tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82944741131713365912024-03-04T21:33:51.769-08:00Change Climate Back?...What?!<br><br><br><br><br><br><b><i>This blog is about affordable sustainable ideas and solutions.<br>Edited by Otto Newhouse.</i></b>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-31351946653205228792009-06-13T20:53:00.001-07:002009-06-14T16:27:17.797-07:00Feedbacks and Interactions between Global Change...Feedbacks and Interactions between Global Change, Atmospheric Chemistry, and the Biosphere.<p>A very thought provoking review paper from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Otto Hahn Institute) Biogeochemistry Department, Germany. The research in by Professor Andreae's et al and is closely tied to the International Biosphere/Geosphere Program, and involves a high amount of international collaboration.<br /><a href="http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/%7Ebiogeo/feedbacks.htm">http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~biogeo/feedbacks.htm</a></p><p>And check out the amazingly detailed diagram: CONCEPTUAL MODEL of Earth System process operating on timescales of decades to centuries. You may discover a lot of existing and potential feedbacks. (negative or positive...)</p><p>Here is a simplified, nicely colored overview of that diagram via NASA (1988)</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Earth Systems Science: an Overview</span><br /></p><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dI8MgRec-Wv_aUFxDVUxpaT_KYjwU4u62x1oeIs1rzosKI7okTVIJUbqaBVPvjcWppUEIn8qOiG2hqQBzBleo80HhwDPOa6cNK-y8G931gAdaIpuusAjW4nBHeXo17aC-kqntv7ShDo/s1600-h/Earth-System_Science_NASA_bretherton.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dI8MgRec-Wv_aUFxDVUxpaT_KYjwU4u62x1oeIs1rzosKI7okTVIJUbqaBVPvjcWppUEIn8qOiG2hqQBzBleo80HhwDPOa6cNK-y8G931gAdaIpuusAjW4nBHeXo17aC-kqntv7ShDo/s400/Earth-System_Science_NASA_bretherton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347327311632852818" border="0" /></a></p>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-39369714185964709862009-06-06T00:05:00.001-07:002009-06-06T00:22:54.012-07:00CarbonTwollar redirect to ecoTwollar<span style="font-weight: bold;">The CarbonTwollar experiment has spun a new incarnation.</span><br /><br />It has been reshaped as <span style="font-weight: bold;">ecoTwollar</span> to reflect better its capacity. It can now accommodate various eco-streams, depending on what resource your eco-Act you think saves -- [carbon,kwh,water,etc,...]<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It is NOT and offset</span>, you don't need to estimate the exact amount saved in any of those. The idea is that you<span style="font-weight: bold;"> let you peer estimate the innovation content instead</span>, and award #ecoTwollars accordingly.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And it works like this:</span><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">First</span>, You do something innovative and simple, like you used a solar charger to your batteries, instead of plugging the charger into the mains. You take a picture of the charged betteries before and after and put it online with a link.</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Next</span>, you tweet about it @ecoTwollar or anyone else on your network who cares to follow you being so entirely brave. Give it a descriptive #hash in the end, such as in our example would be #solarCharge. One of us will look at the picture and decide it is clever enough. If it is, you will be given #ecoTwollar and asked to delete your Tweet. The information content of it is important, so put it up again with a #ecoSold hash. This way others will learn from your idea, but you will need to do another eco-Act to get paid in #ecoTwollar again. And so on.</p><p>If your act does not merit the pay in #ecoTwollar, don't dispair. One of two things will happen. You will get a friendly suggestion from me or someone else how to improve it next time. And so you decide to improve and get #ecoTwollar then. But you might get lucky in the future, if you keep the tweet up as it is, and someone may decide at a later date to give you #ecoTwollars. It is less likely though, since the strength of Twitter is real time reaction.</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Oh...and one last thing</span>: Please encourage others to do the same, and if you like what they do, give ecoTwollar, if not give a friendly advice.<br />That's all really...</p><p>Your starting account is 100 ecoTwollars: <a href="http://wikiwikimoney.com/ecoTwollar">http://wikiwikimoney.com/ecoTwollar</a><br />The ecoTwollar tweet home: <a href="https://twitter.com/ecoTwollar">https://twitter.com/ecoTwollar</a></p><p>Have fun ecoTollaring away.<br /><br />Warmly,</p>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-61404209641910348402009-05-25T16:27:00.000-07:002009-05-25T16:28:01.283-07:00Twollars Friends page growingIt is so good to see that the list is growing:<br><a href="http://twollars.com/friends-of-twollars">http://twollars.com/friends-of-twollars</a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-61507071129478324242009-05-22T09:39:00.001-07:002009-05-22T09:39:09.880-07:00First wonderfully short mail post to bloGRIn many ways I am a slow adopter. <br>As this belated email post to blogger illustrates to point amply.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-22929950215166177512009-05-07T21:09:00.000-07:002009-05-13T21:18:38.021-07:00CarbonTwollar on Twitter...<span style="font-weight: bold;">CarbonTwollar Experiment launches on Twitter. And a Friends to Twollars post</span><br /><br />@CarbonTwollar Experiment has been nested at Twitter:<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/CarbonTwollar">https://twitter.com/CarbonTwollar</a><br /><br />And sent the nice folks over at Twitter folks a Friends-to-Twollars post. I hope they might consider it and see CarbonTwollars as perhaps a worthy category to spread the climate energy gospel:<br /><a href="http://www.placemark.com.au/twollars-friend.html">http://www.placemark.com.au/twollars-friend.html</a><br /><br />PS. Would like to give Twollars to Carbon-manna to help spread their act faster on Twitter. (Currently they are not Tweeting...and I think there is great potential in promoting there...)<br /><a href="http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2009/04/carbon-manna-unlimited-updates-for.html">http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2009/04/carbon-manna-unlimited-updates-for.html</a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-64919328092155812192009-05-04T17:58:00.001-07:002009-05-07T21:24:04.213-07:00Peer-to-peer Environmental Energy ExchangeRecently I helped prepare a policy research application for project funding much inspired by the kindhearted and generous inputs to this discussion we have had with community activists, advocates and platform developers:<br /><a href="http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topics/micro-carboncredit">http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topics/micro-carboncredit</a><br /><br />It is based on the idea that environmental ingenuity might need to enlist grassroots energies and resourcefulness in a more organic way. Our insight was that one way of attempting that is by applying and adjusting available systems developed for a peer-to-peer reward/ act/ evaluation/ information model.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-6743042349304674972009-05-03T22:42:00.000-07:002009-05-18T20:14:26.259-07:00More on Group AccountabilityTouched on collective accountability on a blog previous. While on the subject...<br /><br />Interesting, somewhat studious and didactic but overall thorough white paper I found on Public Accountability becoming both practicable and conscionable in democratic Taiwan --- published to Australian Journal of Public Administration as special edition:<br /><a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122241472/PDFSTART">http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122241472/PDFSTART</a><br /><br />"Accountability is answerability for conduct and responsibility" Source also cites <span style="font-style: italic;">Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Behn (2001:3)</span><br /><br />"it is much easier to design and implement systems to track financial or legal accountability...the most difficult area for designing and implementing an accountability mechanism is that of [...] performance-based accountability. However, the truth is that this is at least as important to taxpayers, if not more so. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Performance means many things to different stakeholders, ranging from public service quality, efficiency, public service satisfaction, policy outputs, policy outcomes, the perception of fairness, or even the extent of public participation</span>."<br /><br />Yet partial control and a network of complexity of delivery, outsourcing to private sector and losing a more complete and necessary oversight, or changing perspectives of performance could be an entirely legitimate problem of implementing ways to effectively measure it. And a solution is not always in overcoming a problem entirely, but use the remainder as an opportunity to handle the next. Public implementation is a process, not a race with pit-stops to get squirted with champagne. On reading the piece one cannot help but think the old adage that "polity is the art of the possible" because it seems to relate well to public group accountability too.<br /><br />Also, there is a continuation of responsibility involved beyond the immediate here-and-now that commercial and market interest is usually for. Hence commercial type performance can be more readily applied to legal issues (insurance, risk minimization) and economic (budgeting, cash flow, accounting) than to social policy performance (success with the process of a publicly mediated environmental macro-infrastructure.)<br /><br />Considering performance based accountability, in general, also raises the spectre of Quality Assurance in the Public Sector as well as it has been already applied in the Private. And there ARE standards of accountability. I would think that precisely in the social accountability field they are well captured in the ramifications of a continuous development program than in a fixed definition of a methodology of how to get results.<br /><br />btw<br />I find this set of standards a quite a a thorough one:<br /><a href="http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/people/psg/professional-skills.aspx%20">http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/people/psg/professional-skills.aspx </a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-25545816160796638072009-05-03T18:45:00.000-07:002009-05-17T22:53:45.157-07:00More on Crowdsourcing of InfrastructureWith many chances for effective debt control dwindling and with rising deficits into the foreseeable future, energy infrastructure investments to be more affordable is not going to go away in a hurry. So I have kept thinking about ways of crowd-sourcing the costly part physical infrastructure. A good solution has been devised by <a href="http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2009/04/micro-credits-genealogy-ontogeny.html">David Palella, who takes kindly to our endeavors</a>. But he planned for developing countries and the large costs saved saved are for licensing a preexisting network.<br /><br />True, crowd-sourcing of large infrastructure would be very desirable on the count of effective public debt control. If only a handful of well-defined sponsors could "own" the project and only through group mediation.<br /><br />But important issues need to be tackled, issued that are <span style="font-weight: bold;">generally successfully solved on a more micro level</span>. Pretty important among them are:<br /><ul><li>co-leadership of management</li><li>group accountability</li></ul><a href="http://rjdoan.blogspot.com/2008/06/co-leadership-failed-experiment.html">Some say this is typically only works when one person (corporate or natural) is at the helm</a>. (And I agree with it with important qualifications, commented on that article.)<br />But this <span style="font-weight: bold;">typically ALSO works well in a well-bonded smaller group, such as balanced familial duties, minority business, sports team, rapid-growth partnerships</span>. On closer examination, what is characteristic in these are:<br /><ul><li>"clicking"and/or forging together, and</li><li>long period of low risk slow bonding</li></ul>In fact, some close business partners were also able to become pretty big successes that of course germinated over a long bonding period --- in the case of Walt and Roy, Gates and Allen, and Brin and Page. (Still, the two of them acted like one executive unit, which would be somewhat difficult in a crowd-sourced setting.)<br /><br />It is also important to note that some leadership information will always remain confidential and vested in a smaller group, especially that of vested in a more macro-scale infrastructure.<br /><br />Also, <span style="font-weight: bold;">group accountability has generally been applied in the form of retribution, not reward</span>. One might think of the ruthlessness of collective punishment, which is usually associated with the practice of victim-blaming. This is either a militant, hostile or "re-educational" concept, and also have been successfully applied by colonists mostly against convicts or the natives. But that is not exactly what most of us would normally have in mind as a good example to follow.<br /><br />Not to mention the housing privacy issues, and who guarantees it planned and maintained. That always wrought with dangers to corrupt to process, and if not, still throws a major spanner in the works.<br /><br />That said, I still find projects that have goals focused on inevitability and a bit away from the immediate here-and-now still merit such thinking.<br /><br />See for more: <a href="http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2009/03/masarang-foundation.html">The Masarang Foundation</a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-1831419729360977942009-04-22T20:32:00.000-07:002009-04-22T20:43:10.887-07:00Consumption and Growth; OR Wise and Humble<span style="font-weight:bold;">Consumption isn't what it's cranked up to be</span>.<br />An excellent article by John Coulter a Beijing-based independent Australian researcher collaborating with Tsinghua University and China Agricultural Unversity.<br />http://www.cdeclips.com/en/opinion/fullstory.html?id=20036<br /><br />"If the economy is now a mindset of financial solutions, hope is in vain. The word we should be grasping for is humility.<br /><br />At the Boao Forum, the President of Mongolia was one speaker who struck on this theme. What conventional economists call consumption and growth needs to be appreciated as wise, economical, and yes, humble."<br /><br />How true...<br /><br />"A 1997 article in Nature estimated the value of the annual services of Natural Capital (the services Earth provides free to the Real Economy) is about double the global GDP.<br /><br />No way can we ever dream of paying back, we are just depleting it. There is no way the air and ocean can purify the CO2 that comes from 18 billion tons of fossil fuel burned just in 2008.<br /><br />It is like 10 people living and smoking in an elevator for a week. You want to try throughputting all that?"<br /><br />How sad...O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-90356927883172732642009-04-22T17:38:00.000-07:002009-05-17T21:59:44.639-07:00On Sustainable Policy TechniqueHave found interesting suggestion for sustainable policy technique at the Union of International Associations (UIA). Their thesis though a little too roughly:<br />Toward transformational and cyclic policy making responsive to change and flux:<br />There need to be a somewhat external view to western dialectics (summed up logically by Aristotle: A=A, A'=not-A; and by Hegel: A > -A > A') to the tetra-lemmic Discourse on the All-Embracing Circular Net of Views (mentioned extensively in Brahmajala Sutta and I-Ching, the Book of Change/Season/Year (A, not-A, A and not-A, neither A nor not-A.)<br />On closer examination, dialectics captured identity in difference in the A and not-A synthesis, but another and broader technique may incorporate that without undue fallacy in the said tetra-lemmic cycle and that could enrich adaptive policy in general.<br />Interesting thought, certainly and perhaps not just another source of mental burden on decent folks...The point is expounded to direct linkages with sustainable policy techniques, which certainly worth a look.<br /><a href="http://www.uia.be/node/157?kap=29">http://www.uia.be/node/157?kap=29</a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-33917252991221317492009-04-17T21:40:00.000-07:002009-05-17T22:39:12.608-07:00Crowd-sourcing physical Green Infrastructure pipesFollowing on my previous post regarding opportunity savings in scientific research - the high cost of a next best options vs the very low cost of the one adopted - I kept thinking about economic accountability in large environmentally sound infrastructure projects. And it looks like, there is something there for crowd-sourcing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I found the following article that made me think.</span><br /><br /><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">"Economic modeling typically includes only that for which we have evidently paid, with large assumptions concerning opportunity costs; or what we gave up in order to get it. Such an approach is not ideal for capturing actions we wouldn’t pay for...Nor is it suitable for capturing our future ambitions and directions, which are based on<br />ideals and values rather than our present constrained choices. Unpaid activity and future directions are exogenous to economics, but fundamental to society."<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Social Policy Research Centre, discussion paper No. 134. University of New South Wales. 2004</span></div><br /><br />From this excerpt and also from the article it contains, it appears that, at least in this respect, <a href="http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2009/04/update-on-sea-faring-micro-bots.html">some Chinese science officials may suffer from a very established economic habit</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">: </span>-<span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">not accounting for the value of that which is free or low cost even though it is of high value</span> (such as open source or volunteering) <span style="font-weight: bold;">compared to that which is foregone to get it</span>. This problem may be at the heart of the problem of founding large infrastructure with much less debt and tax.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Crowd-sourcing environmentally sound infrastructure:</span><br /><br />Let's take the example of distributed and more or less crowd-sourced supply:<br />On the face of it, it is a great idea.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Feedback Electricity:</span> Domestic, and commercial windows and solar cells creating a portion of electricity, and supplying any surplus for money back into the main grid.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Feedback Water:</span> Domestic, and commercial water tanks, condensation cells etc creating the portion of water supply, and supplying any surplus for money back into the main grid.<br /><br />I am not an economist, so this is just thinking aloud:<br /><br />Distributed low cost is not accounted for in economic analysis when, what is low cost is being considered of low market value. In other words <span style="font-weight: bold;">opportunity costs (or savings) are not considered factors</span>.<br /><br />What is the problem here logistically? Here I am a bit more knowledgeable.<br /><br />Water and electricity are part of the flow stream. That stream can be distributed. But there is a much larger cost of supplying the pipeline and the reservoir. To avoid central bank debt or tax hikes --- could that <span style="font-style: italic;">also</span> be crowd sourced?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Crowd-sourcing the Pipeline</span><br /><br />How to get those large funds from micro-pools of money that we expect to self-administer and self-organise? Granted, I can only attempt to answer this using very basic arithmetic: division.<br /><br />If a crowd based shareholding of a pipeline is underwritten by the central bank it will put the government in more debt that will in due course increase taxes; this ultimately coming back to bite taxpayers to fund the servicing and administration of the debt facility extended to the government by the central bank.<br /><br />The alternative is in crowd-sourcing --- in part by pooling small credit from a small army of the multi-skilled worker recruited for the project. One model is the cellphone based Carbon-Manna model by David Palella. He proposes recruiting a smaller consortium by commercial sponsors in developed countries to kick-start the process and provide the handsets and network.<br /><br />For a physical pipeline skilled and even multiskilled (clearing, digging, concreting, plumbing, electrical work, ect) workers need to volunteer.<br /><br />But how could a supplier consortium of a major pipeline actually sponsor multi-skilled volunteer acts without putting those who provide that act an mass in debt just to foot the bill of coordinating the project and organizing the sponsorship?<br /><br />These are tough questions.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-61482934846114355992009-04-16T19:48:00.000-07:002009-05-17T22:00:43.067-07:00Sea-faring Micro-bots. Again.Some time ago I wrote about the possibility of micro-bots playing a big role in drastically mitigating climate change (what we call here "Changing Climate <span style="font-style: italic;">Back</span>".)<br /><br />Now there is news that Sea-faring bots are not only out there, they may have been overlooked. The context is different, but the message is the same. Check it out:<br /><a href="http:///">http://www.cdeclips.com/en/nation/fullstory.html?id=19486</a><br /><br /><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">"Launched at the start of the millennium, ARGO (Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography) is an ongoing and developing program aimed at keeping a regular check on the temperature and salinity of the Seven Seas with satellite-tracked, automated floats.<br /><br />The robots, which have a lifespan of four years and dive to 2,000 m for 10 days to take crucial measurements, help scientists to better predict changes or trends in the ocean's climate, explained Xu Jianping, a researcher at the second institute of oceanography under the State Oceanic Administration and chief scientist for the China ARGO program."</div><br /><br />It is important to note that the ARGO program is ubiquitous, transparent, highly popular overseas. YET, in China it may be royally overlooked. Why? Because it is too low cost or even free...<br /><br /><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">"But while experts in Great Britain, Australia, Japan and the United States have embraced the "revolutionary" research, Xu warned his nation is lagging far behind.<br /><br />"In most participating countries, scientists from various fields have shown great interest in the ARGO program, with climatologists the most enthusiastic," he explained. "But in China, ARGO is still little known among scientists, except oceanographers.<br /><br />"Everyone has access to the same data. Even a high school student who wants to be an oceanographer or climatologist can access it on his desktop. He or she could also catch up with the international research and climate change studies using the ARGO data. It would be a great pity if China's scientists miss such a good opportunity."<br /><br />He said researchers in China were failing to exploit the valuable data from more than 3,000 floats across the globe not because of a "lack of interest", but because of restrictions over project funding or background expertise.<br /><br />The country's climatologists had got too used to expensive information access systems and had no idea the ARGO research could be obtained for free, he said. "Few have shown an interest in the data because they are not used to things being free of charge"."</div><br /><br />This is an interesting question. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Big funding need usually signifies the value of the research</span>. And, between the lines it says, that research institutions are not interested in saving government money if they can spend it.<br /><br />In fact, the situation may uncover some important problems:<br /><br />1. <span style="font-weight: bold;">HOW TO VALUE THE SOCIAL CAPITAL?</span> This would be the benefit to societies wealth and welfare - present and future - of a program or research, if the costs of carrying it out can be kept very low. The market value would seem to dictate a fractionally low amount, clearly not the real value of such a research.<br /><br />2. <span style="font-weight: bold;">HOW TO FUND SUCH A LOW COST PROJECT?</span> It would still require a multitude of highly priced brains and people-years.<br /><br />3. <span style="font-weight: bold;">HOW TO PASS ON THE BENEFITS?</span> Regardless how we may calculate it, and what is the exact amount, there are clear and massive cost savings to made here. A research team may only be incentives to go low cost in a market value environment IF THEY GET BONUSES IN LINE WITH THE MASSIVE SAVINGS they make. But some of the monetary savings may also need to be passed on to Society,--- perhaps in a form of less related taxes.<br /><br />So here is a thought: If big research is funded by taxpayers' money, wouldn't it make sense to pass on the savings back to the taxpayer at the end of the financial year when big savings WERE made that did not deter from value adding, but added even bigger value to society? ...Perhaps splitting the benefits as a percentage bonus to researchers and tax cut to the tax payer...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question is: savings compared to what?</span><br /><br />If each year, a certain percentage of the GDP - but not below a certain absolute minimum amount - would be designated to research, and scientists would propose cheaper ways of carrying it out while adding MORE value to society, this could work quite nicely.<br /><br />Each project could have a long 3-year account and a short half-year account. Savings would be calculated every six month, and realized savings passed on IMMEDIATELY to tax payer and scientists, who could then use it to pay it as bonus or re-invest for more future social capital savings.<br /><br />You may say this is a little presumptuous when financial years are whole length periods and calculating mid-way makes little sense. However, I suggest that with the climate change crisis unfolding and requiring more emergency response type techniques, such an accounting will be a matter of <span style="font-style: italic;">when</span> not if.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-1486512007121646362009-03-22T18:53:00.000-07:002009-03-22T19:22:26.064-07:00AVETech Update - Interview with Louis MichaudWe have been conducting an interview with Mr Louis Michaud P. Eng. inventor of a transformational climate change tool the Atmospheric Vortex Engine and chairman of Avetech we featured before. And so I think it is important that we begin to make some important distinctions and clarifications. Here is the precis with a flashback link:<br /><br />WCCB<br />"The troposphere is already warming. So it must be absolutely ensured that radiating heat whizzes past the troposphere and into the stratosphere (currently cooling and also unexpectedly retaining water vapor) where it then can safely expelled from."<br /><a href=""The troposphere is already warming. So it must be absolutely ensured that radiating heat whizzes past the troposphere and into the stratosphere (currently cooling and also unexpectedly retaining water vapor) where it then can safely expelled from." http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2007/07/vortex-engines-change-climate-back.html">http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2007/07/vortex-engines-change-climate-back.html</a><br /><br />LM<br />I strive to be technically rigorous with my proposal. Ecologists without technical understanding can make statements that can not be supported and can hurt credibility. The heat does not have to whizz past the troposphere; the heat only has to be carried high enough to get above the elevation where high concentrations of water vapor and CO2 interfere with infrared radiation to space. Putting large quantities of water in the stratosphere might not be a good idea; the water might stay in the stratosphere a long time and interfere with infrared radiation to space. For this reason, the AVE should be controlled so that the vortex extends no higher than natural convection. Penetration in the stratosphere could easily be avoided by limiting the heat content of the rising air.<br /><br />WCCB<br />We thank for this exclusive clarification to Mr Louis Michaud, P. Eng. and look forward to further discussion on this fascinating theme (particularly on how one might expel heat back into space if it is kept below the stratosphere as is currently being the case) and us being able to report on more growing success of his exciting initiative.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-91269646344223089112009-03-15T03:12:00.000-07:002009-03-15T04:02:07.306-07:00The Masarang Foundation<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzYK5QR4e-iP-7lVdMZJ28ZAu1P0qh055LHvWRTp5_0_cBkQew7B1eFtSaQy4IW426nRv6J_MQ4d33egwO-u85hcc45K2EHMRvs4nU_5GuRe8BO0OSVsIBHA5eONXj18u2Pt5tNXjqfg/s1600-h/people-profit-planet.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 356px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzYK5QR4e-iP-7lVdMZJ28ZAu1P0qh055LHvWRTp5_0_cBkQew7B1eFtSaQy4IW426nRv6J_MQ4d33egwO-u85hcc45K2EHMRvs4nU_5GuRe8BO0OSVsIBHA5eONXj18u2Pt5tNXjqfg/s400/people-profit-planet.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313357686841240658" /></a><br />This is the first featured weather making project: The Masarang Non-profit Foundation Chaired by Forestry Engineer and Nature Conservationist Willie Smits. He is working on an <span style="font-weight:bold;">amazing blueprint for gentle deep ecology in the tropics</span>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.masarang.org">http://www.masarang.org</a><br /><br />What is important that it adheres to the People+Profit+Planet principle and it has worked out a detailed blueprint to restore over-logged and decaying tropical rain-forests. It recruits local people with important agricultural and forestry knowledge and builds a project that provides long term income for them, restores the rainforest in the matter of years, and <span style="font-weight:bold;">changes back the weather in the area</span>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.create-rainforest.org/en/index">Create a Rainforest</a> in Samboja Lestari ("eternal Samboja").<br /><br />So there is no question, that this is our first <span style="font-weight:bold;">true Change Climate Back Project</span> to feature.<br /><br />Other candidate to watch is the <a href="http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2007/07/vortex-engines-change-climate-back.html">Atmospheric Vortex Engine</a>.<br />However, I am yet to see how it will involve local people, and how it will be applied organically.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-52442790817227922242009-02-27T22:38:00.000-08:002009-02-28T13:54:03.360-08:00Carbon Credit flaws --- On-line discussion continued<div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">There is a specialist discussion is going on on at meta-currencies - the meta network on community resource and currencies - <a href="http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topics/micro-carboncredit">with currency and sustainability experts, about reconsidering Carbon Credit</a>. Is it irredeemably flawed? Can it be engineered from the bottom up, or that would result in something else altogether?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Be a part of this interesting discussion</span>.<br /></div>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-55075601115624923492009-02-17T16:06:00.000-08:002009-03-15T02:36:21.624-07:00More Musing on Measuring Environmental Wealth in Complementary Currencies<b>This silly question has been nagging me:</b> - If we need more and more value, and growth in activities reducing pollution, but also measured in some kind of <span style="font-weight: bold;">currency2.0</span> today, then how that currency might relate to inflation? Because, obviously, it needs to be inflated a lot and fast - pollution cleaning can't wait.<br /><br />Now, conventional money - the paper money - becomes worthless when inflated too fast. When there is way too much of it, the incentive is lost to back it up with increase in real products or services and they become next to worthless.<br /><br />So to make a value system work for the environment and to acknowledge rapid improvement in that area, it may not be based on what can potentially be worthless - wealth that is only valuable if scarce. <span style="font-weight: bold;">It should be based on what is also valuable when in abundance.</span><br /><br />Whether or not it is to be based on what should be freely available, like clean air, or something that needs to be paid for to remove - like CO2 in the air, that's another question.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-53015892975285553542009-02-10T17:07:00.001-08:002009-02-11T14:36:44.186-08:00Currency, Competition and Inflation.Thoughts on Flaws of Carbon Credit continued<span style="font-weight: bold;">Ok, I hear you. You say currency is about competition too, not just what is scarce today. It is who can own more of that scarce stuff.</span><br /><br />So here is another thought. And don't hold against me that I'm an engineer who only accomplished cursory reading of a couple of books on finance and the market. For a while <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Paul-Samuelson/dp/0071239324">Samuelson's hefty tome of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Economics</span></a> was traveling with me even on summer holidays. That's how highly esteemed those thoughts were.<br /><br />What follows, however, are the words of one who also tries to follow things with open eyes and verify things empirically.<br /><br />Because you will be hard pressed to find stuff more empirical these days, than over-polluted air and over-consumed earth. You can almost touch those stuff.<br /><br />So if currency is about competition too, than we would all want to see folks competing in who can <span style="font-weight: bold;">MAKE MORE</span> clean air, clean water, etc. Now, one can do that by <span style="font-weight: bold;">bidding to save them for tomorrow, not overuse them and if possible clean them</span>.<br /><br />And at heart of it, clearly, that <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the positive idea behind the carbon credit system. More recently, that's the idea behind 'cap and auction', instead of 'cap and trade'.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">But to trade or bid for who can pollute air and who can't - like it is inevitably done with the currency called carbon credit - makes no difference in one important aspect. <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826521.600-carbon-trading-dirty-sexy-money.html">It already makes fresh air for people scarce here, and in abundance there</a></span>. And you can bet that this makes a lot of folks happy and comfortable here, and a lot of folks very uncomfortable there. All in the while the ecosystem ties their interest strongly together.<br /><br />They should out-compete each other to make more fresh air <span style="font-weight: bold;">overall</span>. We should have an unprecedented and exponential growth in <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2009/02/money-or-goodey.html">goodeys</a>. Surely, nature is not a zero sum game that should or can be controlled with artificial and forced scarcity. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nature is an open sum game not amenable to our will: it controls us.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">HYPER INFLATION <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;">~of</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>~</span></span> GOODEYS</div><br />Let's look at it this way: - <span style="font-weight: bold;">What kind of currency is that we should be interested in inflating to the max?</span> Money has a high price when it is scarce. And inflated money becomes worthless when available in abundance for everyone. It is called super or hyper inflation and it is the stuff of nightmares.<br /><br />When your entire salary can worth just an egg in a matter of hours, no one cares about money anymore. Everyone barters. Stuff that is scarce for someone exchanges hands for stuff that is scarce for someone else. People throw away money - it's free then. And it also is <span style="font-weight: bold;">worthless</span>.<br /><br />Yet it is exactly valuing more fresh air <span style="font-weight: bold;">AS WELL AS</span> the hyper inflation of fresh air that we are interested in right now. We are interested in not making fresh air worthless, we want that to be available to everyone and in abundance.<br /><br />And so the exchanges of wealth - the free currency market - to make the value system work towards that goal should not aimed at what is worthless, it should be aimed at what is free.<br /><br />Liberty, Egality, Fraternity? Read it this way:<br />Free will, free market and free air.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-32327676850487978582009-02-10T16:26:00.000-08:002009-02-10T17:07:02.937-08:00Money or Goodey?Here I follow on with a thought from a previous post titled "<a href="http://changeclimateback.blogspot.com/2009/02/scarce-money-or-scarce-resources.html">Scarce Money or Scarce Resources?</a>", or why I think that carbon credit is deeply flawed.<br /><br />The notion of money is strongly tied to the notion of currency. <span style="font-weight: bold;">We value what is scarce, and we value today what is scarce today</span>. We value what is hip, what is cool, what is funny -- pretty much what makes us healthy and happy.<br /><br />So if real, natural, and free market is based on scarce resources (as we discussed this previously) and what really matters to us right now, then currency should be tied to good air, good water, good forest, good reef - stuff that is scarce, not stuff that is in abundance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In short, currency shouldn't be money, it should be all the natural goodies of earth that are currently at risk to be in very short supply</span>. Then, may be not 'open money' is the best way to call it. Open goodie perhaps? You decide.<br /><br />But if it to become a household name frequent use will erode it into one shortened label to be sure. In fact, <span style="font-weight: bold;">you could in your mind shorten open money in just one word right now. Imagine making this a household name: goodey</span> to give us some reminder of what it meant to replace.<br /><br />Do you think it could work?O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-79865525860198587922009-02-10T15:25:00.000-08:002009-02-28T13:52:35.138-08:00Scarce Money and Scarce ResourcesWhy I think carbon credit is deeply flawedA new wind is blowing. Yes, there is a new idea in the wings. And when you think about the story that pushes it forward, it all makes sense.<br /><br /><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">There is a specialist discussion is going on on openmoney.ning.com <a href="http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topics/micro-carboncredit">with currency and sustainability experts, specifically about reconsidering Carbon Credit</a>. Be a part of it.<br /></div><br /><br />For eons, folks thought that resources were in abundance. The idea that stuff like good air and fresh water and good river for fish and irrigation are scarce and we can still live in comfort would have been unthinkable. <span style="font-weight: bold;">That general sense of fairness went to the heart of markets that sprung up everywhere</span>.<br /><br />Now let's have a second look. The lifeblood of those markets (currency) was based on scarcity: - So among folks and even nations who possessed a lot of them - goats, grains or gold - were considered wealthy. (And precious metal like gold was clearly a scarce resource.)<br /><br />Again, <span style="font-weight: bold;">the notion of basing the exchange of wealth (market) on scarcity of good air would have been unthinkable when it was in unlimited supply</span>. Partly because no one would have felt comfortable if fresh air was limited and partly because everyone was striving to have good air and water in abundance. If anything, there was always another land, another forest, another river to go to. Or another nation to plunder for it.<br /><br />But over time, natural scarcity as the basis of exchange of wealth gave way to something else. Exchange of gold became exchange of paper - printed money, and IOY slips and slips of future promises by wealthy folks. But there is a twist. Because folks only value exchange if what they get is scarce for them. So money became a commodity in itself, and folks only valued it if it was scarce.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Today, what really is scarce is the good tree that money can be printed on</span>.<br /><br />Today what really is scarce is good air and good water. That scarcity is now the fact of the day. And because without those natural resources no one feels comfortable in a really free market any real and natural exchange system of wealth should be based on those resources.<br /><br />It follows that to base our new money on carbon is the silliest notion possible. Carbon is in utmost abundance on earth. We ourselves are made of it. Carbon credit and carbon money will only replicate the same problem we now have with printed money. Understand, that in order for the issuer to make that kind of money valuable, they need to put a price on them and have the power to make it scarce. In other words carbon credit markets may only operate if artificial scarcity can be imposed upon them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And artificial scarcity implies the power of controlled reduction</span>.<br /><br />Well, it is not carbon that is scarce - it is good water, good air, good forest, good reef that is scarce. Stuff that is not yet polluted that is what is scarce. And <span style="font-weight: bold;">a natural, fair and free exchange system should probably be based on what is naturally scarce. Indeed, that implies no more artificial scarcity in the wealth exchange systems either</span>. At least not until we clean up our stuff and feel comfortable again about the natural resources that makes us all healthy.<br /><br />But that time is well in the future. Some say the horizon is a thousand years or more. This I cannot tell, and my guess is - no one can. What I can tell though is that there is a new exchange system in the wing.<br /><br />It is called <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://openmoney.info/sophia/index.html">open wealth acknowledgment</a>, and the best example I can find so far is <span style="font-weight: bold;">open money</span>. Folks, we should adopt this between communities around the globe, the more and the freer the merrier. And <span style="font-weight: bold;">what it might need to be based on for the environment are fresh water, unpolluted air, healthy reefs, good rain-forest, sustainable plantation forest</span> and the like.<br /><br /><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;">An open exchange market based on the amount of time spent, but also moderated by the measure of good you did to the environment by it. The value would be a relative measure compared to a similar action e.g.: saving water in your home in Melbourne.<br /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stuff that we need, not stuff that we are made of. Like carbon. The very notion of carbon credit closes the door on you. It says you live on borrowed time.</span><br /><br />Well I don't know about you. If that's the story of money, I need a little more positive message.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-2571074017981589452009-01-27T16:48:00.000-08:002009-03-15T02:45:31.274-07:00The Eco-Republican<span style="font-weight: bold;">An eco-Republican is about economy AND ecology, and about security AND citizenship.<br /><br />Or more simply it defines someone who Cares about what is healthy in nature but also about </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Protection against</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> trespassing</span>. That's just how I think it can be defined, you may have your way. Note that what is healthy in nature is a consensus product and a moving point in focus and intensity. All in a field that is defined by those four poles: economy, ecology, security and citizenship.<br /><br />When you look around, public servants frame their important messages so they can be moved around by how you interpret them in a smaller patch in that field. Note that that patch itself also moves around quite a bit for conservatives, moderates and liberals alike.<br /><br />But to find the public servants who may qualify as eco-Republicans we need to know where to look for them. I would most probably position them somewhere between the Nationals, Greens and Liberals/Republicans in Australia. In the US they are probably the shifting shades of moderate Reps and centrist Dems. And in the UK they might have been the promise of what was called once the 'New Labour'.<br /><br />At any rate, I believe what is good citizenship in democracy used to be quite <span style="font-weight: bold;">well represented by Roosevelt's Republicans in the US and Menzies Liberals in Australia</span>. These movements established a proud and pragmatic heritage. But until very recently, the citizenship pole in the field experienced a more or less steady decline in focus, intensity and gravity. The economy and security poles experienced a strong pull and the ecology pole was simply ignored.<br /><br />However, more recently, a worldwide green movement with the added power of public concern about Global Warming and Irreversible Climate Change moves the above mentioned streams of conscious sense of purpose <span style="font-weight: bold;">toward the political center where there is now heightened emphasis on citizen participation</span>. In other words, the pull was ecology, but the field now once again extends toward another pull: citizenship.<br /><br />However, there is only so much interest in the public field and some other poles pull got to give. The problem is, neither economy, nor security can be ignored or diminished in importance. No administration in their right mind would do that. They can only juggle between them. Some public servants, who realize just that pay lip service to citizenship, some others - to ecology.<br /><br />They are pressured by public opinion to polarise their actions to reflect the integrity folks obviously expect of them. We need predictability in a politician to trust them.<br /><br />The free will of the public has always demanded pragmatism. It is only when that will is distorted or suppressed that a few can feed them ideology. But ideology is nothing without a propaganda. One needs catechism and demagoguery to make it work. It needs to dumb down public mind and free will - hence dumb down natural public pragmatism and citizenship.<br /><br />Today that pragmatism again dominates the policy agenda, but with two very important modern distinctions. First a hard-wired <span style="font-weight: bold;">international monetary instinct makes economy trump ecology</span> -- scarce money is overemphasized and not just for those who need to manage people as well as resources well. And second, <span style="font-weight: bold;">defense security trumps climate security</span> due to another hard-wired and legitimate survival instinct that naturally goes stronger in this time of perceived crisis.<br /><br />On the first count, international monetary instruments experience a clear crisis in solving problems in a dominant way, let alone by themselves. On the second count, emergency and the associated desperate fire fighting effort that are due to climate change disasters and refugees are on rapid and possibly exponential increase compared to traditional defense security planning. And they both draw heavily on the military budget, which in turn can be a huge burden on the economy --- and presently is.<br /><br />What is missing is the mutual understanding and policy interest to support that voters and representatives are part the Ecology first, before they are part of a (hopefully Peace and not War) Economy and only then part of a regions Security. I think an eco-Rep must have these priorities sorted out.<br /><br />So how about Australia, our Nature's Republic? --- that would nicely wrap it in one neat package. The political will is shaping, or is it just a thought...?O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-3517335089535237582008-12-08T16:48:00.000-08:002009-03-23T16:25:12.634-07:00The Truth About Global Warming?The sun for some reason is getting hotter. Much hotter in fact than it was to be expected. Across the globe <span style="font-weight: bold;">children today paint a white sun</span> - we were painting yellow suns back in my youth.<br /><br />According to the New Scientist (<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">will look up article for reference</span>) warming over time enormously increases CO2 in the atmosphere as it has done several times over in previous geological eras. It had likely become a feedback already. The output of this circuit is presently small but may grow rapidly. On this both deniers and Global Warming supporters agree.<br /><br /><span><div style="padding: 10px; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> here is the reference: <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726483.800-rising-temperatures-bring-their-own-cosub2sub.html">http://www.newscientist.com/article/..-rising-temperatures-bring-their-own-cosub2sub.html</a> , just found following <a href="http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topics/micro-carboncredit">Sepp's reply in the discussion about reconsidering Carbon Credit</a> on openmoney.ning.com.<br /></div><br /><br />Another point of agreement it seems is that a huge amount already in the atmosphere has been caused by human activity. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Where the two party don't agree is what may be the primary cause of runaway CO2 increase</span>. Warming of the sun - as the entire solar system moves onto higher energy plains in our galaxy - or the industrial level output of humans.<br /><br />My take is that this Warming - however inconvenient - comes at a crucial point. For years, we have ignored that Earth resources have been over consumed. (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Check out my other blogs on the subject</span>.) If we don't stop that practice, we will surely keep adding to the warming feedback circuit by the virtue of unmitigated economic growth. And again, <span style="font-weight: bold;">this feedback circuit is directly coinciding with major climatic changes in Earth weather system -- a point that both deniers and supporters agree on</span>.<br /><br />So the truth about Global Warming is that no matter how unpredictable the final outcome may be, that one of the very first steps of intervention should aim at evening out consumption between nations of the opposing ends of the production chain. Out of mutual interest, these nations will likely be willing to agree on similarly mutual CO2 targets. (See my other recent post on forced Population Reduction - the planetary alternative that has a different approach to life altogether.)O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-46212626035016059602008-12-08T16:03:00.000-08:002008-12-08T17:36:29.614-08:00Population Reduction?Population Reduction to counter Over Consumption? Think of it this way.<br />According to Nick <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bostrom</span> on TED Talks <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9cf_vLviI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9cf_vLviI</a> , today 90% of all humans who have ever lived have already died. This means that through selection and inheritance the human civilization has progressed to a point when the 6 billion who lives today is in fact only the 10% of us -- we are the incredibly few left who carry forward the legacy. You may not think of it this way, but every single one of us is a winner and carries irreparably important traits carefully advanced and nurtured throughout countless generations.<br /><br />So in this light, <span style="font-weight: bold;">if some were to say that the cure to over consumption is population reduction - what they mean to say is this: let's cull down that remaining 10%</span>. It doesn't make sense; not if we consider life to be precious, and who doesn't. What would make sense is to even out consumption a bit so that polluting countries from the opposite ends of the development spectrum would be a little more interested in cooperating then just paying lip service.<br /><br />And, as an aside, perhaps make it another planetary effort to populate other planets with our most pioneering spirits. A <span style="font-weight: bold;">population boom on Mars some day, would mean that the 10% remainder of us today can some day start to grow</span> instead of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">whittling</span> further away. This would <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">enormously</span> improve the gene pool for further successful planetary endeavors.<br /><br />Encouraging signs? The international space station (ISS) is already a fantastic International effort. And during the sinister years of the Cold War, no one would have thought this to ever happen. Today, many nations move into the multi-trillions of dollars in national debt thanks largely to a global credit crisis.<br /><br />Economic stabilization between competing nations of continuing vast populations will point to forgiving large amounts of this gigantic debt. This way, future <span style="font-weight: bold;">widespread debt forgiveness for nations with great productive population capacity</span> - such that the ones were done for Mexico and Poland in modern times - may be inevitable.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">But such moves could create a very favorable environment</span> for the kind of planetary endeavor that <span style="font-weight: bold;">really</span> respect life now and into the future.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-16660260349424773922008-07-03T17:36:00.000-07:002009-03-15T04:59:39.788-07:00Hobson's Choice? Results in the The Tragedy of CommonsThis logical behavioral problem is a great illustration why only collective action can work in fixing climate change.<br /><br />There is a much better description to this, but I can't find it just now. Hope this will still suffice:<br /><p>It's essentially a huge prisoner's dilemma problem. If you studied the prisoner's dilemma, you know that the rational decision for the individual absent of some external enforcing mechanism is alway not to cooperate even though both prisoners would be better off if you did cooperate. Same with global warming, but on a huge scale. My lot would be a lot worse, but the earth would be no cooler for me, if i personally cut my emission without demanding the same from everyone else.</p> <p>In fact, it's arguable that if a significant proportion of the population cut down their usage absent of any other change, that's merely going to make oil cheaper for the remaining population who will then burn more of it.<br /></p> <p>The only way out is collective action in a problem such as this.</p><p>[Via: <a href="http://battlepanda.blogspot.com/">BattlePanda</a> to <a href="http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:OMYPGIj-3oQJ:ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/collective-acti.html+prisoner+problem+in+global+warming&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=au">Ezra Klein</a>]<br /></p>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-11870709518406169462008-04-30T14:30:00.000-07:002008-07-03T18:19:13.823-07:00Nature's Republic Research - The Trap of a 'Realist'<div style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgulOieSzml5TaMJ3mOF8DVefbydNe1GZP8txZQFRqZvXRplS_OJ01h0mUTJh99OW0S0EyeRjNwQqoJMHOoFtcW2ZfC4GiuUd8fKy0HznI5DPxO8O0PWM64lnHJPuWcz5DjB4ZIrAcN3r8/s1600-h/Echo-and-Narcissus_JWWaterhouse.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgulOieSzml5TaMJ3mOF8DVefbydNe1GZP8txZQFRqZvXRplS_OJ01h0mUTJh99OW0S0EyeRjNwQqoJMHOoFtcW2ZfC4GiuUd8fKy0HznI5DPxO8O0PWM64lnHJPuWcz5DjB4ZIrAcN3r8/s320/Echo-and-Narcissus_JWWaterhouse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195187196663968690" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Echo and Narcissus<br />by John William Waterhouse</span></div>By "realist" in the title I mean elected pragmatic leaders. As nature has it the most successful ones are not just gentle bullies, but also closet narcissists.<br /><br />Now, for all of you who think Nature's Republic is a neat idea, you know I am a <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Nature's Republican</span>, here is an interesting adage.<br /><br />Give a bunch of self-absorbed (or narcissist) folks a replenishable forest as their livelihood and the task to lop enough trees to make it both a living and a success. And they are all faced with the same dilemma:<br /><br />Act selfishly and cause collective disaster - even your own livelihood will be finished. Or act altruistically and aid someone <i>else</i> who is acting selfishly. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Either way, selfishness wins</span>. And the very tangible result: <span style="font-weight: bold;">the forest is erased in no time</span>.<br /><br />This tragic dilemma is called the "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Hobson's choice</span>" and the result is the "<span style="font-weight: bold;">tragedy of the commons</span>."<br /><br />To paraphrase the social psychologist W. Keith Campbell talking about the 2008 US Presidential primary: the political system is biased toward the narcissist. This is to say that the more-selfish person has a higher probability of winning. I am convinced, most political systems are such - in this they are most certainly perfectable.<br /><br />But Campbell also devised an ingenious way to spot the narcissist. Just ask this questions and see what the answer will be out of the two available ones:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Which of the two statements describes you better? Think about it carefully.</span><br /><ul><li>If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place.</li><li>The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.</li></ul>Edella Schlager, political scientist from the University of Arizona puts the dilemma in another way:<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Rational individuals are trapped</span>. To act rationally, to pursue one's self-interest, leads to collective ruin. To act irrationally, to place the collective interest above one's self-interest, exposes one to exploitation."<br /><br />According to Schlager, their is a natural way of reasoned regulation:<br /><br /><div style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left;" try="" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2rSZr3muRqSGGhVGZ62ChMkw1CqBpeAGqUbMm3vAWrq0vXN2MHyNbIsCBQqpD2IPzmg7WmrvjmK7F2LionkZcPSrfPR-W51OOqZgBaTj-iz1x6-KTInrDqATuyKMkwulcqQbH3bMPwg/s1600-h/Lorenz-strange-attractor.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2rSZr3muRqSGGhVGZ62ChMkw1CqBpeAGqUbMm3vAWrq0vXN2MHyNbIsCBQqpD2IPzmg7WmrvjmK7F2LionkZcPSrfPR-W51OOqZgBaTj-iz1x6-KTInrDqATuyKMkwulcqQbH3bMPwg/s320/Lorenz-strange-attractor.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195189447226831810" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Lorenz Strange Attractors.<br />Courtesy: Wikipedia</span></div>"The way to prevent tragedies of the commons is to set up structures in advance that reward long-term thinking and punish short-term selfishness. This happens mostly among competitors who share long-term interests and have social relationships of trust: If you and I are Maine lobstermen, we are likely to agree to set up limits on the overall catch each year because we see our future, and our children's future, inextricably linked. In the absence of trust and long-term relationships, the only way to prevent these tragedies is to have an outside regulatory agency step in to establish -<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> and enforce -</span> limits."<br /><br />Now, I am not much of an enforcer - too bad. In fact, I am convinced that politics is managing complex systems of people and resources. So what I believe in is setting up a transformational framework that sets the <span style="font-weight: bold;">basin</span> and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">attractors</span>. Those are dynamic limits towards which the system will then naturally converge.<br /><br />----------<span style="font-weight: bold;">As an aside</span><br />An example I found for a complex system applied to people realm: - The notion of media enforced public relation <a href="http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/3/3/6/p173365_index.html?phpsessid=39334ad5798822c543a7526ce28d27a3">reputation could be viewed as a non-linear complex system</a> where attractor basins are the "adjacent realms <span class="fieldtext">that contain both distinct and separate topics as well as those that mutually influence one another." I'd be barking mad if I understood exactly what this meant, but if you are a mathematician with this kind on knowledge I respectfully agree that you probably do.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update on this:</span><br />I am still not much wiser, but it could be close to <a href="http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml">George Lakoff's framing problem</a>. The impossible terms "liberal elite" or "tax relief" might just be such starge attractors.<br /></span>----------<br /><br />In Australia this would certainly involve a Constitutional reform and an infant Republic. In the US it would require more than a few amendments on the Constitution. These new instruments would then become the necessary social wherewithal to stock bipartisan policies for the long term. -- Emanate and reinforce a transformational change toward Nature's Republic acceptable to both major parties would likely have the support by the public <span style="font-style: italic;">as well as</span> replenish the forests that be. The first question then: what kinds of amendments, what kinds of transformational reforms on the Constitution. The second: what kinds of policies?<br /><br />But in the very first instance: we need to imagine it possible.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Resources:<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Clinton, Obama and the Narcissist's Tale</span><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/27/ST2008042701712.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/../2008/04/27/ST2008042701712.html</a><br /><br />McRae, James J., 1978.<br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v8y1978i1p29-54.html">Optimal and competitive use of replenishable natural resources by open economies</a>, <a href="http://ideas.repec.org/s/eee/inecon.html">Journal of International Economics</a>, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-54, February.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Note:</span> this publication is available to subscribers only.<br /><br /><a href="www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/simple_framing">George Lakoff's Rockridge Insitute</a>: An introduction to <b>framing</b> and its uses in politics<br /><br />What is an attractor?<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor</a><br /><br />Attractors Everywhere<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Order from Chaos</span>: <a href="http://www.calresco.org/attract.htm">http://www.calresco.org/attract.htm</a>O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294474113171336591.post-76628387270815916282007-10-24T17:58:00.000-07:002008-12-08T17:50:58.220-08:00Nature's Republic<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The thing that a caring state concept such as Nature's Republic may show is that either each of us benefits, or very few (if any) of us will. </span>This profound climate change on an epochal time scale leaves no other choice.<br /><br />We should be able to take care of ourselves as independent adults, and state help can increase unwelcome dependence. But we are not just dependent on the eco-system. We are a part of it! And we simply cannot legislate for the trees to take care of themselves - they have no will. We can only legislate that they should be taken care of by us. That is, if we are convinced that that activity is PART OF TAKING CARE OF OURSELVES.<br /><br />I don't think I am an idealist. Radicals, dictators and mad mans will still occasionally grab hold of power. But the<span style="font-weight: bold;"> resounding demand over other tribulations should simply be looking after Nature's needs first.<br /><br />Human nature in all it's shades and glories </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">included</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span> And that's cold hard reality and there's nothing new in that if you look at it that way.<br /><br />So if anything, I am a Nature's Republican. And that power base - some kind of Green-Republican. Coalition that is both pragmatic and forward looking - may be a positive outcome of all these current birth pains.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Footnote:</span><br />Roosevelt's 'Republicans' in the US were largely the same progressive base as Menzie's 'Liberals' became in Australia.O Newhousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795278543816510912noreply@blogger.com3