What Future for Africa? A Report from the Meeting of the Club of Rome in Cape Town

Manphela Ramphele (*) and Sandrine Dixon-Decleve, the co-presidents of the Club of Rome, at the start of the meeting of the Club in Cape Town on 5 November 2019 (**). These are somewhat rambling and incomplete notes written immediately after the end of the meeting.

Africa? What is Africa, exactly? A continent? A nation? A world in itself? Surely, it is enormous, variegated and complex. Personally, I had never crossed the equator in my life but these few days in Cape Town were enough to give me a new perspective of the world. It started with a small epiphany received from a Kenyan lady at the meeting of the Club of Rome who told me, "things are happening here."

Indeed, things are happening in Africa. You can see it from the data and the statistics but, perhaps, it is more a sensation. It is like a humming, a buzz, the feeling that something gigantic is stirring down below in the bowels of the continent. Something is happening, here.

When you land in Cape Town, you are struck first by the landscape: enormous rocky mountains all over the horizon -- remnants of the immense geological forces that shaped this section of the continent. Then, you move along the townships of Khayelitsha ("new home"), a seemingly infinite expanse of wood and iron shacks. Think of a European Gipsy camp multiplied by a factor 1,000 or more: the contrast with the skyscrapers, downtown, couldn't be starker. Not as grandiose as the mountains, nevertheless these settlements give you a sensation of human resilience, of the willingness to endure and survive, no matter how hard the conditions are.

And then you start getting a feeling of the place. It takes some time but, eventually, the pieces of the puzzle start coming together. Well beyond the trinkets for tourists and the cheap folklore, there are such things as an African vision, an African way, an African logic, and a certain feeling of being African. Of course, Africa is not a nation and it may never be one. Besides, it is sharply separated in two parts by the Sahara desert. But there is a certain continuity, a certain degree of shared beliefs that pervades the continent.

For instance, an African participant to the meeting generated another small epiphany for me when he said, "when we Africans disagree, we don't vote like you Westerners do. We discuss until we find an agreement and then there are no more contrasts." My first reaction as a Westerner was that it would never work in the West, but maybe that's because we have never been educated to believe that it is always possible to find an agreement when we need one. Then, of course, it may not work so perfectly even in Africa but, at least, if you start with the idea that you should strive to reduce contrasts, at least you won't exacerbate them. On this point, I had another epiphany from the words of a Chinese member of the Club who, in debating with someone else, said, "I am against you, but only 90%. I am with you 10%, and that may change to 90% with you: it is the principle of the Yin and the Yang, things always change and then become the same again." Maybe the Chinese and the Africans have something in common, for sure there is some wisdom, here.

So, there is such a thing as "Africa" that goes beyond the name of a continental plate. And there are people who define themselves as "Africans," a term that goes beyond the fact that they live on a certain portion of the Earth's continental plates. For sure, both Africa and the Africans have been badly misunderstood. If you live in Europe, and in Italy in particular, you can't avoid noting that Africans are seen as somewhat less than human, bands of renegades who land on our shores to steal our jobs and rape our women, people who can't keep themselves from breeding like rabbits. I am shocked myself at what I just write, but if you live in Italy that's what many people seem to think. The outburst of racism, there, has been simply unbelievable, but we have to believe it because it has happened.

Africa and the Africans have been invaded, enslaved, insulted, exploited, exterminated, misunderstood, slighted, despised, and much more. And yet, they are here. Despite all the problems: crime, corruption, violence, poverty, inequality, and what you have, Africa is here and Africans have something to say to the rest of the world. Will they be able to do that?

The challenges for Africa are enormous although, perhaps, not harder than for the rest of the world. One of these challenges is that the economic powerhouse of the sub-Saharan region, South Africa, is an economy that was built on coal, just like the European economies. And as all economies built on fossil fuels, the problem is how to move away from the original source of power. Clearly, South Africa is in big trouble, here. Apart from the need for phasing out coal, it is also a problem of supply, as it seems clear from the production data which indicate a peak in 2014.

In addition, the South African coal-fired power plants are obsolete and need to be phased out within the next two decades. South Africa also has a modest nuclear power production, but it doesn't seem to have the resources to increase it -- perhaps not even to maintain it. Then, there would be good chances for increased production of renewable energy but it seems that the South-African government suffers from the same failure of imagination as most Western governments: they can't imagine that energy can be produced without burning something, so they aren't encouraging renewable energy as much as it would be possible and advisable. And that's especially bad because South Africa provides energy for several other African countries and it is probably the only country of the region having sufficient resources for an energy transition. A decline in the South African production would reverberate all over the Southern African region.

Then, there is the enormous question of climate change: what's going to happen to Africa as we climb the temperature ladder? We don't really know: some regions of the continent may become too hot for human habitation. The precipitation patterns might change: Cape Town had already a close call with a climate-related disaster with the drought that lasted until 2018.

Fortunately, the abundant rains of 2018 staved off the crisis, but Cape Town went close to be the first modern city in the world that could literally run out of water: it would have been the event known as "day zero,"  the day when nothing would come out of the taps anymore. Was it a problem related to climate change? And will the problem return in the future? We don't know and we can't know, but a future "water apocalypse" for Cape Town cannot be ruled out.

And finally, there is the question of population. In South Africa, the growth rate is slowing down, but the population curve shows no evidence of a flattening trend. At nearly 60 million people, today, it maintains a rate of increase of about 1.5% yearly. It is the inertia of a young population, compounded with legal and illegal immigration. And the economy is not expanding to match the trend: there are ominous signs not only of decline but of a much worse outcome that could include a social collapse undermining the reconciliation policies that had been successful in the 1990s.

Facing these enormous problems, it is no wonder that the Club of Rome has no miracle solution. Perhaps no solution whatsoever. Perhaps nobody in the world has solutions. What the Club could do was to state with the maximum possible force that we are in a climate emergency and that we need to go ahead with a climate emergency plan. Yet, at the meeting in Cape Town, some talks were so removed with the reality of the emergency situation to make one feel like screaming in rage. It takes time for some concepts to penetrate into people's consciousness. Climate change is such a gigantic thing that many people simply can't perceive it. It takes time. Likely, more time than we have.

One thing is clear, anyway, that whatever it is going to happen, we have no hope to do anything unless we do it together as that nebulous entity we call "humankind." We have created the problem, we are the only entity that (perhaps) can solve it. In this sense, the Cape Town meeting was in the best tradition of the Club of Rome as it was established by its founder, Aurelio Peccei. A truly international encounter of people who came from all over the world to bring their contribution and their ideas for the benefit of all humankind. Alone, the Club can't do that much but ideas can grow and spread and there is still hope. In this, Africans could give a major contribution.

So, where are we going? Onward, fellow humans!




(*) I am saddened to have to report that Manphela Raphele received the news of the death of a close family member just at the beginning of the meeting, so that she had to leave. Her presence was sorely missed and I can only offer my sincere condolences to her. Hopefully, she'll be soon active again with the many activities of the Club. 

(**) Greta Thunberg has been able to popularize the concept that flying on a plane is inherently something evil. She is probably right and I have been thinking of that when I considered whether it was a good idea for me to fly to Cape Town. In the end, I decided to do that and I'll see to explain the reasons in a future post.

Interview with the designer of the "Nuclear? No Thanks" logo

The original version, in Danish, of the "Nuclear Power? No thanks" logo that was created in 1975 by Anne Lund and Søren Lisberg. Here are some comments and an interview with Lisberg on this interesting story from a "pre-Chernobyl" era of opposition to nuclear power.

In about three decades, from the early 1950 to the early 1980s, the public perception of nuclear energy went through a complete reversal. Initially, nuclear energy had been regarded as a great hope for the future, as it had been described in the "Atoms for Peace" speech given by president Eisenhower in 1953. Shortly afterwards, in 1954, Lewis Strauss spoke of nuclear power as "energy too cheap to meter". In 1957, Walt Disney launched a successful book and a movie titled "Our friend, the atom" describing the gifts of prosperity, health and peace that the new atomic technologies would bring to us.

The 1960s were a period of rapid growth of nuclear energy but, with the 1970s, the general opinion on the technology was rapidly changing with the growing concern about the absurd numbers of nuclear weapons stockpiled by the superpowers, USA and URSS. With tens of thousands of warheads available, the world was in the grip of the "MAD" strategy: mutually assured destruction. As a consequence, in the 1970s, there started to appear a diffuse movement of opposition to nuclear weapons.

Initially, the anti-nuclear movement had nuclear weapons as its main target. Gradually, however, the tide turned against nuclear power as well; an industry that was perceived to be strictly linked to military applications. We tend to think that the turning point in the public perception was with the Chernobyl incident, in 1986, but opposition to nuclear power had started much earlier. One of the most successful pre-Chernobyl anti nuclear campaigns was created in Denmark in 1975 by Anne Lundberg and Søren Lisberg who created the slogan "Nuclear Power? No Thanks" written around the "smiling sun" symbol.

It would be way too much to attribute the problems of the nuclear industry to a slogan and to a smiling sun but, surely, the "Nuclear? No Thanks" message had an effect in generating widespread opposition to nuclear energy. Indeed, the symbol is a true masterpiece of communication: simple, clear, and effective. Its negative message against nuclear energy is balanced with a symbol of hope, the smiling sun, that carries an optimistic message while hinting to a solution to the energy problem. No wonder that it has been so successful and that, in various forms, it has accompanied the environmental movement along its whole history. The "Nuclear? No thanks" logo is still with us more than 30 years after its first appearance.

It is surprising that this incredibly successful logo was the result of the work of two young persons who had no previous experience in graphic design or media communication. Apparently, the idea came as "a gift from God" as Søren Lisberg, one of the designers, says in this interview that he has kindly accepted to give for the blog "Cassandra's Legacy".

Here is the interview (questions are in italics)


1. First of all, Mr. Lisberg, thanks for kindly agreeing to answer my questions. So, to start this interview, could you tell us something about yourself? You are well known for having invented the "Nuclear? No thanks" slogan, together with Anne Lund, back in 1975. But we would like to know a little more about your background, how you came to know Anne Lund, how the idea of making the symbol&slogan came. And, after that, what was your career, and what are you doing now?


Anne Lund and I designed the "Nuclear power? No Thanks" slogan in April 1975 and the first printed versions were sold on May 1st 1975, on the International Workers day. About me, I am currently 58 years old, working with children - I am a pedagogical teacher in my everyday job. I met Anne when we both had committed ourselves in the anti-nuclear movement which, in Denmark, was called OOA (Information on nuclear power). The idea for the logo "Nuclear power? - No thanks, " was born because we needed something that would allow ordinary people to show their opposition to nuclear power in a friendly and sober way. The slogan should convey happiness and the sun was chosen as the symbol because the sun is earth's force - without our sun, life on Earth would not exist - so a happy sun with a friendly text. The very words "no thanks" I remember from my grandmother who taught me to say thanks and no thanks to be polite. I have not made other logos and my career has been with the children - and my commitment to how we treat Mother Earth. I have found much inspiration in pedagogy from Florence (region Emilia) and I have been on a study tour down in Italy. Besides wonderful art, Italy has a unique view of children, which many in Denmark share, including myself.


2. Could you tell us something about the intellectual background of when the "Nuclear? No thanks" slogan was invented? What was the status of the green movement, how was nuclear energy perceived at that time, what you thought it could be accomplished with that action, etcetera.

In Denmark, the population has never voted on nuclear power, but our movement OOA and the small label "Nuclear power? - No thanks," together with the majority of the population convinced politicians of taking the sane action of not introducing nuclear power in Denmark. We had at that time, in 1975, a high school named Tvind in Denmark, students in that school built the world's largest wind turbine of the time, inaugurated in front of 400 people on Tvind May 29, 1975. So, in Denmark there was an incipient awareness of where we should get our energy from in the future if we said no to nuclear power, we could suggest other sources of energy - it was wind, solar, wave energy. Our struggle against nuclear power put us in contrast with many people but, to our great fortune, there was also an engineer who could help us in our reasoning against nuclear power. We held public meetings at schools and libraries, spent our free time to talk and argue against nuclear power.

3. Could you tell us something specific about how the slogan/symbol was conceived? Where you influenced by other symbols, ideas? Had you tried other, different ones before coming up with this specific one?

As previously written the idea came as a godsend - we were not inspired by any other slogan, we had no other ideas in play, only a short dialogue about the sun and the friendly no thanks. Anne suggested the yellow color because in shops in Denmark we are always greeted by a black lettering on yellow background.


4. What was that made you focus on nuclear as a target of action? Did you conceive possible alternatives, (say, "Coal? No thanks" or, maybe "Concrete? No thanks")?

When we, then and now, focus on nuclear power it is due to the hazard of the technology, (the accidents that occurred in the world have unfortunately proven us correct here). The problems of storing the radioactive waste was and is another problem. With regard to coal, this is also a big problem, especially emissions of CO2, therefore we in Denmark have also bet big on wind energy and Denmark has just adopted a plan which aims to make the country independent of fossil fuels. But this plan is not ambitious enough to be much more than what our government and the EU plan - but it's a step.


5. More than 30 years after that the slogan "Nuclear? No thanks" was conceived, how do you judge it? Do you think it was effective? Would you do that again? And what is your judgement on the present situation; about nuclear energy, the overall energy situation and the future for humanity?

The slogan "Nuclear power? - No Thanks"  celebrates its 36th birthday in April 2011 and I think it has fully proven its worth: it is viable, it is meaningful and it has been translated into 45 national and regional languages, sold 20 million copies, in addition to appearing on banners, t-shirts, stickers, etc. The Danish National museum has exhibited copies of the logo, as well as the great museums in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, which have collections of the slogan. A Basque group of mountain climbers placed a flag with a Basque version of the Smiling Sun on top of Mt. Everest. In Århus a 12 meter large out-door wall painting of the Smiling Sun is still kept in good shape. On your question "if I would do it again" my answer is clearly yes - the world today shows us that something must be done before it is too late (Japan). I often wonder - why do we spend so much energy ? - does it make us happy ? - will our world be still there in the future? - will our children be smarter ? The people in this world must seriously discuss the problem of energy wasting - we must educate our children to think about energy and we must tell our politicians that they must make decisions that benefit the next three generations and not just our own.

As a final comment from me, Anne and I have never earned a dollar on the slogan "Nuclear ? - No thanks". All the money earned has gone to the battle against nuclear power over large parts of the earth.

Søren Lisberg

Fukushima: the nuclear martingale

The "martingale"(*) is an old scheme for betting on the roulette game. It is simple, seductive, promising, and a recipe for disaster. The Fukushima catastrophe may be the result of the same way of thinking: a nuclear martingale.

It is unbelievable how many people today still think they can  make money out of a roulette game by using the old "double-up" method, also called "martingale". It works like this: you bet on a 50% event, red/black or odd/even, and you double the wager every time you lose. Eventually, when you win, you recoup your losses and make a small profit. Or, at least, this is the theory.

In practice, the martingale method is a recipe for disaster. At best, with it you will not be better off than with playing numbers at random. But it is worse than that: the martingale gives you a good chance to go broke by seeking to double "one last time." Fortunately for gamers, most casinos have betting limits; casino managers want their customers to lose money but not so much that they will go broke and kill themselves.

The martingale strategy is related to what Nassim Taleb has termed "Black Swan", an improbable but catastrophic event. A black swan event is not just a stroke of bad luck. It is something that you create by a series of wrong choices made with the best of intentions. It is the idea of the martingale: a sort of game of chicken played against the laws of probability. In a sense, you try to scare reality by raising the stakes - such as when you double the wager at the roulette game. But whatever small success you obtain in this way, reality is not easily scared and it comes back with a vengeance in the form of black swan: the bigger and the more catastrophic the more you had tried to avoid it.

Martingale-like schemes are typical, for instance, of the financial world. The subprime mortgage crash that started in 2007 is a good example of this strategy as noted by Nassim Taleb. Many financial schemes may be based on similar ideas. And, in these cases, there are no casino managers who stop people from falling into the martingale trap and go broke.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster may be telling us that there is a similar mechanism at play with technology in general. When we design machinery that is dangerous and prone to failure we try to reduce risks by tight regulations, specifics, and centralised control. Of course, these strategies are expensive and therefore are best implemented over large scales. So, we are raising the stakes by building bigger and more expensive systems in order to hedge the risk of failure. In the case of nuclear energy, the result is the concentration of power production in large plants. That strategy seems to work, within limits: on the average, the safety record of the nuclear industry is not bad. But when something goes wrong with a nuclear plant, it tends to go wrong in a big way, such as with Chernobyl and Fukushima.

So, are we protecting ourselves against small failures at the cost of risking large ones? In such case, we would be playing the martingale on a truly gigantic scale. The problem is not specific with nuclear technology. We tend to hedge risks with all kinds of technologies at the cost of risking catastrophes.

Think of coal as an example. We know that burning coal in power plants carries risks. In addition to local pollution, coal may be a major factor in overheating the whole planet because of the greenhouse effect associated with carbon dioxide (CO2) generated by combustion. Against this risk, we are presently planning a major effort in terms of "carbon capture and sequestration" (CCS) - a technology usually referred to as "Clean Coal." The idea of clean coal is that CO2 can be stored underground in geological reservoirs and therefore prevented from reaching the atmosphere.

We may well be playing the martingale with this idea. Suppose that the carbon capture technology will be used on a large scale and that we end up relying on "clean coal" for a major fraction of the worldwide power production. Then, we will have hedged the risk of climate change by raising the stakes: invested money and resources on a specific technology. Likely, we will have reduced local pollution and the amount of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere. But do we know enough about the physics of the sequestration process to guarantee that the stored CO2 will stay there? ? How can we rule out that we'll get that CO2 back in the atmosphere all together and much sooner than expected?

As a black swan, this one borders the unimaginable. Maybe it is an improbable event; sure, but it would be much more improbable if we were just to stop burning coal.

But we just don't seem to be able to reason that way. We tend to go always for the bigger and the more sophisticated technological solution and that carries enormous risks - maybe in terms of unlikely events, but not impossible ones. We are addicted to technology (as noted by George Mobus) and we don't seem to be able to realise that at some point technology starts showing diminishing returns (as Joseph Tainter has noted).

Maybe this is exactly what we are doing with civilisation: playing the martingale. We are hedging small risks by developing technologies, regulations, laws, and controls, all in order to keep society together. But the risk is the improbable, but eventually unavoidable, total collapse. The biggest black swan of all.


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(*)  In probability theory, the term "Martingale" refers to processes akin to random walks. Its origin is obscure, but a discussion on its meaning can be found here.