The Eco-Republican

An eco-Republican is about economy AND ecology, and about security AND citizenship.

Or more simply it defines someone who Cares about what is healthy in nature but also about Protection against trespassing. 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.

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.

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'.

At any rate, I believe what is good citizenship in democracy used to be quite well represented by Roosevelt's Republicans in the US and Menzies Liberals in Australia. 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.

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 toward the political center where there is now heightened emphasis on citizen participation. In other words, the pull was ecology, but the field now once again extends toward another pull: citizenship.

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.

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.

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.

Today that pragmatism again dominates the policy agenda, but with two very important modern distinctions. First a hard-wired international monetary instinct makes economy trump ecology -- scarce money is overemphasized and not just for those who need to manage people as well as resources well. And second, defense security trumps climate security due to another hard-wired and legitimate survival instinct that naturally goes stronger in this time of perceived crisis.

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.

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.

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...?

The 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 children today paint a white sun - we were painting yellow suns back in my youth.

According to the New Scientist (will look up article for reference) 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.

Update: here is the reference: http://www.newscientist.com/article/..-rising-temperatures-bring-their-own-cosub2sub.html , just found following Sepp's reply in the discussion about reconsidering Carbon Credit on openmoney.ning.com.

Another point of agreement it seems is that a huge amount already in the atmosphere has been caused by human activity. Where the two party don't agree is what may be the primary cause of runaway CO2 increase. Warming of the sun - as the entire solar system moves onto higher energy plains in our galaxy - or the industrial level output of humans.

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. (Check out my other blogs on the subject.) 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, this feedback circuit is directly coinciding with major climatic changes in Earth weather system -- a point that both deniers and supporters agree on.

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.)

Population Reduction?

Population Reduction to counter Over Consumption? Think of it this way.
According to Nick Bostrom on TED Talks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9cf_vLviI , 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.

So in this light, 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%. 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.

And, as an aside, perhaps make it another planetary effort to populate other planets with our most pioneering spirits. A population boom on Mars some day, would mean that the 10% remainder of us today can some day start to grow instead of whittling further away. This would enormously improve the gene pool for further successful planetary endeavors.

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.

Economic stabilization between competing nations of continuing vast populations will point to forgiving large amounts of this gigantic debt. This way, future widespread debt forgiveness for nations with great productive population capacity - such that the ones were done for Mexico and Poland in modern times - may be inevitable.

But such moves could create a very favorable environment for the kind of planetary endeavor that really respect life now and into the future.

Hobson's Choice? Results in the The Tragedy of Commons

This logical behavioral problem is a great illustration why only collective action can work in fixing climate change.

There is a much better description to this, but I can't find it just now. Hope this will still suffice:

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.

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.

The only way out is collective action in a problem such as this.

[Via: BattlePanda to Ezra Klein]

Nature's Republic Research - The Trap of a 'Realist'

Echo and Narcissus
by John William Waterhouse

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.

Now, for all of you who think Nature's Republic is a neat idea, you know I am a Nature's Republican, here is an interesting adage.

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:

Act selfishly and cause collective disaster - even your own livelihood will be finished. Or act altruistically and aid someone else who is acting selfishly. Either way, selfishness wins. And the very tangible result: the forest is erased in no time.

This tragic dilemma is called the "Hobson's choice" and the result is the "tragedy of the commons."

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.

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:
Q: Which of the two statements describes you better? Think about it carefully.

• If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place.
• The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.

Edella Schlager, political scientist from the University of Arizona puts the dilemma in another way:

"Rational individuals are trapped. 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."

According to Schlager, their is a natural way of reasoned regulation:

Lorenz Strange Attractors.
Courtesy: Wikipedia

"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 - and enforce - limits."

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 basin and the attractors. Those are dynamic limits towards which the system will then naturally converge.

----------As an aside
An example I found for a complex system applied to people realm: - The notion of media enforced public relation reputation could be viewed as a non-linear complex system where attractor basins are the "adjacent realms 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.
Update on this:
I am still not much wiser, but it could be close to George Lakoff's framing problem. The impossible terms "liberal elite" or "tax relief" might just be such starge attractors.
----------

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 as well as 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?

But in the very first instance: we need to imagine it possible.

Resources:

Clinton, Obama and the Narcissist's Tale
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/../2008/04/27/ST2008042701712.html

McRae, James J., 1978.
Optimal and competitive use of replenishable natural resources by open economies, Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-54, February.
Note: this publication is available to subscribers only.

George Lakoff's Rockridge Insitute: An introduction to framing and its uses in politics

What is an attractor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor

Attractors Everywhere
Order from Chaos: http://www.calresco.org/attract.htm

Nature's Republic

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. This profound climate change on an epochal time scale leaves no other choice.

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.

I don't think I am an idealist. Radicals, dictators and mad mans will still occasionally grab hold of power. But the resounding demand over other tribulations should simply be looking after Nature's needs first.

Human nature in all it's shades and glories included. And that's cold hard reality and there's nothing new in that if you look at it that way.

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.

Footnote:
Roosevelt's 'Republicans' in the US were largely the same progressive base as Menzie's 'Liberals' became in Australia.

Electric Sun Brightening

The cause for the Electric Sun is a very interesting one. Today I gave some serious thoughts to so called climate change sceptics or global warming sceptics as labelled in the media. And I came away with a mixed bag of thoughts.

The predominant among them is the consequence of an electric weather system on Earth caused by the activities of an ELECTRIC Sun.
But close second is that 'sceptics' don't seem to deny that something is profoundly changing. Instead, they emphasise two plausible axioms: (1) Changes may NOT be irrevocable; and (2) We humans may not contribute to the current rapid climate change as much as we think we do.

In other words, vast greenhouse component in the atmosphere in the past may have been the consequence of global warming and not the cause. Indeed, just thawing permafrost alone could have contributed to a runaway warming that stopped the Gulf stream so many times in the past and in the end triggered ice ages. The cause? Electric Sun proponents possible answer: Vastly increased Sun activity out of literally nowhere. And it comes and goes they say.

We still need to become self-sufficient, as the current overconsumption of Earth is tragically unsustainable. The last time I looked the US was 9-11 times overconsuming Earth's resources per capita. Even Switzerland was overconsuming it 5 times. This means that if the rest of the world would be consuming so hard and fast, we would need 5-11 Earths every single year to meet those demands.

Make no mistake. We WILL run out of affordable oil pretty soon, then gas, then a little later coal. Global warming is occurring and it WILL dramatically reduce the amount of potable fresh water. And we DO contribute to it with all the greenhouse gases that we emit in rapidly increasing quantities.

The only thing different with a view to a vastly brighter Electric Sun is the Sun's contributions to our unfolding drama. But it IS playing out at a scale that is indeed planetary.

If it is any consolation they say, ALL the planets are warming up. And our Sun HAS become vastly more bright in the past decades literally out of nowhere. It was expected to be more intense as the 11 year clockwork period for it has come. But NOT as much as it is NOW.

The Sun in recent decades must be channeling OTHER energy they say, we don't know what kind.

We also don't know, they say, to what extent out weather is electric in nature. But if so, which is not proven but increasing hypothesised, our climate including perhaps the more intense El Nino Southern Oscillation (or ENSO) is a much more a consequence of a so much brighter and more intense electric Sun then previously thought.

Do we need to prepare for a change. Oh yes. Is it going to be big? Oh yes. Will it take at least a millennium (1000 years!) for things go back to normal? You bet! (For instance there may be at least a 1000 years natural delay in the feedback between the Atlantic and the Southern Pacific thermohaline circulation.

So what's the difference between what scientists labelled 'sceptics' say from the vantage point of an Electric Sun. Nothing in terms of what we need to do to slow our appetite and change to renewables. But the difference is big in terms of our guilt and inability to change things back.

Because what they say is that (a) We are not guilty as charged - the Sun is the culprit; and (b) no matter how hard we try, we cannot work against the Sun and hence cannot change climate back.

Quite a food for thought. And the fact that we should not be shameful for all of the current changes as they say is a helpful ploy to ACT. Indeed, it would be so much easier without guilt.

Yesterday's Researcher Today's Witness

Time to give a new status to the research scientists of Global Warming and Climate Change. Let's call them Expert Witness instead of Scientific Researcher. Here is why.

For the next 30-40 years and possibly longer, the most they can do is to research the consequences. As they are playing catch up to events out of our and their influence finding out new consequences daily pretty much overwhelms their task of finding out the reasons. By the time a new reason is pinpointed two new and unexpected consequences bob up redefining the status and validity of those earlier reasons.

You need facts? Here is the latest all encompassing and really disturbing set: http://www.washingtonpost.com/../2007/10/21/AR2007102100766

Changes play out with speed where a scientist can do a good job at following consequences on a hot trail, but a poor job in keeping with redefining the reasons. All they can do really is to investigate consequences and answering to questions we pose about WHAT is happening as Expert Witnesses.
Play video >>

And even that is not easy. In fact it is damn hard and eats up tremendous resources. The cause may be as simple as an overkill of green house gas in the atmosphere compounded with an increased sun flare activity that arrived as clockwork at the end of the zodiac age of Pisce to be concluded by 2012.

But the Earth atmosphere is an extremely hyper complex system. There is no direct cause and effect in any given sequence, micro or macro. Multiple events occur parallel and simultaneous all the time. Even simple causes play out on an imaginable scale of complexity. Even if scientists turn expert witnesses playing catch up they have more than a full time job on their hand.

We can not ask of them more than that.

We are on shifting sand. It is no longer viable to interrogate causes. That time has passed big time. We need to ACT boldly and go where instinct tells us we need to go.

Scientists now need to work on averting bigger disasters BEYOND the 40 years horizon. How we do that? We ACT WITH AN IMPACT and then keep doing what we do now. MONITOR THE CONSEQUENCES.

Fertilise the Oceans? I don't know. But if what we sow is effective to reap GLOBAL COOLING thereafter, then by all means. We are now global peasants plowing oceans. And all nations need to come plowing otherwise there will be no harvest to share. Otherwise many more will become disenfranchised as the desperate new nomads in Nature's Republic. But Nature, including our Human Nature can and will do better.

In this, scientists should be relieved of the burgeoning responsibility of finding the right causes and made Expert Monitors of the Consequences sought.

Earth needs a correctional facility with the best Expert Witnesses we can have.

Otherwise the carriage pulls the horse, and not the other way around.