- David Fleming (writer)
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For other people named David Fleming, see David Fleming (disambiguation).
David Fleming 
David Fleming giving a talk in a tent at the 2009 Climate Camp protest in Blackheath, London, UK.Born 2 January 1940
Chiddingfold, SurreyDied 29 November 2010
AmsterdamNationality English Citizenship British Alma mater Oxford (Trinity College) and Birkbeck
Influenced- Shaun Chamberlin, Rob Hopkins
Dr. David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was an independent thinker and writer on environmental issues, based in London, England. He was one of the whistle blowers on the possibility of peak oil's approach and the inventor of the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change.[1][2][3][4]
He was also a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party,[5] the Transition Towns movement[6] and the New Economics Foundation,[7] as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association.
Contents
Family background and early life
He was born in Chiddingfold, Surrey, to Norman Bell Beatie Fleming, a Harley Street eye surgeon, and Joan Margaret Fleming, an award-winning crime writer. He had three sisters.[8]
He attended Oundle School before reading Modern History at the University of Oxford from 1959 to 1962. He then worked in manufacturing (textiles), marketing (detergents), advertising and financial public relations, before earning an MBA from Cranfield University in 1968.[9]
Biography
He was the Ecology (Green) Party's economics spokesman and press secretary between 1977 and 1980 (the party office at that time being his flat in Hampstead).[10] In 1980 he began studies in economics at Birkbeck College, University of London, completing an MSc in 1982 and a PhD on the economics of the market for positional goods in 1988. In this time, he also helped to organise the influential The Other Economic Summit (TOES).[11]
He was Honorary Treasurer of the Soil Association from 1984, and then became that organisation's Chairman between 1988 and 1991.[12] He was a regular contributor to Country Life magazine, and was published in Prospect and other journals, as well as in academic literature and popular newspapers. He was editor of The Countryside in 2097, published in 1997, and gave the third annual Feasta lecture in 2001.[13][14][15]
From 1977 to 1995 he worked as an independent consultant in environmental policy and business strategy for the financial services industry. In this time he edited a manual on the formation and management of investment funds in the Former Soviet Union, which was published in 1995.[16]
From 1995 until his death he wrote and lectured widely on the environmental and social issues which he expected to have a major impact on the global market economy in the 21st century, including oil depletion and climate change.[17]
David Fleming died on the 29th November 2010, in Amsterdam.[18]
For over thirty years Fleming worked on a major book, Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It. It was completed just before his death and published posthumously on the 7th of July 2011.[19]
Views and Ideas
His influential April 1999 article for Prospect magazine, The next oil shock?, interpreted the International Energy Agency’s 1998 report as predicting an impending global oil crisis. He later revealed that Fatih Birol – the future Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency – agreed to meet with him after reading the article, and confessed that “you are right… there are maybe six people in the world who understand this”.[20] Fleming had a long history with peak oil, having been part of the team who wrote the Ecology Party pamphlet The Reckoning in 1977, which discussed the peak oil problem and our need to rethink our use of energy.[21]
He developed the idea of TEQs - the most widely studied model for the implementation of a carbon rationing scheme - and founded The Lean Economy Connection to work on the application of Lean Thinking to economic theory and society in general.[22] Until his death he remained a strong advocate for TEQs, and an ardent critic of nuclear power.
In his 2007 book The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy: A Life-Cycle in Trouble, Fleming argues[23]
- Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces carbon dioxide. As the richest ores are used up, emissions will rise.
- Shortages of uranium - and the lack of realistic alternatives - leading to interruptions in supply, can be expected to start in the middle years of the decade 2010-2019, and to deepen thereafter.
- It is essential that radioactive waste should be made safe and placed in permanent storage. High-level wastes, in their temporary storage facilities, have to be managed and kept cool to prevent fire and leaks which would otherwise contaminate large areas.
- The world's endowment of uranium ore is now so depleted that the nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste.
Quotes
“Large-scale problems do not require large-scale solutions; they require small-scale solutions within a large-scale framework.” [24]
“Localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility, but it has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no
alternative.” [25]"At present, we have a policy-response (to climate change) shaped by sophisticated climate science, brilliant technology and pop behaviourism, based on simple assumptions about carrot-and-stick incentives."[26]
"I am a capitalist and I am a bit of a right winger, and I think in many ways the system we have got at the moment is really not a bad system. I think capitalism is a good thing. The only problem with capitalism is that it destroys the planet, and that it’s based on growth. I mean apart from those two little details it’s got a lot to be said in its favour.
It's not necessarily against a system that it collapses, because most systems do collapse in the end. That’s a part of the wheel of life - systems do collapse. So I’m to some extent slightly inclined to forgive capitalism for being about to collapse. I mean there are lots of fine things, lots of love affairs and the like which have come to a sticky end. On the other hand, it is quite an accusation - quite hard for it to live down - that it's going to destroy the entire planet with it." [27]
References
- ^ UK Energy Research Centre biographies
- ^ "How The Global Oil Watchdog Failed Its Mission", Lionel Badal
- ^ "Decoding a message about the market for oil", Fleming article in the European Environment journal, 1999
- ^ All Party Parliamentary report into TEQs
- ^ Green Party Archives
- ^ David Fleming obituary in The Ecologist
- ^ David Fleming obituary from the New Economics Foundation, by David Boyle
- ^ David Fleming obituary in The Times
- ^ David Fleming obituary in The Ecologist
- ^ Bio: David Fleming
- ^ David Fleming obituary in The Ecologist
- ^ Profile: David Fleming
- ^ "The Spectre of OPEC", article in The Sunday Telegraph, March 21 1999
- ^ "Qualitative growth and complementary technology: Beyond the technical fix", in Business Strategy and the Environment journal, Winter 1992
- ^ "Towards the Low-Output Economy: the future that the Delors White Paprer does not dare to face", Fleming article in the European Environment journal, 1994
- ^ Lecturer Profile: David Fleming
- ^ Recording of Fleming on the BBC's Today programme, May 21 2005
- ^ Memorial post on Dark Optimism
- ^ Post on Rob Hopkins' Transition Culture blog
- ^ David Fleming obituary in The Ecologist
- ^ David Fleming lecture: "The Lean Economy: A Vision of Civility for a World in Trouble"
- ^ Homepage of The Lean Economy Connection
- ^ The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy: A Life-Cycle in Trouble ISBN 0-9550849-2-8
- ^ Energy and the Common Purpose, 3rd ed. (2007), p.39
- ^ Quoted in Resurgence magazine, issue 236 (June 2006)
- ^ All Party Parliamentary report into TEQs, p.22
- ^ Interview, November 4th, 2010
External links
- The Lean Economy Connection homepage
- Prospect articles by David Fleming (1999-present)
- 2001 - The Third Annual FEASTA lecture - "The Lean Economy: A Vision of Civility for a World in Trouble"
- 2007 - Transition Culture interview - "The Transition to Sustainable Resilience"
- 2007 - Cultivate's Sustainable Community Conference - "The Community Lecture"
- 2010 video interview on TEQs, after Swedish Parliament presentation (from SVT)
- Online tributes paid upon his death
- 2011 - All Party Parliamentary report into TEQs
- 2011 - Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It - Fleming's book, published posthumously
Categories:- 1940 births
- English environmentalists
- Green Party of England and Wales politicians
- Alumni of the University of Oxford
- Alumni of Cranfield University
- Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London
- 2010 deaths
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