via
xing, Club of Amsterdam
Asia Business Group
Prof. Iftikhar A. Durraniius:
Martin Lockheed,Corporation,USA has hosted my research
"ABC" Peace Model for Interfaith Harmony & Success "
as innovative, at their website:
https://lmco.brightidea.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?i=5CCB76C4
For collaboration,info
or blog pl visit my webpage:
http://about.me/iftikhar.ahmed
Prof. Iftikhar A. Durraniius,
Managing Partner, UET- ACRE Innovation, Saudi Arabia.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Peter van Gorsel:
"What do we talk about when we talk about overpopulation? Do we
mean there are too many people of the kind we don't like? Or do we mean
that there will not be enough left for us in the end? More people means
more brains or does it mean more mouths to feed.The pitfalls for unsavoury
solutions and political backstabbing are everywhere in this discussion.
Let's start by giving everybody the same rights."
Peter van Gorsel, Director at House of Denim, Member of the Advisory
Board of the Club of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
David Forrest: "There
is a growing consensus that climate change is real, and that human activity
is causing it. And while some nations have taken the threat seriously
and are making strides in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, others
have done little. Their emissions have soared. The prognosis today is
even more extreme than it was 20 years ago at the first Rio conference.
A recent World Bank report warns that the world could be hotter by 4
degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century.
Many scientists now feel
that if we can’t act now to change our collective behavior we will
have to take emergency action later. Governments are looking at the
options. New geoengineering research institutes are being created. Bill
Gates, Sir Richard Branson and other wealthy entrepreneurs have funded
reports. Professors David Keith at Harvard, and Ken Caldeira at Stanford,
have received $4.9 million from Bill Gates to run the Fund for Innovative
Climate and Energy Research.
There is a growing risk
of unilateral action. Renegade governments or individuals may take action
on their own. American businessman Russ George dumped 100 metric tons
of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada this
summer, creating a plankton bloom that is visible from space. It is
well within the reach of a single rich individual to modify the Earth’s
climate -- a new asymmetric threat with planetary consequences.
Ecologist Garrett Hardin
described the dilemma in his paper “The Tragedy of the Commons,”
published in 1968. We are all motivated by self-interest, Hardin says,
and “The individual benefits as an individual from his ability
to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part,
suffers.” A solution will not be found with the institutional arrangements
we have in place today. There is no technical solution, Hardin says,
where “A technical solution may be defined as one that requires
a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little
or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.”
"
David Forrest is Consultant, Writer and Publisher, InnovationWatch.com.
Canada
Arnab B. Chowdhury:
"First of all, congratulations on creating and perhaps more importantly
sustaining and leading Club of Amsterdam for ten long years!
Picking one item in the poll over the other is like choosing one variety
of apples over another (or even red vs. green), not even between apples
and oranges! All the more since these challenges have become almost
systemic and more poetically put - interwoven.
In today's age of globalization, the downside of being connected in
a 'global village' the repercussions of an event on one corner of the
world is 'well felt' on the other end of the planet.
If we presume that our current highest tool of intelligence, will to
act and decision making is rationality than we might feel handicapped
with a poor tool to address the complex challenges in the poll. This
is because our current state of rationality limits our sense of belonging
and what we care for starting with myself, my family, my city and perhaps
enlarging to my country. We need to evolve to a sense of 'my planet'.
The key is to inspired ourselves and infuse a greater collective Consciousness
starting upwards from the individual or group of individuals. A two
way movement from top-down and bottom-up from the grassroots community
level, meeting in the middle. A sense of belonging that we are One in
our One planet in spite of our differences that need to relooked at
in the spectrum of diversity. We are connected whether we like it or
not. If we don't evolve our Consciousness, we increasingly decrease
our chances to survive.
No isolated solution in any of these challenges in the poll has created
enough equity to be a game changer to transform the others. This in
spite of innovative management and technology paradigms emerging all
along in different domains.
We simply need to harness the 4 emerged forces of our knowledge society:
globalisation, immediacy, digitisation and virtualisation with Consciousness
infused at the grassroots - and those roots start with us."
Arnab B. Chowdhury is Founder and Knowledge Architect, Ninād
(www.ninad.in),
India.
He is also a member of the panel of Experts at Club of Amsterdam.
Paul C. van Pinxteren:
"To solve excisting crisis in the world and to prevent more future
crisis it is very important and urgent to split up - as much as possible
- Money and Politics.
Just like Politics and Religions, in the most civilised countries.
So the next securities should always stay in the hands of Democratic
Governments (as there is no better system...)
- Pensions (!) and Benefitpayments/'Uitkeringen'
- Taxes incl. the system
- Healthcare and older
people care
- Defense
- Public Transportation
- Social housebuilding
and management
- Post
- Infrastructural Planning
and Management
- Environs and Nature
Protection
- Justice
- Developmentassist /
Ontwikkelingssamenwerking
- Culture
- TV and Radio
- and some more
We all have seen and experienced
how often commercial enterprises have destroyed a good working public
system. (for their own benefit !)
Going on with this detestable working method is a dead-end street. Privatisation
is mostly a miscalculation or (near) crime. But oh, so tempting...
Sometimes, of course, it is needed to share (don't give it away !) responsabilities
with them but that should only happen by exception and in urgent situations
and with the approval of the complete Democratic Government.
Failures of the past should be restored as soon as possible!"
Paul C. van Pinxteren, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Mathis Wackernagel:
What's at Stake?
"We have entered the
new era of resource constraints. Humanity is in global overshoot, using
more renewable resources and ecological services than our biosphere
can replenish. More countries, including Ecuador and other South American
nations, are becoming increasingly dependent on resources they do not
have. As a result, more countries are competing for the planet's limited
natural capital. We call this new dynamic "the global auction."
In an auction, what matters most is not your absolute income, but your
relative income compared to all other bidders. For example, assume your
income doubles, or triples even. You would still be at a disadvantage
when bidding at an auction-including the global resource auction-if
everybody else's income quadruples.
Global Footprint Network's data on resource and consumption trends in
South America in combination with data of the World Bank and other international
institutions highlight the fundamental conflict between the two major
trends shaping the global auction: Human demand for Earth's limited
resources and services is continuously increasing, while relative income
of many people is in decline.
Biocapacity, the productive land and sea area that produce ecological
resources and services, cannot keep pace with the human demands made
upon it. Fifty years ago, every country in South America had at least
twice the biocapacity of what their residents demanded. Today, that's
no longer the case.
After decades of population growth and increasing per capita consumption
levels, Ecuador and Venezuela are now running "biocapacity deficits,"
meaning that their demands for renewable resources and carbon sinks
exceeds what their own ecosystems can provide. Chile is nearing the
threshold, if it hasn't crossed it already. Trends in every other South
American country, save Argentina and Uruguay, also show a continuous
per capita decline in available resources and ecological services-and
the increasing prospect of more biocapacity debtor nations by the end
of the decade.
The income trend has also seen a significant shift. For many South American
countries, their residents' absolute income may have increased on average,
but their share in global income has fallen. For instance, Ecuador's
residents today earn on average 45 percent less of the total global
income than they did 40 years ago (measured in GNI according to World
Bank statistics). In Venezuela, residents lost on average a staggering
72 percent in their share of total global income in just three decades.
This double trend of weakening bidding power with expanding biocapacity
deficits is creating a new challenge for countries: Since all countries
participate in increasingly interconnected economies, dropping relative
incomes make it more difficult for ecological debtors to compete in
the global market for the world's limited resources.
Before the global auction for biocapacity (when resources were abundant),
declining relative income barely affected countries' economies. In the
era of plentiful resources, supply of goods and resources was limited
only by market demands. In a world where resource costs are becoming
a significant factor to economic production, biocapacity and relative
income trends will become key determinants of economic success or failure.
Economic planners and private investors who ignore this new reality
put their assets in peril.
The narrowing gap between South America's supply of and demand for ecological
resources and services is worrisome. But trends are not destiny, unless
they are not addressed. Through the Ecological Footprint, countries
can track those trends, and make the decisions they need to reverse
them and better safeguard their economies.
Ecuador's commitment to its people's prosperity has made it a leader
in resource accounting. Last month, three representatives of Ecuador's
Ministry of Environment completed the first of a rigorous three-part
training program in Footprint methodology. We applaud Ecuador for this
courageous step of documenting its resource and consumption trends,
and exploring their implications for the nation's future."
Dr. Mathis Wackernagel
is president of Global Footprint Network, an international think-tank
promoting a sustainable economy by advancing the use of the Ecological
Footprint, a resource management tool that measures how much nature
we have, how much we use and who uses what.
Global Footprint
Network is based in the USA, Switzerland and Belgium.
www.footprintnetwork.org
Paul Holister:
"In all this wonderful outpouring of ideas I think that the 800-pound
gorilla of a problem in the room has received too little attention,
despite a few mentions. That gorilla is us – people and their behaviour,
individually and collectively. There is no point figuring out solutions
to our problems if you can’t get people to implement them.
So we have to change the
way people behave collectively, and maybe individually.
What are the ‘people’
problems? Greed, ignorance and apathy come to mind (to pick a few out
of the air). Can we actually do much about such things? I do think that
people can be taught at an early age to think more rationally. This
might (if you could ever get such teaching into schools) at least immunise
people somewhat against the propaganda thrown at them by political and
religious leaders and corporate PR machines.
But things like greed (or
rather the tendency for the greediest to take control) and apathy (or
selfishness) seem to beg a solution, if there is one, involving a change
in society.
Thomas Olsen’s comments
suggest we might hope that social systems will change, but it is his
‘new wind’, borne of our newfound ability to create communities
on a global scale, that I hear most often cited as the great hope for
a different and better future. Maybe more investment of intellect and
imagination in this area might offer the greatest returns. And let’s
not forget that the powers-that-be are well aware of the threat it represents."
Paul Holister is consultant,
designer, writer, in ICT, emerging technologies, and scientific publishing
in the Netherlands.
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Jeremy Mancuso:
"We have the science and technology to move beyond a fossil fuel
based economy but we lack the political will and foresight to act on
it. Not to mention powerful lobbies to ensure the status quo."
Jeremy Mancuso is Content Director, Shaping Tomorrow. USA.
Thomas Olsen:
"Dear Club of Amsterdam Members and Supporters,
The Club of Amsterdam is
a true blessing. Its focus, scores of members/readers, range of contributors
and backers, is a fantastic recognition of its vision; that openness
will bring 'betterness'.
My own modest contribution
to Club of Amsterdam's 10th anniversary is in the form of a - perhaps
somewhat unorthodox - reflection, over the truly interesting and mind-boggling
article in the Club
of Amsterdam Journal, Issue 152 (Nov 2012),
titled One Minute before 12: Understanding the Global Model.
This is meant as a contribution to the debate, not as a critique of
an article based on extensive research.
Describing the situation
of global problems we already know all too well, it notes that:
"This is not some
futuristic horror scenario; this is with us today now, and must be dealt
with now, and not in some distant future. Now is the moment when we
must carefully look at the mathematical evaluation of how all these
factors will affect each other over time. We must set aside complacency
as well as political or dogmatic belief, analyse the empirical evidence,
and connect those critical dots. There is no more time for opinions,
only for science and hard mathematical models, to under-stand the true
reality. We must act accordingly.
[…]This realization
must also constitute an invitation to world leaders, responsible decision
makers, corporate heads and global thinkers to come together now, and
to work on urgent solutions immediately, to preserve the continuation
of human civili-zation in a sustainable, dignified and peaceful way."
It continues to present
a (what it calls) "Global Master Model", one that intends
to identify areas of concern and guide how we shall move forward. It
comprises eight points:
1. Monetary and economic
systems and their critical debt sustainability issues
2. Governmental/Political trends, conflicts, dogmatic and religious
dynamics
3. Corporations and their behavior impacts under missing global regulations
4. Energy production, global energy economics, and critical conflicts
5. Interconnected Farmland, Food and Water factors and their sustainability
6. Environmental Impacts, pollution, weather and habitation consequences
7. Human overpopulation and its interconnected demographic behavior
effects
8. Security; cyber-terror; terrorism as the emerging form of 'political
discourse'
My commentary to this very
well presented article is not to dispute its findings. To the contrary,
I neither can nor intend to dispute the facts it presents.
But - and this is a serious
'but' - the idea that there will ever be an egalitarian world-government,
or some other world-power that can, like John Rawls' idea of "Justice
as Fairness", where (what he called) a 'veil of ignorance' on
behalf of the ruling elites, would eliminate their self-interests, putting
this aside in favour of equal opportunities across the (global) board,
is truly utopian.
Throughout history have
dominant ideas been imposed with the help of hegemonistic forces, masking
their ambitions in 'good-for-all' kind of terms. The one we currently
'suffer' from is the call for constant, eternal and global (economic)
growth. Also this call supported itself on serious research and mathematical
logic. People actually believed it to be the answer to everybody's prayers.
It however proved wrong, simply because some parameters where forgotten
- or ignored. For instance was the actual objective, spelled 'markets',
commonly confused with the more egalitarian-sounding term 'people'.
The architects of globalisation did mean all (foreign) markets - but
only some (not foreign) people.
The fundamental problem
is (and has always been) that it's typically said that (quote) "There
is no more time for opinions, only for science and hard mathematical
models, to understand the true reality" (from the here quoted
article 'One Minute before 12: Understanding the Global Model')
But already Karl Popper
- knighted five decades ago and dead since two - noted that science
always struggles with what he called the problem of induction, meaning
that certain assumptions must be made, and treated as 'underlying facts'
when (scientific) truths are developed. So, when the assumptions changes,
the truths must change too. Debating socio-economic developments, using
hard economic mathematical methods, we must therefore take into account
that that 'black swan' may once again appear, i.e. the one that 300
years ago overthrew the western assumption that all swans are white.
This was however also claimed
in 1955 by anthropologist Melville Herskovits (one of the founders of
the concept of cultural relativism) who wrote that 'given the premises,
the logic is inescapable'. It has never been harder to prove him
wrong than now.
Where does this take me?
Well, just to be provocative enough to make my point: How do we know
that we - in 50 years or so from now - will not praise what we today
call terrorism as being the birth of the ecological revolution - where
people finally took up arms against the ever-hegemonic state - a state
that obviously failed to see, or ignored, the plight of its people?
Only by finally using the single thing the individual 'has' that the
state ultimately cannot control - the self - could people overthrow
the hegemonic structure of the state that proved itself totally unwilling
to deal with the core questions that this (and other) article raises.
All drastic changes have
initially been seen as disturbances or, as in this case, a true evil.
Only time will tell how those disturbances and/or evils will develop.
Some will be forgotten, some will be banished by history as just that,
while other may develop into something we in the future will consider
beneficial. Like the French Revolution.
Hence, to assume that "an
invitation to world leaders, responsible decision makers, corporate
heads and global thinkers to come together now, and to work on urgent
solutions immediately, to preserve the continuation of human civilization
in a sustain-able, dignified and peaceful way" would be the
way forward is actually very limiting. We must realize that these people
are much more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. The
reason for this is called vested interests.
As of today we may not
have a better structure to offer than the Westphalian state. But before
Westphalia did most societies live with a totally different reality.
This was not only the case outside Europe, but also for most Europeans.
So why do we believe that, just because Europeans invented and exported
this structure 3-400 years ago - arms in hand, and at the expense of
almost all other governing structures around the globe - it cannot change
once again? Who knows, is 400 years perhaps the end of the lifecycle
for just about any socio-political model? Actually, our state- / capital-centric
model probably need to change or most of the problems the quoted article
raises will remain till the end of times - which according to that article
could be very soon!
I am not a revolutionary.
And I do not support 'terrorism'. But just as all roads used to lead
to Rome, do all clues today lead to the suspicion that the state is
the culprit, or at least the smallest common denominator in today's
conflict-prone world. By 'the state' I refer to the vested interests
that are channelled through a faceless machinery by non-committing bureaucrats,
where the individual is reduced to a loyal voter and powerful groups,
representing sectorial interests, use the political system to advance
their cross-border interests. People are not in conflict with people
across the globe; states are - as the best way for vested interests
to advance their agenda is to be seen represented by the state. The
race is on, and even Obama knows the perils of being squeezed between
the voters, every 4th year, and the lobby that bankrolled his campaign
- every day. The fiasco in Copenhagen 2009 was not because our elected
leaders do not understand the issues or the urgency. But as mere puppets
they have no space to act.
There are indeed many initiatives
taken to get around this problem. The problem with those initiatives
is that most of them make the assumption that the state must take the
lead - or, as in many cases - that 'a particular state' must take the
lead. But this is doomed to fail, since nobody is going to willingly
cut the very branch he is sitting on.
A new wind is however blowing;
the Commons. A third force, supplementing but not replacing both the
public sector (based on the state) and the private sector (based on
capital) - where peer-to-peer collaboration is at the core - is picking
up speed. It may still take long before it can influence any other areas
than what by media is typically called 'culture' (music, film, computer-code,
etc), but some promising research is also being done in the political
arena. How will the w.w.w. affect what Jürgen Habermas called the
'public sphere? The reason why Habermas' public sphere was important
was that it identified the role of the people also beside their role
as an electorate. In other words, Habermas recognised that 'people'
have both the right and the desire to influence their elected politicians
also in between elections. That is democracy.
So is for instance the
small but progressive German university Leuphana University in Lueneburg
conducting a research project on principles of democratic representation,
titled: The Principle of Democratic Representation in a Globalising
World: A Gap in the Governance Literature? From these kind of projects
will hopefully - sooner rather than later - new and better models for
local vs global (often called glocal) governance emerge, by which the
kind of urgent issues the eminent article that this paper refers to
can be both better and more effectively addressed."
Thomas Olsen is Associate Rushmore Professor, Int'l Relations.Thailand.
via Club of Amsterdam
Blog Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Peter Cochrane:
We have no problem generating energy ecologically - all the technology
is available today. The big problem is storage! Wind farms and solar
power are rendered ecologically -ve by way of their huge material and
pollution costs v there poor utilisation rates. Sadly, Nuclear Power
is the only Eco Friendly technology we can deploy right now!
We need a huge R&D
investment on home, village, town, city scale energy storage systems
for those nations without the geography of mountains and 'rock' to exploit.
Random schemes and investments in fashionable / emotionally driven energy
projects will not solve this problem."
Peter Cochrane is CEO &
Chairman at Cochrane Associates Ltd . UK.
via LinkedIn The Futurist
Group
Philip Spies:
"Systems thinker the
late RL Ackoff often reacted to the need for futures thinking in the
following manner: "So much time is spent in worrying about the
future that the present is allowed to go to hell. Unless we correct
some of the world’s systemic deficiencies now, the future is condemned
to be as disappointing as the present."
Incessant technological
innovation and technology-based industrialisation shaped the world institutionally,
economically and culturally over 200 years: This process favoured the
(largely Western-style) industrial world and today 85 percent of global
wealth is owned by just 10 percent of the global population. Empoverished
people in less developed communities – and especially so in Sub-Saharan
Africa - seem to find themselves in a low level human development trap
of little progress pushing birth rates, pushing poverty, pushing death
rates. Thus, one part of the world is driven by greed while the other
part is depressed in need.
We need a different perspective
on the nature and role of human innovativeness. One that is less involved
with the artefact and more involved with human development. Innovation
is the transformation of a new idea or discovery into technology through
introducing, applying, and integrating it into common practice. The
outcome should be that people on both sides of the global divide can
progressively do more with the same effort, produce different outcomes
with the same artefacts and produce outcomes in new and novel ways."
Philip Spies is Primary
Consultant at Creative Futures, Cape
Town Area, South Africa
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Louie Helm: "I'm
not sure I understand the question fully, but I do think there's a non-negligible
chance we start to feel the pinch from lack of cheap oil production.
If food production, transportation, and other sectors become hyper-expensive
in a decade, I could see it seriously curtailing certain economic growth
curves and perhaps even slowing top-end tech growth.
But most worlds probably
never suffer a resource constraint like this before the dynamics of
the first powerful AGIs end up dominating the abundance/scarcity curve."
Louie Helm is Member of the Board at Humanity+, Deputy Director at the
Singularity Institute and Writer for the Singularity Hub, USA.
By Michael Akerib
For the Club of Amsterdam's Tenth Anniversary
To Alina, a fairy that escaped the destruction of the forest
"The beginning of the fourth millennium may see our society in
the same way that we, today, see the Forest of Broceliande. A symbol
of a past long dead. Where we see the imprint of mythology today, they
will see the remains of a dead civilization that centuries ago gave
birth to another world, one rich in technology.
The fountain of knowledge that we have created, inherited from the magic
fountain in the forest, has allowed scientists and engineers to imagine
solutions for humanity's problems. The flow of ideas out of this fountain
seems to have no end.
The forest of Broceliande passed into mythology as populations moved
through Europe; and we are witnessing again large migratory waves entering
the continent and altering the ways of life that had become ours; the
culture that our brains had invented.
We are also witnessing wave after wave of technological developments
that change our way of life and to which we have to adapt. They may
lead us to think differently of ourselves as a species and perhaps to
fashion a new being, a post-homo species.
Our world is becoming increasingly complex and changing with a velocity
unknown to us so far. Our sociological models are falling apart in what
appears to be increasingly arbitrary decisions.
This knowledge that we possess and on which the future will be built
must not be taught only to a Lady of the Lake, however beautiful and
tempting she may appear to us, for once she will be in possession of
the knowledge, the essence of our civilization will be entrapped, just
as the Lady of the Lake entrapped Merlin. Let us share the knowledge
and refrain from making it the tool of the power-hungry in their search
of hegemony.
Fairies and dragons still exist - they are alive in us as symbols of
our values in spite of the rationality that pervades in the environment
we have created for ourselves. We have pushed them to the margins of
our imagination, excluding them from our daily thoughts. Let us not
kill them. Let us not make our world another Forest of Broceliande -
a mythological space rendered empty of meaning as humanity and its values
have been altered beyond recognition.
Let us make fairies our muses as we progress towards a better future."
Michael Akerib is an Independent Higher Education Professional, Switzerland.
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic
Crisis
Geert Lovink: "The sustainability
crisis may be global, and so are fuel prices. But the economic-demographic
crisis in Amsterdam is not, and we can do something about it to turn
the tide. Amsterdam thrives on the collective and collaborative creative
energy of young people. This is not not hard to see. As a matter of
fact it is precisely this group that has been driven out of the city
over the past 15 years. Amsterdam is already suffering from the law
that forbids squatting. There is less and less cheap housing, with a
steady growing population students more and more people are forced to
commute in and out of the city. As a result there is less and less emotional
attachment, and investment, of young people in public places and infrastructures
in the city. Add the cultural budget cuts, empty office towers and the
high prices of real estate and rents and you will understand why more
and more youngsters will only reside here briefly and turn into non-detached
consumers of the urban environment. To reverse this situation a few
steps might be enough the reverse the situation. First and foremost,
as a former squatter, I would propose to lift the ban on squatting.
One Volkskrant building wasn't enough. True, there are a number of 'broedplaatsen'
but that's not enough, and too controlled anyway.
Stop raiding so-called
illegal techno parties. The almost 600 million euros turn-over of the
techno dance scene has come from somewhere. Is someone making sure that
today's teenagers can experiment? This is not just a matter of repressive
tolerance of weird ideas. It is about a fundamental right, in Amsterdam,
which has been taken away from us, to fool around. One way to get would
be to artificially lower real-estate prices and fight speculation and
unreasonable growth in that sector in any way possible. The best would
be to bring down prices to mid-nineties levels, corrected after inflation.
In this way we could, again, start to compete with Berlin (where prices
are now slowly but steadily start to go up). The other approach would
be to re-introduce modern public infrastructure and make sure that it
cannot be sold and privatized. The sales of the public cable system
in Amsterdam in the late nineties was a direct destruction of talent
(as was the closure of the pirate radio stations). A project like The
Digital City, unique in the world, was never understood by local politicians,
as were many smaller follow-up internet projects that were pioneered
in this city. Let's reverse this process! Say no to policing and repression
of the arts. Instead of merely defending old institutions this is call
to respect the founding of new spaces."
Geert Lovink is media theorist
and internet critic, professor at European Graduate School, research
professor ('lector' in Dutch) at Hogeschool van Amsterdam and founder,
director Institute of Network Cultures. The Netherlands.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Franz Nahrada: "I
would like to oppose Khannea Suntzus point, but not completely. No,
we can not sustain even the present population level with capitalist
and free marketacious methods.
But if we leave our imagination
free for just one moment and ask the question: how can woMan really
live light on the surface of the earth, without compromising the best
in technology and wisdom, there is one clear answer for me: humans must
by all means reconcile with the natural support system of the planet,
and must adopt paradigms that are in line with the very nature of these
support systems.
For me this means we have
a great chance to master the current crisis if we adopt the "paradigm
of the plant". If we manage to use all our knowledge to re-engineer
our local habitats into assimilating, digesting, breathing systems,
if we understand also that the proximity of man and natural resources,
food, forests, is equally important as the completion and engineeriung
of closed material cycles, if we turn our unsustainable cities into
veritable magaplants that work with the abundant energy of the sun,
we will master the challenge.
I have seen too many parts
to solve the puzzle to be entirely pessimistc about this: I have seen
trees that grow fast in hot climates and not just allow reforestation,
but also pioneer dedesertification. I like the bold approach of DESERTEC
and similar projects because there is a big mutual synergetic effect
between energy, water desalination, new ways to make desert land reusable,
communication and media.
If we finally understood
that the global cooperative effort of mankind to create liveable habitat
and tap into the only unlimited resource this planet has, into human
creativity, we might have an option beyond deploring the bad nature
of humans.
I advocate "Global
Villages", which means settlements which use global communication
to raise their level of autonomy by sharing the best in technology and
knowledge. That is radically opposed to a restrictive econoimy of information,
that so many people seem to advocate.
If you look at the successes
of movements like Open Source Ecology you see that we can decentralize
almost everything, even the production of the tools we need to create
a sustainable civilisation.
There can be an EXPONENTIAL
upward spiral of ingenuity of adopting the "paradigm of the plant"
and realizing a vision of the planet of a federation of millions of
decentralized villages, hundreds of thousands of local central towns,
thousands of independent regions.
You think its impossible?
Think Twice! The real power of the net is to connect us, to work together
across the borders of nations and cultures as one enlightened planetary
civilisation.
If we would focus on technologies
that help us harvest our local abundance, be it sun or biomass, water
or wind, and share the task to spread the paradigm of the plant, like
the Transition Movement has begun to do, we would not have to be affraid
of overpopulation. Of course, we would have to spend the same amount
of passion, energy, ingenuity and endurance that we spend for war and
destruction or warfare economy nowadays.
There are more and more
people gathering atround this paradigm and it is time it makes itself
heard."
Franz Nahrada is Futurist and Social Researcher, Director at GIVE -
Globally Integrated Village Environment and Owner, Hotel Karolinenhof,
Austria.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Peter Troxler: "Ever
since I have heard Hans Rosling's inspiring presentation at this year's
Open Knowledge Festival I am not so worried about overpopulation: chances
are that growth will stop at around 10bn. The problem we will be facing,
however, is that the Western world will account for 10 % of it, so it
is not a question how the rest of the world will catch up with us, but
how we adapt to being a minority."
Peter Troxler is Research Professor "Revolution in Manufacturing",
Hogeschool Rotterdam, The Netherlands and President, International FabLab
Association.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Mathijs van Zutphen:
"I am
not an optimist, and some of what Khannea Suntzu resonates with me.
The future is not bright, and that is a somewhat ironic conclusion for
someone who grew up in the nineteen eighties; the “no future”
decade. I see denial going on all around me, and certainly in our political
leadership. Denial, we all know, is a sure way to get into trouble…
and so we will.
Still, it is possible to
view this rampant denial with a sense of compassion, because for many
the alternative to denial is an uncontrollable panic.
So I anticipate more problems
rather then less in our immediate future, and in that sense I fully
agree with most of what has been said here. And allthough I cannot muster
up any optimism about anything, I do know what is an effective mindset
in dealing with crisis. And that is by lying to yourself a little…
deliberately so. The lie is the belief that what you yourself do is
making a difference, that you can actually contribute to change yourself.
We really don’t know
what the future will bring. Our computer models can extrapolate from
previous and current trends, but those are still approximations. Most
of the parameters we can measure and we feed into our smart systems
are not really as independent as we treat them. From systems theory
we have learned that things cohere, and systems are interdependent.
Change of a parameter in one system can invoke change in parameters
of other systems… and some of this influence may have catastrophic
consequences. Sometimes we call this the butterfly effect. But even
this is still relative. Catastrophic for whom? If you are a banker in
the world today none of what has recently happened is catastrophic,
in fact much of what has happened, certainly in terms of government
response, has been nothing short of an encouragement to ‘keep up
the good work’. So bankers, even though they continue with their
business as usual -- sucking cash out of the economy by transfering
risk to future generations – have just won.and keep winning. And
we ourselves mortgaged the last of our future.
As Hardy F. Schloer mentioned,
many parameters are moving towards extreme values. This is a sign of
systems going away from their equilibrium, and in far-outside-of-equilibrium
situations spontaneous order arises Ilya Prigogine taught us. But this
happens by means of bifurcation, determined but unpredictable events.
All that can be said about bifurcations is in the language of probability…
the only really advice is: be ready for surprising transformational
events, without any possible knowledge on the nature of such events
to come.
So then it’s just
a question of being in the now. Worrying about what you are doing right
now, and this focus is a good remedy against some of dismal and inescapable
facts about the world today. I salute all contributors!"
Mathijs van Zutphen is
Owner at Ad Valorum, the Netherlands.
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Kevin Carson:
"I'm
fairly optimistic about energy because, unlike a lot of doom theorists
in the tradition of Diamond's catabolic collapse paradigm -- I see the
demand for energy as being actually quite elastic, and I share Lovins'
and Hawken's positive view of all the low-hanging fruit out there. Peak
Oil (and everything else) will probably result in fuel prices of $12/gallon
or more within a decade, which means the potential of micromanufacturing
for radically shortening corporate supply and distribution chains will
be taken advantage of as a matter of necessity. When truckers start
abandoning their rigs on the shoulder and the GE and Westinghouse supply
chains break down, people will of necessity turn to the nearest garage
manufacturer with tabletop CNC tools to keep their appliances running.
And that goes triple for local truck farmers breaking ground to meet
the demand from people snatching produce off the table as fast as it
appears at the farmer's market. $500/month electric bills will be a
powerful catalyst for word of mouth from people who already know someone
with a passive solar cooling system. And so on, and so on.
When energy prices reach
a level high enough to overcome existing path dependencies, I think
we can expect a phase transition pretty quickly.
I'm especially optimistic
because I see almost zero chance of reducing CO2 emissions by political
means (although ex ante geoengineering projects are more credible).
OTOH Peak Oil (and Coal and Gas) estimates are generally isomorphic,
over the long term, with goals for reducing fossil fuel consumption."
Kevin Carson, Karl Hess
Chair in Social Theory, Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society,
USA
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Mathijs van Zutphen: "We are an urban
species, statistically so (with over half the people on the planet dwelling
in urban centers), and perhaps intrinsically so… perhaps that is
in the end a good thing. With human concentration in a few extensive
urban areas, much of the planet can perhaps be left to mother nature,
which will give her a chance to recover in many ways, provided of course
that we will be able to adopt a sustainable way of subtracting resources
from wild nature.
How to feed such population
centers? With food prices rising? Food production has been made dependent
on oil production. If we are already at the very limits of efficiency
in the systems for devivering basic living supplies to urban centers,
how can we deal with more population growth? How will we do agriculture
when the oil runs out?
Well… as usual, the
answer may come from completely unexpected directions. Local resourcefulness
has given rise to a whole family of initiatives that is rapidly spreading
across the planet and that can be summarized under the term: urban gardening.
Urban environments are already more safe for bee colonies than the countryside.
Cities provide more biodiversity and less toxic pesticides for these
useful insects. Food can be grown in cities, and it is. And to everyone’s
surprise, cities are turning out to be remarkably productive as centers
of agricultural production. As industry left the dying city of Detroit,
Michigan, it became an innovation center for urban food production.
More here: http://detroitagriculture.net
The battle against desertification
is being won, by some very simple ideas and practices, for example in
the Loess Plateau in China. As our knowledge about sustainability grows,
and finds more and more practical applications in both grassroots and
government backed projects, who knows to what degree these initiatives
will be an antidote to the forces of despair?
I am not an optimist… but as an innovator I have learned the lesson
of nescience. We don’t know what will happen. If we know anything
to be true it is: be prepared for surprise …"
Mathijs van Zutphen is
Owner at Ad Valorum, the Netherlands.
via LinkedIn SESTI - Weak
Signal Scanning
Ian Miles: "1
Solutions are for limited problems. For wicked problems we need responses,
and acceptance that these will not "solve" the problem, at
least not without leading to other and potentially equally serious problems.
2 Responses will typically involve change on many of the STEEPV / PESTLE
dimensions, but we should not fragment the different parts too much.
3 Maslow - which Maslow (he kept reformulating his theory), and why
Maslow rather than others in this area? Are not the megacrises heavily
in his security zone? And how come so few of these theories ave much
empirical verification?"
Ian Miles is Professor of
Technological Innovation and Social Change in the UK.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Esther Rudolph:
"Very interesting discussion! I think we all basically agree, that
we need "brainy" help by supercomputers and quick scientific
progress to solve the incredible and diverse challenges of the very
near future. However, I'm relatively optimistic that it's possible.
But what worries me the
most - and it seems to be a minor priority to a lot of people - is like
some already mentioned: The problem is "us". And we
don't seem to be willing to do something about that soon. Even though
it might ruin many of the possible problem-solutions we're going to
achieve in the next months and years. What we are doing is handing
out painkillers to someone, who permanently bumps his head against the
wall. Even if we manage to flee into space, make water, energy,
breathable air and new organs from poo, whatever (I know we can already
do this!), this might all be a waste, if we go on like this.
What we need to focus on
as well as on science and technology is education, including a bright
focus on ethics and values. (We have the basics, but we allow politicians
and managers to break them.) Our value systems all over the world are
borked right now. We favor psychopaths. Biopunks turn themselves into
psychopaths. Forbes features the leaders of N*stle and Mons*nto (to
stay at least a bit on topic) as heroes. Enemies of science candidate
as president of the US.
We have to solve this problem
at the same time as we´re moving forward with science and technology.
Some of you already mentioned the need to come to a (basic!) global
consensus on values and goals. Journalism and even initiatives like
this brainstorm are great moves. But I feel like we still don't do enough
about that. Probably because it seems so "utopian"?
Fact is that it's possible. Some options aren't ethical (e.g. using
Neuroscience or reverse methods as the biopunk-psychopath-way). Others
are drastic and destructive, like a global revolution. But to be true:
Is there another escape?
We need a plan for a peaceful
global revolution. I'm sorry that I can't come up with a detailed, concrete,
constructive idea (I have some, but I don't want this post to explode),
but I'm sure we could find one, if we don't treat this topic as a lower
priority behind all the scientific and technologic progress. It's one
thing without the other. They fuel each other, and maybe we underestimate
their synergy.
Long post, short message:
We lack some basics, and that's why we can only find short term solutions
regarding food, water and enviroment. Again, I'm pretty sure that we
will solve these problems. But just to face them again in different
clothes.
The human species is about
to transform itself, and besides all the huge challenges we have a big
and probably unique chance here..."
Esther Rudolph is Editor, Content Creator, Author in Austria.
Helena Vorosova:
"I think - one should be aware of their capabilities and skills
in the context of harmony with nature. It should change the attitude
and the changes his thinking and actions as well - creating a fight
- this does not address the situation of the global crisis. I believe
that together we can."
Helena Vorosova
is a visionary entrepreneur
in the Slovak Republic.
via LinkedIn Scenario,
Future & Strategy Group
Daniel Menges: "In
light of current global trends and (current and future) risks, I think
it is also important for us, as a global society, as nations and voters,
to also look at what decisions we are making, what the likely impacts
of that will be and whether that is the path that we want to be taking."
Daniel Menges, Research,
Insights, Communications, Strategy, Consulting & Facilitation, Australia
Mitch Gold: "Having
been invited, I will share some immediate thoughts. As a backgrounder,
I would like you to know that I followed the work of Aurelio Pecci in
the developing of the Club of Rome, and later Ervin Laszlo on the development
of the Club of Budapest. Myself I participated in the Toronto Futures
organization, and stayed on the fringe of most of the discussions over
the years - having participated in the larger discussion by presenting
a Paper at the Inaugural meeting of the Foundation for a Culture of
Peace in Madrid on the invitation of Federico Mayor Zarragozza. My paper
outlined a program for social change that your current discussion is
addressing. More talk seems to be the order of the day.
In my presentations I developed
an integrated strategy that would challenge the challenges.
Unfortunately, the main problem that persists today is that no matter
what we point out as solutions - the logic base used by those analyzing
the problems is not developed sufficiently to propel a solution forward.
I believe Einstein said it best -"We can't solve problems by using
the same kind of thinking we used when we created them".
Ergo much of our brainstorming activity is seen as a regurgitation of
the past thirty years of discussion - while what we really need is to
put into practice an operational program that has the capacity to change
thinking patterns.
I believe that our homeplanet virtual university has that capacity -
and I believe that your team's exploring our constructs will put into
place the potential outcomes that we are desirous of.
In short: http://www.homeplanet.org/hvu/missionvision.html
I trust that we might explore some steps on integrating our work using
technology as our servant.
Looking forward to a chat."
Mitchell L. Gold is architect of homeplanet
virtual university. Canada.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Environment
Elisabet Sahtouris:
"In the post below (by Khannea Suntzu) I read that only a narrow
strip of Netherlands along the German border will be above water before
very long. Let us take that single outcome and THINK about what it means
for an entire nation in the midst of the 'developed' world. The dykes
cannot be built high enough to stop this from happening...it is too
late for anything but adaptation. Make friends of a past colony and
move to Indonesian high ground? Let the rest of Europe absorb the refugees
amidst their own problems? Let's get more practical in this dialogue!!!!
Interesting to suddenly
see a huge preparedness effort on the US East Coast when storms happen
to converge on seats of power after all their denials, but I would caution
against our seeing such storms, which will undoubtedly be ever stronger
and more frequent as some kind of revenge /retribution on Nature's part..
Yes, Earth must work to regain her balance as our predations affect
her adversely, but it is not a counterattack aimed at us. Let us simply
take it as the inevitable consequence of our own inexcusable shortsightedness
and lack of respect for Earth as the source of all our bountiful opportunity
for wellbeing, which persists despite the storms. It would surely benefit
us to get over denial and begin rapid adaptation!"
Elisabet Sahtouris is a
Greek-American evolutionary biologist, futurist, business consultant,
event organizer and UN consultant on indigenous peoples. Spain.
Paul Holister:
"I despair,
though I didn't always. The developed world sits on a knife-edge of
fossil fuel dependence that, with an overthrow here or a war there,
could mortally wound the 'advanced' societies we cherish. We've done
very little to mitigate that glaring vulnerability, but that isn't why
I despair.
When The Limits to Growth was published in the mid-70s, I was a teenager
bursting with "can-do" optimism and a naïve faith in
my species, so the news that mankind faced "overshoot and collapse"
if we didn't change our ways didn't faze me much. (I never doubted for
a moment, unlike some, that the dangers the modeling highlighted were
real - you might argue about timing but it was pretty obvious that we
couldn't grow and pollute forever on a finite planet.)
After all, the century had already seen so many advances towards societies
that respected human rights and the environment, and a growing green
movement gave hope that we could adapt and thus conquer problems for
which solutions were already becoming clear: population growth would
automatically drop when education and security were improved; resource
issues, especially energy, were surely manageable if we applied ourselves;
the dangers of global warming (yes, we were already talking about it
that long ago) and depletion of the ozone layer should present no insurmountable
challenges to dedicated societies. After all, the model, if correct,
showed that collapse could be averted.
I not only thought we would overcome these challenges, I dreamed of
a future in which people were freed from drudgery (or some of it, at
least) through automation, giving us more time to enrich our minds and,
hell, simply enjoy life.
What actually happened was:
- the green
movement never gained serious traction, and international movements
to stem global warming have become farcical;
- we have
continued to rape the third world for short-term gain (and thus not
changed the pressures that affect population growth) and rich investors
buy and lock up food to make a buck while people starve;
- we have
continued to rape our planet and destroy its diverse and wonderful
ecosystems;
- dependence
on fossil fuels has hardly improved in most countries and the powers
that be don't seem to give a damn;
- the model
used in Limits to Growth has been revalidated and re-run and indicates
that it is now too late to avoid collapse;
- automation
has indeed led to reductions in the need for human labour but instead
of giving people more time it has taken their jobs and wealth away
and put the money saved in the pockets of the owners of the corporations
(while yet more jobs are outsourced to countries where workers are
cheaper because they have not won the rights so cherished in the west);
- the intervening
period has seen the domination of a pernicious meme, a particular
brand of free-market economics that has thrived in the fertile ground
of corporate culture and the corporate-owned media and that has done
much to bring about the previously listed horrors and embarrassments
as well as increasing the gap between the rich and the poor, reversing
a trend of previous decades.
I am, of course,
still concerned that we sit on a knife-edge of fossil fuel dependence.
Just imagine, to take one example, the overthrow of the Saudi government
and the loss of over 10% of the world's oil production. Suppose that
the ensuing scramble for oil led to wars and a loss of even more? What
would happen to our 'developed' societies when deprived of that oil,
which powers the tractors that are needed to feed us and the trains
and trucks that take coal from pit to power station?
It's a frightening vision that could become reality any day. But if
we are lucky then pure economics will eventually come to the rescue
as renewable energy becomes cheaper (photovoltaic prices are plummeting
and PV is now outcompeting diesel as the off-grid energy source of choice
in rural India, which will lead to economies of scale that will sustain
the price drop) and fossil fuels become 'harder' (to extract) and more
expensive (google Michael Klare for excellent commentary on this).
Might this come in time to avert the potential disaster of a sudden
drop in oil production? Maybe. Will it come in time to prevent serious
global warming? Almost certainly not, especially given the influence
of the fossil fuel industry over governments. And we're probably past
the point of no return anyway.
But if our luck holds, we will eventually not have to worry about energy
any more - the energy hitting the Earth from the sun every second is
around 120,000 terajoules, approximately 10,000 times global consumption.
Geothermal also offers a practically endless supply of energy. So it's
not as if the energy isn't there, though it's a sobering thought that
the fossil fuels on our planet represent solar energy that has been
stored up over hundreds of millions of years, and we've probably used
up the easy half already, in just a couple of hundred years, which is
like saving money for a lifetime then blowing it all in a 30-minute
fit of shopping madness.
So why do I despair rather than just worry?
Well, not only is far too little being done to combat global warming,
which could be far more devastating than the 'standard' predictions
(which are devastating enough), but some countries, like the US are
going backwards - if Romney wins the next election they will have a
party in power in which is it essentially forbidden to accept that the
problem exists. Population is still growing fast - from 6 to 7 billion
in the last 13 years (and from 4 billion in 1973), despite food crises
(with possibly the biggest yet coming within months); food production
is hitting limits, and is likely to decline through global warming and
aquifers running dry globally (another ancient resource being blown
in the blink of an eye); nuclear weapons are proliferating while the
countries holding them often get more extreme; mass destruction through
biowarfare is becoming easier by the day; the ludicrous idea of unlimited
growth still forms the core of our economics and the world can be thrown
into a recession by a bunch of irresponsible bankers who get away with
it while their chums encourage austerity measures to suck even more
money from the poorer levels of society (and, astonishingly, the general
public in most countries belief this to be necessary).
But what really makes me despair, what saddens me to the core, is that
the challenges raised by The Limits to Growth, and many others, some
mentioned here, have been tests of whether our species is fit to exercise
such power over the planet, whether we can be sufficiently social on
a large enough scale to collectively care for our future and that of
our children. But we have chosen to give in to mindless short-term greed,
or allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by the ruthless rich, and let our
freedoms erode and our humanity evaporate while we trash the planet.
We have failed these tests of responsibility dismally. We have proved
ourselves to be a race of gluttons and gullible fools. Even if we get
lucky and save ourselves from the catastrophic consequences of our own
idiocy, we'll still be the same pathetic, destructive hooligans.
I have seen estimates that the impact of global warning, about which
we are doing so little, will reduce the carrying capacity of the Earth
to 2 billion people, a die-off of 5 billion people, or worse. James
Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia concept, suggested in an interview
a while ago that you could look at such a die-off as a natural turn
of events - nothing to get upset about. Things die, species go extinct.
Why should we have any right to expect anything different for ourselves?
We're just another species on this planet, but far more destructive
than any other. If ever a species 'deserved' to go extinct, it's us.
Such an impersonal perspective on our future is hard for a normal caring
person to maintain, and yet in many ways it feels exquisitely fair and
just.
So do I advocate just giving up and enjoying the party while it lasts?
I cannot since I have a very personal vested interest in the future
- I have children. Giving up hope is not an option.
I was probably expected, when invited to contribute some thoughts, to
use this space to write mainly about the current and future impact of
nanotechnology on the energy situation. But what I chose to focus on
is far, far more important and I cannot think of a better forum than
the 10-year anniversary of an organisation dedicated to looking at the
future to voice my profound concerns about our own future and maybe
allow myself hope that I might form part of a rallying cry that might
somehow turn this nightmare around."
Paul Holister is consultant,
designer, writer, in ICT, emerging technologies, and scientific publishing
in the Netherlands.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Arjen Kamphuis:
"I think energy is our most acute problem. However: all of the
problems in this series are, of course, all interlinked. I agree with
Khannea's and Hardy's analysis that there are no easy fixes for these
and the time for painless 'solutions' is a long time past.
Energy (especially liquid
fossil fuel) shortages are one of the main triggers for the current
economic/financial crisis. Economies cannot grow when oil prices hover
above $120/barrel. Above $145 they implode. This is especially true
for economies that are heavily leveraged financially as most western
economies are today. Lot's of loans based on future industrial production
that may very well never exist because there are not enough cheaply
exploitable natural resources.
Food production is directly
impacted by fossil fuel shortages because it is the primary energy input
for modern agriculture. The 'green revolution' that allows the world
to produce enough food for 7 billion people should be called the black
revolution because of all the oil and natural gas that goes into running
tractors and making artificial fertilizer. Without these energy inputs
the natural ability of the earth to make food will only sustain about
1 billion people (the situation before 1880 and before we started using
large scale mechanized agriculture).
Turning the problem on
its head one could also argue that we don't have to few natural resources
but too many people consuming those resources at an unsustainable rate.
The problem with this viewpoint is that it implies the solution is to
lower the global population by 6 billion people within a generation.
That way we preserve enough resources for the remaining 1 billion to
live in balance with the natural carrying capacity of the planet. But
who wants to contemplate ways of getting rid of 6 billion people within
20 years without resorting to measures that will make Stalin and Genghis
Kahn look like amateurs? It would require the equivalent of WW2 in deaths
every 2-3 months for 20 years to make those numbers work.
The one thing we all need
to do in thinking about the future is to be willing to significantly
lower our expectations of wealth, comfort and healthy life expectancy.
Any plans we make with regard to the future must work within limits
set by physical reality and thus are limited by things like the laws
of thermo-dynamics. Everything requires energy and generating that energy
requires machinery and systems that require more energy to build and
maintain.
Not having access to unlimited
amounts of fossil fuel energy will mean a much lower standard of living
for fewer people. There are no easy or quick techno-fixes that will
completely solve this problem (the numbers for 'green' energy sources
just don't work within economic limits). Any acceleration in switching
to more sustainable energy sources and less energy-intensive methods
for food production/distribution will lessen the impact of these problems
somewhat. When discussing these methods we need to make sure the numbers
of actual saving are significant as not to lose ourselves in merely
symbolic actions (such as driving a Prius 25 Km's to a market to buy
organic kiwi's from New Zealand)."
Arjen Kamphuis is Futurist, Co-founder, CTO, Gendo, The Netherlands
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic
Crisis
Jimmy Walter: "The
factories and buildings are running at less than 75% capacity. We have
the intellectual, engineering, structural, and spatial capacity to supply
everyone with everything - and more. The problem is the system - specifically,
the banking/money system. We have unfunded demand - the people want
to buy, the producers want to produce, the space is available.
Some form of Social Credit
is the answer - that means giving money to producers to produce and
then to the people to buy their products.
Here are some comments,
not my own, to further explain it. I must admit that I am new to the
concept and it is the object of my next effort. But here is an introduction.
Search for "Social Credit", Greenbacks, and Major Douglas"
http://www.union-ch.com/file/Speeches_and_workshops_of_the_03_04_.pdf
Jimmy Walter is founder
and president of Walden Three, USA
via Jimmy Walter
Fair Money Plan for Ireland by Cathal Spelman
This is an outline of what
we could do, right now, to create economic Democracy and Prosperity
for us and our children.
1. A New National Currency
for Ireland.
National Credit office
to be set up to create a new currency, along lines of the Guernsey
pound. to circulate at parity with Euro, and parallel with the Euro.
It can be called Irish Shares, as it represents a token of each individual's
share in our national wealth.
It can be done,
Guernsey has two currencies, and Switzerland has two currencies.
Alternatively we
may break entirely from the Euro, and use our strong exports to Euro
zone to fund imports of important necessities like food and oil.
2. Immediate acceptance
of new currency...
Govt. to accept the new
currency in payment of tax obligations.
If you can use
it to pay your taxes, it will immediately be widely accepted.
3. Distribution of new
currency: You get the cash to spend, debt free, interest free!
National dividend cheque
to be issued to each and every household to stimulate Irish economy.
Dividends to be guaged to national productivity by a national credit
office that calculates the productive share per person and issues
dividends accordingly.
This is not social
welfare. Although it will make most social welfare un-necessary.
Your monthly dividend
is your share in the productive capacity of Ireland.
By spending this
money as you see fit, you provide the money needed to buy the products
and services on offer. Your spending lifts the economy.
We avoid the deflationary
disaster we are in right now.
Inflation is also
avoided by issuing sufficient, but not excessive dividend cheque amounts.
4. Irish Shares to be legal
tender for all retail and services.
There may need to be
some initial adjustment to cover retailers for imported products bought
in Euros. Bear in mind that Euros will still circulate, so every business
will also take in Euros to cover Euro bills.
Essentially Ireland
needs Euros for imports. Especially food and oil. However, Ireland
exports a lot of products to the Eurozone, so there is already plenty
of Euros coming in to cover our imports, and this will continue.
5. End all government borrowing.
End all government debt
and bank bailout payments immediately, pending re-negotiation.
Governments should
never borrow, especially not from private banks charging interest.
Government spending
to be balanced against tax receipts.
Government must
spend what it takes in, and no more.
During transition
Government may borrow from National Credit office. (Emergency cover
only).
In general, National
credit goes to households, not to a bloated government sector.
6. Re-negotiate all previous
give-aways of natural resources, with proper reward to the nation along
the Norwegian model.
If you want to take oil
from Norway, you have to give the Norwegian people 50% of the profit.
If you want to
take oil and gas from the vast untapped fields off the coast of Ireland,
the stupid Paddies will just give it to you.
How long are we
going to be so stupid.
If we are getting
nothing for it, we may as well leave it in the ground, until someone
is prepared to pay for it.
The current contracts
are a fraud against us. Fraud nullifies all contracts.
7. Dealing with EU and
IMF scare tactics...
EU and IMF pressure to
be avoided by making new currency available thus avoiding the "no
money in the atm" scare tactics.
From the very beginning
in 2008 the empty ATMs picture has been used to control us with fear.
By having our own
currency in the ATMs, and a cheque delivered to every household, we
can stare down the EU and IMF.
8. Mortgage solution.
All mortgages to be repaid
on a principal only basis, pending full re-negotiation of the household
debt crisis.
Fraud nullifies
all contracts.
Debt based monetary
systems, where interest is owed, but does not exist, are actually
a fraud.
How can you owe
something that does not exist?
Remember, we own
most of our banks.
We can instruct
our banks to repay their debts on a principal only basis.
The international
banks may retaliate by with-holding future loans, but we don’t
need those anyway.
9. National Debt Solution.
Ireland's National Debt
has arisen due to a fraudulent financial kleptocracy (Rule by thieves).
Fraud nullifies all contracts. We do not owe a debt that arises from
fraud. Ireland's National Debt is to be put on hold. No interest to
be paid whatsoever. Non-existent money cannot be repaid! The principal
amount can be dealt with by negotiation.
10 Direct Democracy to
ensure implementation.
Direct Democracy frees
us from the sham democracy of party politics.
Meaningful local
elections.
Citizen initiative
on referenda.
You get to influence
policy.
Do you want to
be a no-body in a European Superstate, or a somebody in an Independent
and Sovereign Ireland.
11. How Long does it take?
With sufficient public
support, the above measures could be implemented within a few months.
It is a matter
of printing and distributing currency, and stopping the payment of
fraudulent debts and interest charges.
However, public
support is currently missing, due to X-factor. The public are ignoring
the problem, hoping it will go away. Thus they are giving up their
only advantage, which is numbers. The Kleptocrats (Ruling thieves)
have control over finance, politics, international institutions, and
media corporations.
The only thing
they fear is that the general people wake up to the fact that they
are being robbed, and that the general people stand up and say “no
more”.
However, it is
up to each and every person to do so.
Cathal Spelman, Owner,
www.realhealthylifestyle.com, Ireland
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
"Lee on Engineering":
"Though it may seems that developed nations are the key to reducing
global warming, the biggest threat we face in the future is the continuing
use of fossil fuels for energy by developing nations, as there are billions
of people living on the margins who have no alternative but to slash
and burn for farming land, burning wood and coal for cooking and heat,
and increased use of oil for transportation.
The problems are environmental, economic, and political, but finding
a political solution will not happen. What we need is a realization
that those billions of people need an alternative to their way of life
which makes environmental and economic sense to them.
I propose a effort to create very inexpensive methods of generating
A.C. electricity ( pennies per watt) that can be used by individuals,
but also attached or linked to other source (such as neighbors or a
local grid). To make this solution a real and on-going effort it has
to be profitable for the supplier and have high value to the user. By
making electricity a communal and scalable commodity which is affordable
you reap the benefits:
1. Very small microgrids
can be established in villages for local benefit such as operating
small tools such as sewing machines and small manufacturing shops.
It also allows for small scale irrigation which should increase the
disposable income which can be used to expand their energy grid for
greater benefit (think self sufficiency). Also, pumping drink water
from rivers or well which is then purified by electricity generated
ozone would make a dramatic difference in disease prevention.
2. Microgrids could grow to include macrogrids, even linked up to
their national grid eventually. If the technology is frequency and
voltage variation tolerant, then reliable electricity could be the
marriage of solar, wind, heat pump generated power, and even occasional
use of integrated fossil fuel generated power.
This then begins to look
like a technical problem which is much easier to solve than a political
one. The key will be technical and economic motivation, but very doable."
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Environment
Bill Liao: "Holistic
solutions are required that also make economic sense.
www.weforest.org
endeavors to achieve this thorough the selling of virtual tress that
result int he planting of permanent sustainable real forests."
Bill Liao, European
Venture Partner, Founder WeForest.org and Co-Founder XING AG, USA
In response to the posting
by Bernard Verlaan: "Since a few years I'm organising a
(public) database of researchers' expectations for 2020, 2030 etc. My
latest and very recent insight is that it might be sensible to order
the ± 80 topics of problems-opportunities to the different levels
of Maslov's hierarchy of (human) needs; as an overarching classification.
Is that the broad-based overarching approaches you have in mind for
integral problem solving or anyway useful?"
Hardy F. Schloer:
"Maslov's hierarchy of human needs is a theory in psychology and
human values. Ultimately it is a theory of human perception. Perception
however is mostly created and occupied by modern tools of ‘perception-engineering’
such as political campaigning, marketing, advertising and well funded
special interest groups that are all vying to define the needs and wants
we are supposed to have. And let us not forget religion, which also
shapes and influences the minds and behaviors of us individually, and
our communities for desired outcomes. Religion, arguably of human creation,
is the most ancient tool that has been wielded to dominate human values
since the dawn of civilization.
Within this context, I
am afraid that the exclusive application of Maslov’s filter is
an approach that poses a no win situation in terms of solving real physical
human conditions within the context of the problems discussed here.
The global perception-engineering machine is powerful; funded and controlled
by an elite few. Its output is ridden with conflicting messages that
leave people with no choice but to assimilate the illogical disparities,
and often hypocrisy. No conspiracy theories here. This is just the way
the system works; all by itself; this is what we have, for better or
worse. It’s our evolution of human behavior and values.
There is a huge difference
between the way Maslov intends to improve the world through better values
and the brutal way reality has manifested itself.
Let me explain it by example:
A few years ago, I had
a discussion with an American lawyer about human rights. He argued in
a sort of sarcastic way, that a human life is totally worthless. He
said: “any high school dropout can make a baby, but how hard is
it to make for example a million dollars? Making money is hard; making
‘life’ is easy. Therefore, money has a much higher value in
our society than life. Money buys the right to live; poverty, the necessity
to die.
This conversation took
place some 35 years ago. Today this is much more the reality than at
that time.
Now, let's get to the discussion
about overpopulation. From biblical times until about 400 or 500 years
ago, we welcomed many children per household as an important contribution
to our sustainability, and the continuation of our tribes. Children
were a welcomed gift to expand our ability to work and create in the
most prolific ways as a group. Labor forces and security (soldiers)
needed humans to compete with other tribes, families or societies for
strength and survival. But then things changed. The age of technological
industrialization arrived. Technology has made humans increasingly unnecessary
in nearly all aspects of practical life. This trend is exponential.
Here, traditional values and seemingly moral obligations dictate one
set of behaviors – but in the praxis of the modern technological
advanced world, it dictates another. Humans began to interact less with
each other, and more with the system. We began to read about humans
more in newspapers, or see them on television, more than actually talking
to them. We began an age of synthetic social interaction, disconnecting
from each other little by little.
The advent of the Internet
has further eroded the human-to-human contact in the service industry,
where most of our former services that were once carried out through
human interaction now become intelligent web applications. We have become
used to the fact, that technology serves us anonymously, and without
any human contact.
Nevertheless, these new
technologies were never defined or aimed to serve humanity, but only
to make money, and fast. Technology therefore, as it is currently defined,
is competing with the need of human existence. In an environment where
we need or want less and less contact with humans, and where we become
more and more weighed down by the existence of too many humans on this
planet, the pressing question stands unanswered in the room: How do
we get rid of the superfluous mass of human life on the planet, the
large population that uses up all the resources, and brings no advantage
otherwise?
We have totally flipped
in our deep feelings about humanity. We begin to dislike humans, and
love all synthetic reinventions of human contact such as Facebook, or
an explosively rising number of ‘social and dating sites’
across the Internet, where we pretend to socialize endlessly with others,
but without ever having to have actual contact with them in reality.
We seem to reject with the very concept of humanity. America invented
the ‘zero-tolerance-justice’, a fast spreading concept now,
and probably we will soon demand death penalties even for minor offences
such as ‘spitting on the sidewalk’.
The dawn of the technological
age has brought a serious competition to human life in a most profound
way. Technology will advance further, and faster. Humans will not; at
least not at the speed of the machines we are now capable of building.
When the Russian grand master in chess lost against the Big Blue Supercomputer
of IBM a few years ago, a incredible realization did set in: the last
domain, ‘human reasoning’, had been taken away from humanity
by the evolution of the intelligent machine. This feast of technology
by IBM was some time ago. Today we, the global community are building
machines that are 1000s of times smarter and more observant than that,
winning chess games against the human experts. Whoever followed the
Watson project last year, when it competed in the game show 'Jeopardy',
knows now that the machine has already become smarter in a rational
sense, than any human we can produce naturally. It’s a fact. No
need for discussion here.
All this has not only been
disenchanting to humans, but it has actually exposed brutally their
weaknesses and made us understand that we can soon produce everything
and anything without the need for human labor or human thinking, or
the so-called human touch. Machines will soon produce themselves. In
20 to 30 years we will be able to build robots that can do completely
everything humans can do, and better. They are doing it already now.
Humans become obsolete
in terms of a necessity to maintain the flow of our world. Maybe we
will soon watch the Olympics of Robots. It will probably be more entertaining.
We already retreated to the world of video games. In fact, conducting
war is becoming now the ultimate video game, where human operators of
tanks and planes will sit in bunkers, 1000s of miles away from the war
zone to direct remote-controlled machines to do the killing for us,
and sending us the real-time camera feed for good entertainment value,
broadcast by CNN into every livingroom TV on the planet (remember the
Gulf War?). We become disconnected from the action, from the killing,
from humanity, from ethical conduct, from everything that could save
us.
Humans are viewed as no
longer active contributors to the system but mass consuming and resource
destroying burdens to the system. Given the fact that there will be
potentially 4 to 6 billion more people on the planet in 15 to 20 years
from now, we will have absolutely no reason to worship human existence
anymore. Instead we will only be thinking in terms of how to get rid
of as much human life as possible, without includeding ourselves as
part of the group that will be eliminated. We will hate everybody; we
will embrace human-reducing global conflict as necassery and welcome
relief. 'Too many rats in the box'.
This is not bad science
fiction. This is reality, regardless if you are for it, or against it.
This is where we are headed. This needs to be understood, and soon.
As technology advances, and it will, we will think of how to make increasing
portions of our human population disappear, and soon.
But there is an alternative!
There is a solution to this nightmarish scenario.
We must look at technology
as a solution to help us, humanity, to go on. We must first of all look
at all technology collectively, and as a tool of sustainable community
development, not as a tool for the few to rule the planet for personal
or corporate gains. We must begin to instruct technology to serve the
large human ‘family’ that has accumulated on this planet,
and promote peace, sustainability, responsible resource management across
all humanity in a fair approach, and therefore bring dignity for all.
And yes, we also need to solve the problem of overpopulation in terms
of birth-rate management, and to begin to attack the problem from both
sides. The 'no condom, no abortion' policy of some segments of our society
will need some reevaluation soon, in fact, it's long overdue.
It is about 1 minute before
12. Currently we are totally fed up with humans. We live in an age of
artificial resource and money scarcity. Scarcity is good business, and
that’s why it will drive humanity further into global conflict,
and potentially reduce the overpopulation problem in this unethical
way. Global conflict is also good business. We have not much time to
decide which road to take: profit and death, or life and sustainability.
We must choose to solve
the human overpopulation problems, redirect technology away from putting
the needs and wants of big business before that of humans collectively.
Technology must focus on serving humanity collectively first. Technology
must be applied to sustain and manage our global resources intelligently
and equitably. The same machine intelligence we use today to decide
stock trades, or map out how we can win war, can also be harnessed to
find solutions to our collective human existence. We must partner with
these machines, not compete with them, or humans will only lose.
Knowing the decisions humans
are most likely to make, I am afraid the answer is pro-conflict. However,
if we harness these intelligent machines to find a path to real and
intelligent sustainability, then we can all exist in peace and dignity.
And then, once again, we can begin to value each other’s company.
One fact is clear: we soon
begin to interface with the overpopulation problem; one way or another,
conflict or intelligence, the decision time is now."
Hardy F. Schloer, President and CEO, Schloer Consulting Group - SCG
via LinkedIn SESTI - Weak
Signal Scanning
Bernard Verlaan: "Since
a few years I'm organising a (public) database of researchers' expectations
for 2020, 2030 etc. My latest and very recent insight is that it might
be sensible to order the ± 80 topics of problems-opportunities
to the different levels of Maslov's hierarchy of (human) needs; as an
overarching classification. Is that the broad-based overarching approaches
you have in mind for integral problem solving or anyway useful?"
Bernard Verlaan is Senior Research & Policy Adviser at Ministry
of Education, Culture and Science, The Netherlands
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Andrei Kotov: "Interestingly,
the topics of the Public Brainstorms are connected through the overarching
narrative of the food-water-energy nexus problem cluster. As the ecosystem
is coming under strain, sustainability is increasingly becoming recognized
as non-optional. It's about time, too - the very definition of insanity
is to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result.
The way forward? Quite
agree with Hardy Schloer, in that we need broad-based overarching approaches
to problem solving if we are to minimize unintended consequences.
Einstein is believed to have said that major problems cannot be solved
from the mindset in which they were created. Fortunately, the boat of
innovation is being lifted by the rising tide of progress. Increasing
deployment of such innovation tools as supercomputers and crowdsourcing
holds promise.
We are facing no small
array of challenges - however as the saying goes, necessity is the mother
of invention. There are clouds gathering on the horizon, that much is
true. Let's hope this cloud has a silver lining."
Andrei Kotov is Commercial
Adviser Global LNG, Shell Upstream International, The Netherlands
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Environment
Markus Petz: "Environment
is more than just climate change. It is also more than just the living
things, it is also the rocks and the clouds. Maybe if you follow Lovelock's
Gaia then it is one giant living biodsphere of all these.
Climate change is not a
sure thing, the sun may put out less energy and we might get cooling.
It is not impossible to get another little ice age.
But lets assume that we
are warmed, what is the result? Is it as dystopian as in A Friend of
the Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Friend_of_the_Earth
I fear so. So what to do?
Take on a survivalist mentatality? Be a Cassandra? Or engage in eco-motivated-defensive
violent action?
Well to some extent all
these are happening, as a personal strategy I look at things that can
mitigate climatic effects on me and us as I think it's too big for most
people to understand and do something about. Although there are others
that are doing things:
http://www.onehundredmonths.org/
And that strategy has to
be tried as well."
Markus Petz is Head of Special Projects & Development at Experience
Alternative Tampere, Finland
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic
Crisis
Markus Petz: "Hmn
I wrote a long comment and then the machine logged me off so in brief.
Europe has 0.5% natural
land. The population still growths. So Malthus was correct, except technology
can move the destruction from human populations to animal and plant
communities.
You can see more with these
links:
http://populationmatters.org/attenborough-talk/
http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/
these show that life has
got worse since the 1970s.
But may be there is hope
by moving to a p2p paradigm and cooperative working, thus bringing in
externalites and reducing the damage.
I also think population
has a chance of stabilizing as per this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2718330/
Markus Petz is Head of
Special Projects & Development at Experience Alternative Tampere,
Finland
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
"constab": "The
world has always been in some kind of crisis because humans experience
something that is not in line with their expectations as a crisis. When
we look at the big picture we see that Nature takes its course and this
course is very predictable. The big problem with humanity is that people
don't believe the predictors of bad times. At the moment that we could
adjust we don't want to adjust because we love to enjoy the very (!!)
good times and sadly enough it can be predicted that the very (!!) good
times create the crisis. To prevent this to happen the Wise people introduced
the Seven Virtues but the people that enjoy life at the top don't like
virtues. They always fight something that is restricting their expansive
behavior and virtues only intensify their feeling that they have to
break the limits when they are alive. Expansion and not-Expansion (Compression)
are part of the essential pattern of our Universe. What goes Up must
come Down, Spinning Wheel all the way round. Don't worry Nature takes
care of itself and is now stopping everything that was tooo expansive.
Do we have to do something ourselves?? Yes, don't compress toooooooo
much. If you do that the recession will take tooooooo long."
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Markus Petz: "Is energy a problem? We have a society geared
around oil. Our food, our transport and culture is very dependent on
this.
There are alterantives
and we might jump over some bottle necks (population, climate) with
them? But is there enough time to roll out water, wind and sun power
generation? To decommision all the nuclear powers stations?
It is a political question
- one that China, most of all must face. It is China that is opening
a coal fired powerstation almost weekly
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/coal-fired-power-heats-up-in-china/story-e6frg9df-1111115813288
and although the Australian
tries to put a shine on this, added to South African and Indian demands
it is not looking good.
With nuclear, perhaps the
biggest risk is if we had an EMP from the Sun and all the powerstations
went critical. It could happen tomorrow. If we had another big solar
flare like in 1859.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
Markus Petz is Head of Special Projects & Development at Experience
Alternative Tampere, Finland
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic
Crisis
Ray Podder: "We
have solved the production automation problem a long time ago.
1/3 of all the food produced
in the world is either destroyed or wasted to maintain prices, renewable
energy innovations that are too cheap to meter are systematically suppressed,
water shortages are promoted as an impending crisis while we consume
bottled water and mass produced meat wasting trillions of gallons, not
to mention the 9billion gallons of it poisoned everyday from activities
like fracking! Why?
It seems that we are still
promoting production and consumption efficiencies as the way forward
when we have never solved for the distribution problem with the same
diligence.
The mass cultivation of
greed and envy to drive consumption misses the point entirely. So does
the socialist view of redistributing poverty. Greed and charity are
at conceptual odds and politicians leverage these odds to keep an inefficient
system in place that by its design perpetuates division and disparity.
There is no escape unless
we transcend this scarcity based paradigm of supply and demand.
The activity on the networked
spaces have been giving us clues since the introduction of "free"
software, which untethered the assumption that capital is a factor of
the cost of labor, but we still ignore it and try to fit the so called
"non-market" activity into the valuation game. The co-creative,
collaborative sharing economy crowdsourcing everything is a larger clue.
Please don't ignore this one!
The confusion of our natural
tendency to create and share has been abstracted and distorted by buying
and selling, profits and margins. These memes perhaps had been useful
in a regionally scarce, connection sparse marketplace. They are starting
to show limits. Profits and margins are leaving the system everywhere
you look. Group buying, discounting and auctions are reducing profits
across the board. We can try to control costs with crowdsourcing on
the supply side, but we can't control prices as duplicability becomes
easier and easier. Perhaps its time to look at the problem in reverse?
What if the answer to the
distribution problem was a network economy of allocations?
In other words, imagine
a many-to-many crowdfunding model where our individual work and play,
along with taxation and infrastructure spending were all based on giving
instead of taking? Instead of rewarding the greedy, we created mechanisms
to reward the generous. We have the technical means, so why not policy
to encourage more of it? It has the potential to balance budgets, provide
relief and encourage innovation for the real needs of humanity and not
the greed that seems to be a failing driver of progress? The examples
of this working contextually are abundant. Why can it not work for the
whole world?
Before you consider this
as ludicrous or uninformed, just think about the economic model for
the basic unit of existence we are all familiar with, the family. Does
a parent negotiate profit margins with their child, or do we allocate
resources to our children so that they can be happy, and thus productive
to society? We now have the tools to duplicate this empowerment across
the world.
So why are we still fixated
on perpetuating more of the GDP based production and consumption problem
we have already solved?"
Ray Podder, Abundance Architect,
USA, http://about.me/raypodder
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Anonymous: ""Our politicians are not equipped to deal with
these problems. A"ll they know is how to get elected. We need to
begin to vote for problem-solving strategies, rather then presidents,
because this is all that matters from now on. (Hardy F. Schloer)"
Very interesting thought
and concept. It makes good sense. How would you propose this practice
become implemented?"
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Anonymous: "It is
my opinion that the use of new technologies, and particularly faster
and better computing abilities, is unavoidable. It has been a significant
part of our evolution over the past half century and will certainly
play even greater roles as we move forward in time.
The reality is that supercomputing
is a substantial part of modeling across every critical societal process
today - and they're being used all the more successfully every day.
Another reality is that
our world is complex and the solutions, in many cases, are equally so.
The unfortunate thing is
that as we learn more, we realize there are even more ways to skin that
proverbial cat. This provides with a yin/yang scenario - it complicates
our decision-making processes knowing our options are greater. This
reality REQUIRES that we lean on things more capable of processing data
at rates far greater than us humans.
I will state it now - TECHNOLOGY
is what will make our existence (all living things) achievable with
some level of comfort and hopeful peace.
Let's therefore embrace
all that technology can offer and make its use a part of our decision-making
processes."
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Oebele Bruinsma:
"Back to water and
models and things. It is clear from a variety of sources (see Club
of Amsterdam Journal water/food section introduction)
that the era of easy water is ending. To feed the world’s growing
and more affluent population, global agriculture will have to double
its food production by 2050. Use of water is of course an integral part
of that. In 2010 M. Kummu et al published an interesting article in
Environmental Research letters nr 5 with the title: “Is physical
water scarcity a new phenomenon?”
What was done? The study
that they conducted covered the period of time from AD 0 to AD 2005
with the aim to assess global trends evolving in water resources availability
over two millennia. Their analysis was carried out for ten different
time slices, defined as those times at which the human population of
the globe was approximately double the population of the previous time
slice, an exercise in exponential growth. Global population data for
these analysis were derived from the 5 degree latitude by 5 degree longitude
resolution global HYDE dataset, while evaluation of water resources
availability over the same period was based on monthly temperature and
precipitation output from the climate model ECBilt-CLIO-VECODE.
What was learned? The authors
report that “moderate water shortage first appeared around 1800,
but it commenced in earnest from about 1900, when 9% of the world population
experienced water shortage, of which 2% was under chronic water shortage
defined as less than 1000 m³/capita/year”.
Thereafter, from 1960 onwards, they found that “water shortage
increased extremely rapidly, with the proportion of global population
living under chronic water shortage increasing from 9% (280 million
people) in 1960 to 35% (2300 million) in 2005. Currently, they say,
“the most widespread water shortage is in South Asia, where 91%
of the population experiences some form of water shortage”, while
“the most severe shortage is in North Africa and the Middle east,
where 77% and 52% of the total population lives under extreme water
shortage (less than 500 m³/capita/year), respectively”.
What it means? To alleviate these freshwater shortages, the authors
point out that measures have generally been taken to increase water
availability, such as building dams and extracting groundwater. But
they state that “there are several regions in which such measures
are no longer sufficient, as there is simply not enough water available
in some regions”. This is further aggravated by increasing population
pressure, higher welfare and production of water intensive biofuels.
Hence they conclude there will be an increasing need for many non-structural
measures to be implemented, of which the most obvious is to increase
the efficiency of water use. They furthermore conclude that the characteristic
of nearly all plants on earth to enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels, is
to grow faster with less water uptake. Which seems to me a little light
in the darkening sky. An international research team led by J. Foley
(University of Minnesota) has devised a five step plan (2011: Can we
feed the world and sustain the planet?). To make a long story short:
they propose to improve crop yields, consume less meat, reduce food
waste, stop expanding into rainforests, and use fertilizer and water
more efficiently. This was known of course for some time.
So what? In an earlier
section I mentioned “things happen”. In 2012 a survey of continental
Africa huge, and I mean huge aquifers have been found all over the place.
Combining potential inputs such as unexpected water from Africa, increasing
role of insects in waste disposal and transition to feedstock, more
plant production due to improving varieties and less water uptake with
intelligent LED lighting solutions and manipulated CO2 environments
(in greenhouses) I would respectfully and careful point out to such
and other alternative interpretations before drawing conclusions."
Oebele Bruinsma is
partner at Synmind bv, The Netherlands
via LinkedIn Global Foresight
Helene Lavoix: "It
seems to me that if you look at those issues only in a separate way,
then you put yourself in for difficulties, as those issues are interlinked
through feedbacks and those feedbacks are what make them hard to analyse....
And this is where super computers are most needed. Whatever the power
of the computers, the first step is to construct the right model :)
"
Helene Lavoix (MFin Paris
MSc PhD Lond) Independent Political Scientist, Advisor & Researcher
- Strategic Foresight & Warning, France
via LinkedIn The Xavier
Group Ltd. -- Strategic Management and Consulting Futurists
Harry Jones: "Felix, I'm not so sure that we need more data
or deeper analysis of it so much as we need better, decently competent
use of what we know already. The world's biggest problems, like war
and genocide or environmental destruction, are down to greed and arrogance;
and no amount of finer data will change this, or generate solutions
that aren't apparent now."
Harry Jones is consultant in Meridian,
Idaho, USA
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Hardy F. Schloer:
"I am not sure what the argument of Oebele Bruinsma is here. He
is more or less stating the obvious here. Yes, we know, and I fully
agree, that there are methods of flawed analysis. Many! So what's the
point? That there cannot be any real or useful analysis that is warning
us from impending disasters? Or is he saying, that any prediction that
points out a potential disaster in the future is wrong by default? I
am not sure what Mr. Bruinsma's frame of reference is, or what the agenda
is, from which he argues this, but it seems to me, that he frantically
suppresses the notion, that we have eminent problems to solve in the
next 2 decades, which hold grim potentials in our future. Well, if that
is true, then we got nothing to worry about, I guess. Our economy of
illicit money creation is perfect, overpopulation is wonderful, pigs
can fly, and oil will soon grow on trees, and yes, global warming is
just a theory, as Mr. Bush pointed out so eloquently.
Forgive my sarcastic response
dear Mr. Bruinsma, but I have some history, just like you might have
some history on the other side of the equation. For example, I have
gone through a long list of economic predictions I made back in 1998
based on the same type of models I use today. For example, I predicted,
that the worthless derivatives in the financial industry would become
in size larger then all the money on the planet in existence (now over
1.18 Quadrillion, or about 6 times the total amount of money on the
planet), and furthermore destroy our financial system, resulting into
a major breakdown of the financial industry beginning in about a decade
(2008).
In December of 1998 I was
told by a gentlemen, working at the time as financial analyst at Lehman,
with an agenda similar to yours, that this forecast is total nonsense,
because smart people like Greenspan and Paulson would not make systemic
mistakes of that proportion, that put our entire economy at risk. I
was told that the debt spiral is designed by genius of the US central
bank, to support unlimited growth forever; in the US and in Europe.
Well, after 2008 we learned, that the system is not so perfect as advocated,
and that we have absolutely no plan, in how to deal with the absorption
of these derivatives into the real money economy (eventually a necessary
consolidation of empty paper promises with real money) and further,
that we have no acceptable exit strategy for our public debt, which
will soon become the first domino in this fragile house of cards that
we have created over the centuries.
It's no surprise to me.
Unfortunately, we lost 14 more years to solve these problems, which
became clear already then. I wish I am wrong, and all these conferences
about saving the planet are a waste. But I am afraid the reality looks
very different."
Hardy F. Schloer, President
and CEO, Schloer Consulting Group - SCG
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Oebele Bruinsma:
"I agree with Lisa Santillo that sensationalist journalism has
(is) playing a role in the cited predictions, but that is to be expected
when science is being used for political purpose. Science is about what
we find, and not what we want.
Unfortunately for science, the basis for the cited predicted events
and developments were in peer-reviewed scientific articles. You just
have to google the events its names and you will find sizeable reference
lists.
I respectfully disagree
with respect to the model part of the argument: By increasing the complexity
of the indicated models, feeding on multi-disciplinary data sets does
not necessarily yield greater scientific certainty. There are too many
degrees of freedom in such models, resulting in great uncertainty and
large areas of ignorance. (Degrees of freedom can be roughly defined
as independent pieces of information that are allowed (!! Human interference!!)
to vary within the model. This often results in highly unlikely scenarios
which should not dominate political decision making. This could be circumvented
as argued by Santillo and Schloer by improving the models as to address
better societal needs (or goals). A lofty idea indeed, but this is based
on three dubious assumptions: The models are fit, useful and the best
choice for this purpose (Judith Curry Oct 2012)
Using a recent example of such complex models, you guessed it, the Climate
models and throwing in the financial issue, the USA has to date spent
over 35 b $ on climate science and over 150 b $ on global issues of
climate changes with very little to show for.
Complex models work under very defined circumstances( e.g. nuclear fusion)
but have great difficulties even in reconstruction of past developments.
This is because human interfering is involved or as they say in politics,
things happen, or both.
In my opinion, resources
would be better used towards a better understanding of the natural drivers
changing our food and water resources than on changing sets of badly
understood variables and ´cook´ them in models. Without
scientific certainties we play with pseudo-science.
As an example of research into natural drivers of food production and
water conservation I used just one example with, the for models still
unknown variables, insects and their ways to increase food production,
without necessarily eating them despite them being an excellent source
of protein. Another line is using through LED lights the optimized wavelengths
for the various growing and fruitition stages of plants. (Both developed
right under our nose here in the Netherlands). In this way one may,
not can, improve both quantity, quality and availability required for
say 9 billion humans. Models as discussed above are tools, not decision
makers."
Oebele Bruinsma is
partner at Synmind bv,
The Netherlands
via Club
of Amsterdam blog
Hardy F. Schloer:
"I did read all your comments. Interesting! Those of you, that
think, that these problems are all just go away, if we do nothing, because
50% of them are not true (not scientific) and the other 50% will solve
themselves before they become too critical. Well, all of you, that believe
this may be in for a very big surprise… and soon.
I don't know how to put
this any simpler, or any more polite….
The problem is not the
100s of predictions prophesying the end of the world, coming from all
kinds of crazy paranoia groups, or pseudo scientists that could not
even understand the plunder they wrote themselves. The problem is also
not churches that tell us, that the Revelations in the Bible are about
to tell us from the end the world. We know, what to think about them.
The Problem is: EXPONETIAL
CHANGE!!
The real danger of exponential
change is, where a timeline/data correlation is located in the near
vertical curve segment of the observed exponential change.
We are living in a world, where more then 74% of our vital indexes (SCG
Analysis 2011) have crossed over into the dangerous exponential acceleration
point of the curve, as opposed to only about 8% in the 1950s. In only
10 more years we will see likely over 90% of our vital indexes operate
in a near vertical rise or decline, depending on what you observe, or
what the focal point of your research is.
If this this was just all
to complicated for you, then here is a very simple exercise I ask you
to do:
Please watch the following
lesson by Prof. Dr. Albert A. Bartlett from the University of Colorado:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=related
Watch all of it. Watch
it twice, if you have to! Then we can open the discussions again about
what exponential changes we want to observe, how they influence each
other, and what the mathematical outcome they MUST produce!
Do your homework. Start,
what we have started decades ago. So far the predictive analysis of
our group has been exactly on target for these decades. We use holistic
models, and we strip all the soft data, and assumptive elements (and
other nonsense) as much as possible, and only use, what is left: very
hard data; hard change-over-time observations (Stochastic Time-Series
Data); and continuous error corrective optimization methods and offsetting
factors, as new data and facts becomes available. We need such error
correction method, since we live in a dynamic world after all, and new
information becomes available continuously.
After you done all of this,
and use a very complex and inclusive investigation model of the planet
(as inclusive as modern supercomputers and cloud computing infrastructures
allow you to be) and include as a minimum global and regional models
and data of Population, Energy, Environment, Economy, Finance, Logistic,
Food and Water into the overall model. Furthermore, lay over all this
a sociological probability model of expected human behavior. Now you
begin to do useful science!
When you begin to trace
all the exponential changes and compile the potential effect corridors
in the data, then you will be confronted with a most uncomforting reality:
2012 to 2025 will be very hard to manage, unless we start looking NOW
at the real facts and expected futures, and not wishful thinking, or
masking such facts by the needs of special interest groups. There is
no more time for minority rule of the planet. We need to arrive at consensus
of the global community NOW, to prevent a meltdown.
Our politicians are not
equipped to deal with these problems. All they know is how to get elected.
We need to begin to vote for problem-solving strategies, rather then
presidents, because this is all that matters from now on."
Hardy F. Schloer, President
and CEO, Schloer Consulting Group - SCG
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Lisa Santillo: "In
response to Oebele Bruinsma, I would like to agree that the unfounded
predictions cited are indeed merely sensationalist pieces of journalism
that are of no use in aiding society prepare for the future. But I would
also like to point out that theses predictions are not based on scientific
fact but human supposition arrived at through a flawed analysis based
on simplistic models. The world is and has always been a complex system
requiring complex thinking structures based on holistic evidence to
effectively enlighten and advance civilization.
Today, as the fabric of
our interdependence grows and world population reaches new heights,
exponential rates of change are dangerously on the rise in all vital
areas of our environment. This, as a result amplifies the stresses and
risks the future of humanity is forced to face. Today more than ever,
the practice of real hard science is crucial and the only way we can
hope to discover where the hidden driving forces of our fates originate.
Only then can we successfully identify potential impending disaster.
Only then can we know where to adjust our course in order to prevent
them. Only then can we begin to really understand how our fast paced
interconnected global community works and how the choices we make today
can make the difference for a sustainable tomorrow.
In this day and age we
can no longer permit ourselves to consider global food and water needs
without taking into consideration our current financial strains, or
factor in the race to control the earth's last energy reserves, and
then adjust to incorporate the application of potential technological
advances. This is a task of mammoth proportions that requires the construct
of a series of interrelated models. These models require massive loads
of interdisciplinary data and imply the consumption of computing power
far beyond the one dimensional predictions Mr. Bruinsma's mentions.
HF Schloer proposes an
analytical construct where seemingly unrelated and disparate data is
merged to reveal relevancies hidden otherwise to the naked human eye,
or undetectable to the unenhanced human brain. Through the computational
analysis proposed therein, correlating models emerge and evidence points
to cause and effect scenarios and amplifications in all the relevant
sectors. The result is the filtering out of sound data that permits
us to connect the dots and track for example the real cost of food production
and distribution in relation to financial speculation, weather patterns,
availability of energy, demographic movements, geo-political conflicts,
growing demand and the application of new farming technologies.
It is not hard for us to
imagine off the top of our heads how the fluctuation of these factors
may influence one way or the other food costs and availabilities in
the short and long term. But what HF Schloer proposes is the actual
indexing and tracking of these factors and the delivery of precise detailed
real time statistical measures that demonstrate their intricate workings.
These continuous outputs would serve as the beacons of the future because
they take out the guesswork and remove the generally flawed suppositions
of human perception. These new methods are the only way to ensure sound
policy making and strategy building for our collective future."
Lisa Santillo is Research
Project Manager at Schloer Consulting Group.
via LinkedIn SESTI - Weak
Signal Scanning
Bernard Verlaan: "Input (new): 4th Time Line update of researcher's
expectations/predictions about 2020, 2030, 2040:sequenced by decade
& topics & publ.dates: www.bjernv.dds.nl/2010-2050.PDF
As for 'tests': see inventory of world problems www.bjernv.dds.nl/WP.html
"
Bernard Verlaan is Senior Research & Policy Adviser at Ministry
of Education, Culture and Science, The Netherlands
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Oebele Bruinsma:
“I do not agree with the thesis of H.F. Schloer that 'the world
will be tested between 2012 and 2025 by more challenges, than it has
possibly in its entire (emphasis mine) existence of human development'.
In other words “all hell will brake loose”.
I agree however, that the real problem is “ us”, because we
cannot separate between our preconceptions and our observations. Let
me explain using the following examples and think back to the successes
of recent 'scares' which were intertwined with the quality and quantity
of food and water resources.
The Ice Age is coming back (Newsweek, Time, 1970s); our forests will
soon be killed by acid rain; western industrial activities being held
to blame the Sahel drought; the 'ozone panic' and its repercussions,
with Concorde and the Space Shuttle implicated in the 'aerosol wars'.
The imminent threat of cancers and cataracts: Punta Arenas on the edge
the Antarctica ozone hole with sheep and their herdsmen and rabbits
as well, going blind. (New York Times, July 1991, Newsweek, December
1991). Now that the ozone fad is behind us, why do we see the same methods
used to promote the new bugbears in this case between 2012 and 2025?
We do recall the apocalyptic prediction of James Hansen (Nov. 1987)
according to which 'the global warming predicted in the next 20 years
will make the entire earth warmer than it has been in the past 100.000
years'. Your current thermometer readings in the garden will tell
you probably otherwise, at least since 1998.(Daily Mail 13 October 2012)
Apparently, we can say or write anything we like, without commitment
because the main thing is not to inform but to impress.
Humankind apparently is constantly in the dock, and the accusing finger
is pointed, as we pollute too much, cherish our mobility (cars, planes),
drive too fast, have a house to ourselves, live energy intensive paths,
eat too much and produce too much rubbish; and perhaps doing all these
things we breathe too deep in terms of CO2 production.
So, what drives this confusion of preconceptions and observations? A
number of things.
The combination of pollution and climate.
Climate has become an excuse and a bugbear. Its future behavior seems
to be set in stone, and anybody casting doubts on the predicted warming
is thought to be tolerant of pollution, or 'branded as mad, bad or in
the pay of the oil industry'(Singer, 2001), as if anybody in her/his
right mind would be in favour of foul and un-breathable city air.
Good intentions and (declared and undeclared) interests.
B. Lomborg (2001) list the fears of ecologists: ‘We are defiling
our Earth, the fertile topsoil is disappearing, we are paving over nature,
destroying the wilderness, decimating the biosphere, and will end up
killing ourselves in the process’. No doubt there is much talk
of doing good, with generous intent, but is it always tinged with altruism?
Prognostications and realities, theories based on models and on
real mechanisms.
Given the chaotic nature of climate, its modeled predictions often mention
results at fairly safe dates e.g. the year 2100, to minimize the risk
of being found incorrect.
Sensationalism and serious science.
The quest for a science ‘scoop’:e.g. melt of the Artic sea
ice, interferes more and more with well-founded facts.”
Oebele Bruinsma is partner at Synmind bv, The Netherlands
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Food
and Water
Oebele Bruinsma:
“Now let’s return to Food and Water.
These unfortunate developments over recent years have in my opinion
contributed to a great reluctance on the part of many climatologists,
ecologists and environmentalists to accept the concept that CO2 could
be more beneficial than harmful for plant growth, food production and
the overall biosphere including water. Yet the scientific evidence is
overwhelming. For instance, Increased atmospheric CO2 enables plant
to extract higher levels of iron from the soil (as well as other minerals),
while using reduced amounts of water.
By brewing the ‘perfect storm’ of complementary disasters
and analyse them with complex super computing models we are following
the road of post-normal science; which is often not science but highly
paid wishful thinking.
New developments in managing food and water related problems with for
instance the role of insects in making the chain of animal protein production
to waste disposal very efficient, are not very often included in such
computer models.
By sticking to normal science and technology I think humanity will cope
with the prognosticated disasters, as we did say from 1950 – 2012.”
Oebele Bruinsma is partner at Synmind bv, The Netherlands
via LinkedIn The Futurist
Group
Philip Spies: "The
real test is very human, i.e., in our ability to understand the ethics
of the world system. Trends over the past 50 years indicated that we
are moving away from particular problem sets towards growing interrelatedness
in an increasingly complex global problem situation. I believe that
the possible route towards dissolving these problem situations flows
through the hearts and minds of people and not (per se) in our ability
to 'analyse' these complex global systems with super computers - which
I believe is not achievable because of the intrinsic nature of systemic
complexity. However, I must admit that systems dynamics models can teach
you many things about the various driving forces behind the trends -
and as such they can be of great help. However without a human transformation
towards greater understanding and wisdom, all modelling will be like
poring water over stones."
Philip Spies is Primary Consultant at Creative Futures, Cape
Town Area, South Africa
via Club
of Amsterdam blog
Hardy F. Schloer:
"The world will be tested between 2012 and 2025 by more challenges,
than it has possibly in its entire existence of human development.
Clearly, I am not discounting
here the challenges of the past centuries, as for example the outbreak
of the black pest in the dark ages, where there was no medicine or sufficient
understanding in how to deal with such far reaching epidemic; or perhaps
the two world wars of the last century, that caused more then 80 million
death by senseless violence. Neither should one discount the emergence
of nuclear technologies or weapons, which posed for the first time in
history real and omnipresent danger of destroying the entire planet
in a timeframe of only few minutes. There are perhaps many other such
examples of catastrophic events that could come easily to mind in this
context.
Nevertheless, many real
dangerous and catastrophic events are less violent and much less visible.
For example, the human discovery of cereals or potatoes enabled human
population to grow in exponential pace, and in only the past two centuries
of exponential growth to overpopulate the planet in such way, that it
is now near impossible to keep vital dynamics of this planet in a sustainable
balance. The real problem is 'us'.
The fact however is, that
we do not experience separately a crisis of overpopulation. With it
came the systemic faults of money and its creation, which lead to economic
breakdown. Exponential overpopulation also caused vastly emerging food,
water and farmland shortages, and a predatory and now often violent
battle to use the resulting energy shortage in the most profitable ways.
Then there is the exponential environmental decay, which poses also
accelerating effects on the food, water and farmland problems. Accelerating
global warming and its effects come here to mind.
The fact is, that we experience
all these climactic disasters concurrently, coming together in one dynamic
model, like the proverbial 'perfect storm'. We are living in the next
20 years in the 'Age of Final Exponential Change' where relatively flat
growth curves have all begun concurrently to transform into fast and
vertical growth that is unsustainable and also complimentary to produce
disastrous magnifications to all other here identified problem domains.
To manage this 'perfect
storm' of complimentary disasters, we must begin to analyze our problems
in much more complex and more inclusive models. Unless we begin to think
in inclusive and interdisciplinary models, we will not even begin to
understand; much less solve these problems.
Understanding is the first
step, and it is vitally important. The world, and mostly its politicians
and economic leaders are in deep denial about these problems. Misinformation,
driven mostly by self-serving dogma, or greed for profit, cement this
denial as necessity, to defend specific and selfish goals. However,
just as we must look at all our challenges in the context of all concurrent
problem domains, we also need the entire human population to come together,
and participate in the understanding of this complex situation and also
in the definition of solutions.
Ultimately, we will need
to do two separate things to solve these problems. First we need to
analyze data in an all-inclusive way, using modern supercomputers and
cloud computing infrastructures to analyze all available global data
and so manage the scientific understanding of the 'interrelated problem
fabric'. Secondly, we must decide on a global level, how we furthermore
instruct intelligent supercomputers to search for possible solutions
to these problems.
We do not have time anymore,
for politicians to 'play the omni-intelligent rulers' of our world.
We must hurry to find globally acceptable solutions to this perfect
storm of apocalyptic problems, because it is the fear in society, that
we don't know where we are going next, that causes global fear, aggression
and finally global conflict. To prevent this we must come together,
and solve our pretext of sustainability. This will be the first step
to begin living together as one human race, in peace, freedom and sustainability."
Hardy F. Schloer, President and CEO, Schloer Consulting Group - SCG
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic
Crisis
Khannea
Suntzu: "We
face a society which has become oddly unaffordable, even while economies
have been "growing" (by any metric the analysts care invoke)
for decades. This is a crisis, by any standard, and the crisis we are
increasingly facing has much the characteristics of a slowly heated
pot where we would be the frogs.
What is regarded as consensually
unacceptable right now would have caused flaming car riots fifteen years
ago. What may become politically expedient and acceptable fifteen years
from now would ten years ago have put politicians heads on spikes.
Sadly the politicians are
just dupes who go along with the glacially progressively intolerable.
The pensioners crisis is no difference. We are talking societal marginalization
the likes we haven't seen before the Edwardian age. People are starting
to commit suicide over this, in places like Greece and Spain, and we
have seen the same epidemic of engineered (or contrived) collapse in
the soviet Union of the 1990s, where basicly whole aging generations
of people were left off attritioned, with as much cavalier disinterest
as the nazi's did to jews.
The crisis is one of politicians
enabling (or being treasonous collaborators with) the international
banking sector. Bean counters with the moral graces of Torquemada.
The paradigm these people
keep chasing, much like a banner in Hell, is the idea of societal profitability,
much the same way as if a society is a corporate entity. Well, if that
were the case we'd actually be allowed to vote in shareholder meetings,
and not pony show 4 year electoral cycles.
Sadly the world is owned,
and not by "the people". That is why I /sign the above post
by Rob George, with insistence and vehemence and quite a bit of anger.
The world is becoming intolerable,
and it's time we do something about it."
Khannea Suntzu is the name of a genderqueer, pansexual,
transhumanist, 'Nymian' Resident in Second Life. She is an artist, coolhunter,
(game-) designer, (virtual reality) consultant, expert on meta-cognition,
and speaker.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Human
Overpopulation
Khannea
Suntzu: "The
topic of population restraints can not be argued in polite company.
Aside from the insipid idiots (..) that claim we have more than enough
space on the planet for 15 billion humans, and "economic growth
can easily outpace demand", if only "we'd become more sincerely
capitalist and free marketacious", there is no debating this issue.
So the debate is left to
opinion statements.
Here's my opinion.
We have overshot the carrying
capacity of the planet by several orders of magnitude. It is a complete
and utter catastrophe, and we are destined for nightmarish conditions,
somewhere this century. We could live comfortably and sustainably with
two billion, and even then only if we had sharply reduced expectations
of consumerism.
Sadly everyone in the world
is now fully anticipating welfare state, pensions, a fridge, two cars,
a big screen TV, a vacation once a year, several children and gods know
what else. Add a well groomed trillion dollar military apparatus for
the Amaericans and we have a recipe for a franchise of Hell on this
planet, somewhere this century.
Yes, population levels
are decreasing in Europe. However that more or less means a Europe (and
an America, China, Japan, Ausralia) with mostly doddering and panicstricken
and generally right wing voting old people, and a steady stream of tens
of millions of people from regions where the population is still well
on the exponential growth curse track.
Have look at Parisian Banlieues
where this bright little optimist paradigm is headed. I'll tell you
where it is headed - introduce mechanized and automated labour in to
the mix (where we lose half the existing jobs in a few decades, and
we gain only a very few extremely highly educated jobs in the same period)
and you see billions of people structurally unable to make a living,
eat, house themselves, get children, consume, have vacations, get a
near adequate education or have the least bit of fun.
There is absolutely no
way to do anything about this (other than some Neocon racists covertly
spreading an infection that makes non-caucasian people infertile, and
kills half. It could happen.) I see no resolution other than a range
of catastrophic outcomes.
But take heed - at some
point the lightning will hit and people will become antsy about overpopulation.
Oh sure, we'll all go through the highly predictable racist cycles of
blaming the foreigners (or even the friesians or tukkers if that's what
it takes) but eventually every voter will have a deeply instinctive
and ingrained reflex to WANT LESS PEOPLE.
And beware, since the population
on the planet is doubling at once every one, two decades, that moment
is somewhere in the middle of this century. And beware, because the
popular policies enacted once we are there will be pale shadows of the
Chinese one child policy - world wide.
Just wait."
Khannea Suntzu is the name of a genderqueer, pansexual, transhumanist,
'Nymian' Resident in Second Life. She is an artist, coolhunter, (game-)
designer, (virtual reality) consultant, expert on meta-cognition, and
speaker.
via
Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public Brainstorm:
Environment
Khannea Suntzu: "The discussion of climate specialists - the
real people who are still unbought by big oil, or haven't been bullied
in to a silence by the big corporations yet, are coming to accept the
reality that "two degrees warming in the coming century" is
pretty much ancient history. We are well underway discussing six degrees
to fifteen degrees global temperature rise, and it is mostly acknowledged
that by four degrees we face antarctic and greenland iceland melt where
by the end of the century the global sea levels have risen by well over
six meters.
In other words, the scientific
world is pretty much in agreement that somewhere later this century
most of the Netherlands is a tiny strip of land along the coast of Germany.
And that is already the
case if we stopped consuming CO2 generating hydrocarbons.
Sadly, this is a scenario
far worse than regular people can deal with. It was the same with people
being ferried in trains to Auschwitz - at some level of severity the
reality you face as a human being the human mind just shuts down and
goes in to fullblown denial mode.
That is where we are now.
All the Cassandras in the known universe can rant all they want - it
won't get them invited to conferences, it won't make them any money,
it won't get them published, and it will ruin their social lives.
However those people who
are still smart and courageous should not shut up. In fourty years from
now anyone who knows the facts should ask themselves "why did I
do? Where did I stay quiet, and when did I take my chance to speak?"
"
Khannea Suntzu is the name of a genderqueer, pansexual, transhumanist,
'Nymian' Resident in Second Life. She is an artist, coolhunter, (game-)
designer, (virtual reality) consultant, expert on meta-cognition, and
speaker.
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
Public
Brainstorm: Energy
Khannea Suntzu: "We face a nightmare. Humanity lived in
paradise for the better part of a century, but in that period we made
ourselves a Hell's Banquet - humanity went from two billion to (this
century, largely inescapably) ten billion.
This is goddamn awful.
So oil is essential for
everything, and not just transportation. We have been squandering it,
filling landfills with useless reduced condensed oil scrapings, and
filled the atmosphere with oil residu vapour. We make plastics, medicine,
roads, consumer goods, food, clean water and much much more from oil,
and assorted petrochemical products. We refrigerate and fly with the
stuff.
And it is running out.
Now try and convince a very large village of slightly overweight bodybuilders
to "cut down on their calorie intake" and you have the situation
where we are at. We have a world full of very much empowered people
who have grown accustomed to petrochemical gluttony and there is absolutely
NO way in the next few democratic cycles or in the market system or
in the corporate boardroom to change the acknowledgement of this fact,
to get a consensus of the severity of even the consequences of this
consumption, LET ALONE to actually do something about this.
Let me state it frankly
- I am for listing politicians and corporate decission-makers that may
be doing something about this, and aren't.
And let's make some bold
statement here - making such a list isn't illegal.
And claiming that this
list will be uses, twenty years down the road to drag these people in
front of a court and execute them isn't illegal either.
The world is headed for
hell in a handbasket and nobody is doing a goddamned thing."
Khannea Suntzu is the name of a genderqueer, pansexual, transhumanist,
'Nymian' Resident in Second Life. She is an artist, coolhunter, (game-)
designer, (virtual reality) consultant, expert on meta-cognition, and
speaker.
via Club of Amsterdam
Blog "Public
Brainstorm: Energy"
Adriaan Kamp: "I like to kick-start this session.
The coming two decades are key- with respect
to the future of energy.
Over 100 years we may live in Energy Abundance
, thanks to technology progress, our societal evolutions and our human
awareness, but along the way we may have hit a couple of nasty bumps.
Our world today is in a rapid acceleration.
Over coming decades we see a rapid growth and shift in wealth distribution
to the BRICS, MIST and other emerging nations. Energy and Wealth are
directly related. The more wealthier the world- the more energy it needs.
Expectation is that with the current rate
of wealth, population and energy consumption increase- we will have
to double the present energy generation capacities. Unfortunately- and
as the present trend indicates- this new fuel will still be from our
finite conventional energy resources- which may become ever more complex
to produce.
So- over coming decades our world (and
its evolving geopolitical constellation) will need to determine how,
what and how these resources are shared.
Threfore- and Today- Energy and Energy
Transition Management in Politics, Business and Society is King.
Energy and our political and social evolution
over next decades are also linked: The question of how we relate to
each other. IN the East and in the West. The Have´s vs the Havenot´s..
The future is made by our common leadership,
actions and decisions on the above- today.
IN invite Energy Professionals all - world
over- to start to define and realize the energy architectures of the
21st century. Today."
Adriaan Kamp is Founder
of Energy For One World/ Director of Executive Energy MBA at Nyenrode
Business University, The Netherlands
via Club of Amsterdam Blog
"Public
Brainstorm: Economic-Demographic Crisis":
Robley E. George:
"First, we wish to congratulate the Club of Amsterdam on its ten
year celebration of significant contribution.
We further wish to suggest
the serious consideration of Socioeconomic Democracy as a peaceful,
just and democratic resolution of the myriad unnecessary and painful
problems confronting humanity caused by the maldistribution of wealth
both within and among nations.
Socioeconomic Democracy
is a theoretically consistent and practically implementable socioeconomic
system wherein there exist both some form and amount of locally appropriate
Universally Guaranteed Personal Income and some form and amount of locally
appropriate Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth, with both the lower bound
on personal material poverty and the upper bound on personal material
wealth set and adjusted democratically by all participants of a democratic
society.
Socioeconomic Democracy
is trivially accomplished with elementary Public Choice Theory. It further
provides the necessary and presently missing but essential economic
incentive, for all those with the financial capability to do so, to
work productively to realize a much improved and sustainable economic
system dedicated to the betterment of all.
As has been demonstrated
elsewhere, Socioeconomic Democracy can eliminate or significantly reduce
a multitude of serious-to-deadly, but utterly unnecessary, intimately
intertwined societal problems including (but by no means limited to)
those familiar ones associated with: automation, computerization and
robotization; budget deficits and national debts; bureaucracy; maltreatment
of children; crime and punishment; development, sustainable or otherwise;
ecology, environment, resources and pollution; education; the elderly;
the feminine majority; inflation; international conflict; intranational
conflict; involuntary employment; involuntary unemployment; labor strife
and strikes; sick medical and health care; military metamorphosis; natural
disasters; pay justice; planned obsolescence; political participation;
poverty; racism; sexism; and the General Welfare.
A few, of many, relevant
links:
"A Democratic Socioeconomic
Platform, in search of a Democratic Political Party"
http://www.centersds.com/dsep.html
Socioeconomic Democracy:
An Advanced Socioeconomic System (Praeger Studies on the 21st Century,
2002)
http://www.centersds.com/thebook.htm
"Bibliography of Socioeconomic
Democracy"
http://www.centersds.com/biblio.htm
"Socioeconomic Democracy:
A Nonkilling, Life-Affirming and Enhancing Psycho-Politico-Socio-Economic
System"
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv06n10page2robleygeorge.html
"Introducing a Socioeconomic
Democracy"
Prepared for Pakistan Futuristics Institute Silver Jubilee Publication:
4
Islamabad, Pakistan, 8 May 2011.
This article includes an analysis of the many similarities and a few
minor differences between Socioeconomic Democracy and Zakat, one of
the Five Pillars of Islam.
"Socioeconomic Democracy
and Sustainable Development"
http://rio20.net/en/documentos/socioeconomic-democracy-and-sustainable-development
"Socioeconomic Democracy"
International Journal of Science, February, 2012, (pp.33-48).
http://ijosc.net/index.html
Robley E. George, Director,
Center for the Study of Democratic Societies, USA
http://www.CenterSDS.com
Coordinador, Nonkilling Economics and Business Research Committee
http://www.nonkilling.org/node/7
via LinkedIn
Hans Konstapel: "Perhaps you should also discuss how it
is possible to transform destructive exponential expansions into creative
modulated cyclic changes by applying Paths of Change: http://hans.wyrdweb.eu/path-of-change-seminar-in-dialoques-house-abn-amro"
see also
http://hans.wyrdweb.eu/about-intelligent-design
http://hans.wyrdweb.eu/about-radical-innovation
Hans Konstapel is Director & Owner, Constable Research BV, The Netherlands
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