questions outside the objective sphere of science, about the future of our species, how we live, and what we value. It is intangible and locationally unspecific. It can be seen as a controversy, as a justification for specific policies, as an inspiration for the reinvigoration of civic society, or as a threat to security. Analogies can be drawn with terrorism or the hole in the ozone layer. Commentators from scientific, policy, economic, legal, and ecological fields interpret it very differently. Different sections of the media frame it in a variety of ways, to fit their particular agendas and narratives.

I am trying to overcome my previous complacency and come to my own understanding of what climate change means. What is certain in that humanity is emitting greenhouse gases at an accelerating rate. We are changing the composition of the atmosphere, and our climate scientists agree that this is changing the climate. Our current economies, lifestyles, and cultures are dependent on such emissions. If we are to reduce our emissions as radically as science tells us we need to, then the process of change in the climate will need to be mirrored by a process of transformative change in humanity.

There is as yet no popular narrative, no story or metaphor, that adequately explains this. Indeed, our popular culture and zeitgeist seem averse to any change that isn't technological. The developed world seems to expect that the current economic, political, and social rut will continue, except with better iPads. Perhaps the first step to confronting climate change is accepting change, full stop. The future needs to be different to the present, very different. I wonder to what extent the denial of climate change and attacks on climate science are provoked by a fear of any change.

I intend this to be the first in a series of posts discussing difficult questions about climate change, to try and clarify my own thoughts as much as anything. Here is the point from which I start, which will doubtless colour everything else I might say on the subject: I believe that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest challenge faced by humanity. We are collectively capable of summoning the intelligence, vision, and resources to confront it, but are equally capable of not doing so. And I agree with George Monbiot that, 'If we fail in this task, we fail in everything else.'

The City and the City

The most striking and entertaining academic writing that I came across in 2011 was by Rem Koolhaas. I found an extract from his book 'S,M,L,XL' in the innocuously titled 'Urban Design Reader' and loved it. Much of the planning literature I've read has been about the process and its aims, whereas Koolhaas makes sweeping, judgemental statements about what already exists. It makes a refreshing change. Also, he's very funny.

Rather than make my own inevitably depressing predictions for the year ahead, I give you the abridged Generic City. It seems like a 2012 sort of place to me.

Identity is like a mousetrap... The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of centre, from the straitjacket of identity... The Generic City is what is left after large sections of urban life crossed over into cyberspace... The dominant sensation of the Generic City is an eerie calm... The Generic City is fractal... Its main attraction is its anomie... [airports] are on the way to replacing the city... The in-transit condition is becoming universal... The great originality of the Generic City is to abandon what does not work... The street is dead... Housing is not a problem... [sites] are like holes bored through the concept of city... The roads are only for cars... The Generic City presents the final death of planning... Its most dangerous and most exhilarating discovery is that planning makes no difference whatsoever... It is open and accommodating like a mangrove forest... There is always a quarter called Lipservice, where a minimum of the past is preserved... Tourism is now independent of destination... Shrimp is the ultimate appetizer... The only activity is shopping... Close your eyes and imagine an explosion of beige... Voids are the essential building block of the Generic City... Postmodernism is the only movement that has succeeded in connecting the practice of architecture with the practice of panic... Bad weather is about the only anxiety that hovers over the Generic City... The architecture of the 20th century needs unlimited plane tickets, not a shovel... The new infrastructure creates enclave and impasse... In each time zone, there are at least three performances of Cats. The world is surrounded by a Saturn's ring of meowing.

Whether you agree with him or not, Koolhaas paints quite a vivid picture, doesn't he? His writing reminds me a lot of William Gibson, somehow. Happy new year.

The World Has Changed

As part of my masters course I have to write an extended essay about the government's planning reforms. As I have something of an interest in this and been blogging on the topic for over a year, I may have put in a word requesting an essay title of this nature. I'm looking forward to writing a proper academic critique.

Pursuant to this, I've been digging through the Localism Act, which received royal assent on the 15th November. Are you feeling more local yet? Relative to the rumpus about the draft National Planning Policy Framework, the Localism Act hasn't received much attention in the press. This is interesting, as in planning terms it is much more powerful. It has the force of statute, whereas the NPPF will only be policy and therefore possible to overrule depending on the circumstances. Laws are also far more difficult to dislodge than policy, once enacted.

The Localism Act isn't just about planning, and another post will likely be devoted to a tirade about its housing sections. However, it does fundamentally change the way plans will be made and planning applications determined. Every government in the past half century seems to have made similarly seismic changes, so I'm sure the planning profession will do their best to roll with all the new acronyms. When trying to make sense of the structural changes, I found it useful to construct diagrams*. Sorry, they aren't colourful. In an attempt at clarity, I've missed off various bodies that exist (or did) here and there but aren't (or weren't) ubiquitous, like Urban Development Corporations, London Mayors, Local Enterprise Zones, and the like. Unitary authorities are bundled in with district councils.

This is how planning policy-making was:



All very hierarchical, don't you think? This is how it is now:



Note the direction of the arrows, as this indicates who overrules who. During the Labour years, Local Development Frameworks had to be compatible with Regional Spatial Strategies. Now, Neighbourhood Plans will override Local Plans, which are merely re-labelled Local Development Frameworks. The Neighbourhood Plan has to be adopted by a local referendum first, though.

Am I the only who thinks that the new system looks potentially a little chaotic? I speculated on what the hell the draft bill thought it was doing with neighbourhoods a little while ago. Neither I nor, I suspect, anyone else has any idea how many Neighbourhood Forums there might be, or how neighbourhood referendums might work in practise. The legislation gives no limits as to the minimum or maximum geographic size of a 'neighbourhood'. Given the assumption that Parish Councils will serve the same purposes in rural areas, the easiest urban comparison would seem to be electoral wards. London has 624 of these and Cambridge 14. That's a lot of plans, and there is no requirement for them to be consistent.

As for how individual planning applications are determined, the 2004-2010 way was as follows:

Planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations, such as national policies, characteristics of the site, and local opposition, indicate otherwise. (Paraphrasing the heavily-amended Section 70 of 1990 Town and Country Planning Act and the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act)

From now on we will do it like this:

Planning applications are determined with regard to the development plan, presumably the Neighbourhood Plan as that overrides the Local one, material considerations, and any local financial considerations relevant to the application. There's also the presumption in favour of sustainable development, although that's in the (currently draft) National Planning Policy Framework rather than statute and therefore would just be a material consideration. 'Any local financial considerations' could include the meagre New Homes Bonus that Local Authorities get when new homes are built; it could potentially also include the financial impossibility of a Local Authority providing sufficient infrastructure to support a proposed new development as a result of CLG cutting their block grant by 20%. (Paraphrasing Section 143 of the Localism Act)

If I had a more mercenary** twin, they would be a planning lawyer, leafing through yacht catalogues in the expectation of an explosion in lengthy planning appeals. If you are in fact a planning lawyer, then good luck in this neighbourhood morass and please consider donating a portion of your fees to support unemployed former public servants.


* Thank you, OpenOffice.
** Evil seems rather strong; I've met some very pleasant planning lawyers.

Reading List

A while back I read an excellent book on the financial crisis: Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz. Although it provides a clear and compelling explanation of how the US housing bubble formed, infected banks around the world, and nearly brought then all down, my overriding impression was that Stiglitz was barely restraining himself from just writing, 'YOU BASTARDS, LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE STILL DOING! BASTARDS, BASTARDS, BASTARDS!' I might be projecting slightly there, but Stiglitz is clearly very unhappy about the abject failure of banks to behave responsibly, their apparent inability to admit to any failure whatsoever, and their craven lobbying for their losses to be born by governments. As we all should be, and books like this are very important.

Much of the other literature on the financial crisis that I've read has been too measured. For instance, Gillian Tett's Fool's Gold provides the best explanation I've come across for the toxic financial products that banks invented, with a narrative concerning the team at JPMorgan who came up with many of them. Tett clearly has to tread a fine line - she interviewed these people for her book and presents them as three dimensional characters, so won't fully condemn their behaviour. Nonetheless, the bigger picture cannot be ignored. What should have been technical innovations of interest only to industry specialists spread throughout the financial system like a virus and precipitated the credit crunch, the worst recession for 80 years, and a sudden ballooning of government debts. Stiglitz spells this out clearly, Tett does not.

(As an aside, one of the many ironies of the crisis is that had the US not sold so many of these financial products abroad, as the financial markets are so globalised, their impact would have been much worse in America but the rest of the world's banks would have been relatively unscathed. Thanks for the exports, yanks.)

Neither book addresses the current government debt disaster (crisis seems too gentle a word), as they were both published two years ago. Back then we were worried that banks would not be able to pay their debts. Now it is governments that look doubtful, as the debt burden has been nationalised. The final chapter of this one hasn't even begun yet, but I distinctly doubt it will be pretty.

Meanwhile, my fellow students and I are still spammed by leaflets and emails suggesting we attend recruitment events for investment banks. Naively I assumed that this recruitment hard sell had waned in the past few years; apparently not. These adverts are always very innocuously worded, emphasising words like 'challenge'. It really angers me that quite a few students might swallow this stuff and equate working in The City with succeeding in life. This is what I want to say to them:

You do not have to be a banker.

The careers service assumes that you want to get a job in The City. The big banks are trying to court you with swanky events, free pens, and high starting salaries. They are trying to create an aura of prestige around themselves. But be absolutely clear about what their business is - transferring wealth from the poorly-off to the already wealthy. They aren't creating anything that wasn't already there, just moving worth around and exaggerating the value of investments.

Theirs is an industry that recently experienced systemic, catastrophic failure, and required gigantic bailouts from the public sector. The banks lobbied against any government regulation then systematically failed to manage risk. They have undermined the fundamentals on which the world economy is based and left the mess for others to clear up. Unemployment is high and growing, first world governments are threatening to default on their debt, and there is no way back to business as usual.

Is this really the industry you want to work for? Do you genuinely think your intelligence and skills are best used to make wealth inequalities worse? And the backlash against bankers has hardly begun - do you honestly want to be on the wrong side of it?

It may seem at the moment like banking is the most obvious career option, simply because banking firms make the loudest play for your attention. There are many other things you could do. In my third year as an undergraduate I shared a house with six other women. The seven of us are all ambitious, intelligent, and driven, but not one of us got a job primarily motivated by profit. One teaches English as a second language, one monitors dangerous diseases at the Health Protection Agency. Another is an army officer, yet another works as a civil servant in the Treasury. Amongst out number you will also find a doctor and a Teaching Assistant who writes novels on the side. I myself have worked in Local Government, helping to plan new communities for the past three years. Can you honestly tell me that our various talents and abilities would all be better spent trading collateralised debt obligations?

The world is facing massive challenges - climate change, terrible inequalities between and within states, demographic shifts, not to mention rebuilding our economies to promote well-being rather than endless, impossible growth. Those are real challenges worth confronting, rather than pursuing the pseudo-achievement of pushing up refinancing fees. There are a myriad of career options out there; don't waste your brain and your life on banking.

If you're still tempted, at least go in with open eyes. Read Freefall and Fool's Gold, then try and tell me that Goldman Sachs et al deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Personally, my next career step is to apply for a PhD, as I find myself very much enjoying the life of research. I doubt there will be much of any funding around, but I intend to have a damn good look.