Statoils Sustainability Parable Randy Naylor January 2014
Here we are, gathered together under this tent, this bubble. High above our heads is a tight rope act getting ready to unfold. We bow our heads backwards, look up at the actor, its Helge La Luna preparing to cross over our heads, he is holding a long balancing pole as a wand and snow white socks. This looks precarious, intriging, we take a deep collective breath of oxygen. He looks alert, confident, wearing a slight grin as he prepares to debark. Suddenly two children, Tor and Sonja , around 12 years old, rise up and shout. The wire is connected to the wrong end mast.The crowd sitting in the tent bubble begin to mumble, sounds like a wave beginning to fold, their eyes follow the wire to the end station, its the wrong connection mast someone shouts, the two kids are correct. Helge La Luna is too high above our heads to hear the shouts, without hesitation he begins his march into the fossil fuel quagmire.Tor and Sonja shout out, its not sustainable, you are walking in the wrong direction. An older couple sitting near, adjust thier hearing aids and begin to quiz the other. Is Statoil Sustainable, What is Sustainable? Is that not Helge La Luna up their on the wire, and look, there is no safety net, no plan B. Well, that is what being Sustainable is about,you know a balancing act and some kind of net. But it does not apply to you if you are not connected, you know to the complexity of things. The elder woman adjusts her hearing aid,you mean it was easier before? Ya, it was fast cars, fast women, slow men, Gm foods, ignore South Sudan and the Middle East wars, co2 levels and nitrogen fertilizers in the rivers, tar sands and tarzan, Deep Sea Horizon, Exxon Valdez, Bravo and Kjelland, ozone and fracking, In Amenas.That was all sustainable then, when you were connected to the wrong mast, walking backwards , with that sly grin.
He almost had us, if not for those two alert children looking up into the stars and wondering where he was going. That clever speach about Out-Sourcing, to make the company more profitable. Is this an example about Social Sustainability and community relational practices. Is not the economy connected to the social welfare and collective well being of the community. I thought we defacto owned Statoil, its called State Oil. And it has had exclusive tax deductions to explore. Waste as much money before in this persuit.Her hearing aid has a cracking sound, a buzz , a feedback loop. She imagines this Donald Trump voice,Your Fired syndrome.
There are two Polar Bears sitting near by in the tent bubble. They are having an intuitive conversation about sustainabiity and where they have been. Well one bear raises a foot pad,(f- pad) smiles, its about the real future and the real past, you know we have been around here for several million years, fishing, hibernating, generally minding our own business, living in relationship to the environment, the weather, the winds and ice flows. You know, technology is not going to save you.Well, actually in relationship to the entire galaxy, that is how we navigate. we always navigate long term, not on some derived (derivitive) short term profit calculation. We are still sitting in the tent bubble, glancing up. That Helge La Luna must be some kind of alien, disconnected from his immediate environment, cant read the winds, navigate by the stars, grow a garden, build his own shelter. The one bear nods, an Anthropocentric Alien. The two polar bears glare at the wire, La Luna has taken a few steps forward, you mean backwards.
Tor and Sonja suddenly realize that the adults are not very smart, to loud, unaware of their immediate sorroundings, have no plan for an intelligent future, just involved with comsumption and shopping, ignorant and evasive. Maybe there will be no clean oxygen, water or blue skys, like the photo
yesterday from Beijing, all those people wearing white masks to walk.Sonja interjects, was Statoil never Sustainable, or did it just happen last week. i thought its been around since grandmother.
La Luna is now half way across the wire. Well, Statoil has never really been sustainable, before it did not matter, now times have changed, climates have changed. The two kids scream, the wire is still not connected to the right mast. The intuitive bears anticipating a fall ,run out of the tent and jump into the near by stream, swimming for their life. There is a Green House effect taking place in the tent. Their hearing aids malfunction in the fog. crack,crack,crack.