Award-winning Founder of Tactical Communications | Business Development |Investor Relations | lobbying | Fixer, BOLD Voodoo - you are your own narrative. Own it. 🔋
I woke up at 4am thinking about the absolute mess the #fossilfuel industry has got us all into, due to greed. It’s a fact that our 3 daughters have an uncertain future due to a deepening #climatecrisis. The reason I initially woke was I felt overly warm, I checked the #weather and saw it was 7 degrees at 4am. That’s pretty warm for mid-Dec. The weather for the coming week sees the thermostat hitting +14 at points. How can some people argue we don’t have a problem? I am fortunate to work with some of the most forward thinking entrepreneurs in the world, all with the same mindset, to do the right thing by our 🌍, our home, and help transition us to a renewable powered, clean air, democratic and decentralised, future … the status quo is no longer sustainable … If my Crohn's & Colitis UK were as active as the climate crisis is right now I’d be back on life support (where I’ve been before) having serious medical intervention. I’ve been there. It changed me and my outlook. I now train, eat well (apart from December where I gorge on mince pies 🥧), don’t smoke, don’t drink and understand how to keep my body from going into meltdown. A truly painful experience, near death at times, and one that opened my eyes to a better way - for me. Our shared body is Mother Nature, yes I know most of my comms advice is to focus on affordability and how we make the energy transition accessible for all, and that I will keep grinding away at so we can all make the right next move, BUT we must open our 👀 Our targets have been breeched, the 🌍 is 🔥 - our weather patterns are out of control - because of GREED. Ultra processed foods, throwaway fashion, disposal plastics … Yes this is the biggest economic opportunity of all of our lifetimes, but it’s also our chance to build a sustainable future for all - no need to jog on to Mars (as long as you’re ultra rich … the rest of us can suffer here …) 2025 is going to be warm, even with a La Niña phase driving slightly cooler conditions. Mother Nature is 🤒 Met Office’ global forecast for 2025: “Years, such as 2025, which aren’t dominated by the warming influence of El Niño, should be cooler.” Read that here: https://lnkd.in/efHxsHut Took me a while to get back to sleep after reading that … Waking up to this in The Economist gave me reason to be #optimistic - the network I am surrounded by are trying to do the right thing … against increasingly tricky odds 🙏🏼🔋 ‘Mr Jackson remains motivated to use clean energy and technology to solve problems here on Earth…’ What a sentence to end on … 😍 The battles of Greg Jackson, Britain’s clean-energy disrupter - The Economist https://lnkd.in/ejVzWWN8 Fiona Howarth Dan Caesar Quentin Willson Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran Melanie Shufflebotham Prof Colin Herron CBE Helen Czerski David Ho Clare Slaven Olivia Rudgard Yusuf Khan Amy Rennison Jonny Page 🌱
Such an important post, Ben Kilbey I wrestle with these thoughts all the time—the state of the planet is heartbreaking. How has greed and short-term thinking brought us to this point, and how are there still people who can’t see the problem? How much more proof do they need? Seeing 7 degrees at 4am and reading about 14 in December hit me hard too. It’s terrifying, isn’t it? But your post gave me a bit of hope. That mix of honesty and optimism is so powerful. You’re absolutely right—our planet is a shared body, and if we don’t act urgently, we’re all in trouble. Thanks for sharing this and for everything you’re doing to fight for change. It’s people like you who keep me believing we’ve still got a chance to turn this around. Let’s keep shouting about it—there’s no time to lose
Shayne Rees
1w
Inspiring, Ben! We have a mountain to climb but as the "on track for 300,000 public charge points in 2030" headline from the recent National Audit Office report shows, we CAN achieve hugely ambitious goals when we set our minds to it. Even when many of our own industry colleagues balk at the scale of the challenge. I recall how many scoffed at the 300,000 figure when the DFT paper was published in early 2022. And that's just the minimum! Thanks for the lift this morning. Something good came of your worries.
Adrian Bond
1w
The planet isn’t well… Meanwhile, look at what we’ve invented to make our lives easier: throw away plastic! The narrative should be about the climate and how we depend on it. But the human is really only interested in one thing: “yes, the planet is important, but what’s in it for me?” Fortunately, the solution to one is also a bonus to the other: but those destined to lose their gravy-trains don’t want that to be common knowledge. We’ll just need to use all the tools we can lay our hands on to counter this. 🫡
Mark Stubbs
1w
It’s not just climate O&G though wrecking the joint, it would probably be really helpful if half the world would stop bombjng and destroying their neighbours 🤦🏻♂️ Ben Kilbey
I’m glad it’s not just me who looks at the warm winter temperatures feeling the same way….while also wondering how much more violent the storms that come in from the Atlantic are going to get…
Great post pal x
Neil Winton
1d
You can relax a bit. The fossil fuel industry has been responsible for the amazing increase in our living standards over the last century or so, thanks to cheap and abundant energy. You’ve been duped by leftish propaganda seeking to undermine this. Sure, we need to advance past current technology and find ways to provide clean and abundant energy, but suddenly closing this off prematurely isn’t the answer. There must be huge investment to solve this, but this hair shirt movement isn’t the answer. Luckily there is no climate crisis, so time is on our side. Panic not https://www.wintonsblog.com/headline-climate-science-built-on-shifting-sands-book-review/
Paul Smith
4d
Ben - If I had 3 daughters and I was living in London, I suspect fossil fuels would be low down on my list of concerns.
Ashvin Suri
1w
Ben Kilbey many stakeholder’s have been responsible for this ‘mess’. Of course, the proponents of fossil fuels are leading culprits. Here is the bottom-line: we now need to put as centre stage in the global narrative: Crimes against the environment are crimes against humanity’, and should be dealt with as much ferocity as genocide. You are absolutely correct to be very concerned for your children’s future. But worth also keeping in mind the millions of children already impacted by human induced climate change, and the impending and inevitable tragedy of many low lying islands across the world. Tragedy, now for them is already here!
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1wMy 12 year old boy asked how bad it was going to get yesterday and I couldn’t begin to tell him. I said all generations had something to worry about, and that the shadow of nuclear war loomed over my childhood. But the blunt truth is that while the direct impacts of climate change will be unimaginably terrifying, it’s the indirect impacts, specifically the conflict it will create, that terrifies me most. There’s a tension in the air already… ☹️