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Sustainable Economy

Jeremy Rifkin: “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”

Posted by Matt Beer - May 20, 2014 - Economics, Economics Level 4, Energy, Level 4, Sustainable Economy
2

In this talk at Google HQ, serial big picture author Jeremy Rifkin talks about how the internet is changing our society and our economy. More specifically, how the internet surrounding information communication has radically changed how our economy functions and how this will spread into a future “Internet of Things”, doing the same thing to the economy of physical goods. In other words, a fundamental driving force that will rebalance the foundations of capitalism, potentially making it unworkable and create a world that is hard to envisage today.

The term “marginal cost” refers to the cost of producing an additional unit of a product and capitalism is all about reducing those cost to maximise profits. Unfortunately when these costs are driven down to near zero, the product can them become free. Think of the internet. It doesn’t really matter if the website serves 100 people or a million, the (relatively) fixed costs of production remain the same and each additional person served costs virtually nothing. This is having a profound impact on people’s quality of live in two ways. 1) people are able to access that service for free or very little, in theory making their lives better. But it is also 2) causing many people who were traditionally employed in that industry to not have a job anymore. Near zero marginal costs combined with the ability to easily access the related service is wiping out middlemen and this phenomenon is set to continue as it spreads from industry to industry.

Here lies the fascination in this concept, just how will the world adapt to a new economic paradigm? Will it be a bumpy road or a smooth one? Will this make our quality of life richer or poorer? Will we need to foster the creation of government or co-op organisations to provide the more critical functions (such as journalism)? It is a very big idea and is one that is worth being aware of when trying to envisage the future.

‘Stories, Sizzle, Salience & Social Proof’

Posted by Matt Beer - October 20, 2012 - Sustainable Economy
0

Ed Gillespie, Co-Founder of Futerra, delivers a keynote speech on how great creative communications can deliver behaviour change beyond the usual suspects for the 3 Pillars Network National Sustainability Behaviour Change conference in Australia November 2011. Described by attendees as one of the highlights of the whole event this punchy speech packs an enormous amount of cumulative Futerra insight into 14 short minutes.

Climate Destabilisation, Communication Skills, Education, Video

The Great Disruption – Paul Gilding

Posted by Matt Beer - November 30, 2011 - Climate Destabilisation, Economics, Energy, Sustainable Economy
0

I finished reading Paul Gilding’s book The Great Disruption earlier today and I believe it is the most important book I have read since Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers and would heartily recommend both. In the absence of the book I have found a video of a 30 min talk Paul gave to the World Affairs Council (with another 35 mins of Q&A). Or you can view the abridged 16 min version at the bottom.

The main ideas of the book are that the environmental movement has failed to cause a cultural change that will enable us to take pre-emptive action and avoid the serious impacts of climate change and resource depletion. Despite decades of effort, the world is still in denial. But when looking at human psychology and serious world events this is not actually surprising. As Paul argues – we are slow, but not stupid. The obvious prior example is World War II. Hitler and the stirring of Germany was not a new idea when war was declared in 1939. Prior to that there was much denial about the real threat of Germany, most notably the political policy of appeasement. But once war was declared things changed remarkably quickly and policies and achievements that seemed impossible before all of a sudden happened. Paul believes we are in much the same situation and it will take a great deal of climate pain for the world to wake up from its state of denial. Once this happens the world will go to war decarbonising our economies and it will happen at a pace that seems incomprehensible now. Paul argues that this will happen because there is no other choice. This is the key problem now, there is a choice.

But the story doesn’t end there. Paul argues that the climate problem is not the base problem, but the symptom of a much larger issue – the worldwide pursuit of endless economic growth on a finite planet. The economic model on which we base our societies is flawed and at some point needs to change to a steady state economy. Again this is not a new idea, it was acknowledged my many of the fathers of economics. But listening to politicians of today, the mantra of growth is so firmly embedded in our attitudes that it will take many years of failed growth for the idea that we have reached our planetary limits to sink in. While the transition will likely be unpleasant, the destination of an economy that has limits on the resources it uses and the pollution it produces is a positive one. It will mean a redistribution of wealth and a more equitable society. Despite the commonly held view that more money equals happiness (true only if it pulls you out of poverty), research shows that more equitable societies are much healthier societies. It could mean that advances in productivity translates into less time working.

One can argue that the book has a slightly optimistic outcome, one where we are successful in meeting the climate challenge. We could fail, just a few different decisions taken in WWII might of resulted in the citizens of the UK saluting the Fatherland. It does gloss over the difficulties to come. But (again as Paul touches on) if we are to be successful in meeting the upcoming challenges we will have to be outwardly positive and optimistic even if we sometimes inwardly doubt ourselves. It is equally incorrect to assume that society will just collapse without a fight and we are often pessimistic of what we can achieve when we really put our minds to it.

Where the truth lies I don’t know, but this book has articulated many of the feelings I have on where the world is at. You can argue about the details but the underlying ideas in the book are spot on. It is an important book as it has helped me come to the realisation that those of us not in denial need to spend less time fighting those that are (as the evidence will become overwhelming) and more time preparing for the great disruption.

I urge you to buy the book The Great Disruption. The link goes to amazon so you have the most amount of reviews to read, but please try and buy from your local bookstore (unless you have a kindle/ipad).

China, Climate Change, Climate Destabilisation, Climate Science, Economics, Economy, environment, fossil fuel, GDP, Global Warming, Growth, Paul Gilding, population, Renewables, sustainability, Video

A Future Without Traditional Media?

Posted by Matt Beer - November 23, 2011 - Sustainable Economy
0

I just finished watching a BBC Storyville documentary “Deadline: The New York Times” which has my head filled with an issue that has been a huge concern of mine for a while. The doco follows key members of the NY Times over the last few years during which there has been a massive change within the business profile of traditional print media. The rise of the internet combined with the financial crisis has lead to a sharp dip in advertising and sales revenue. It has caused a number of US newspapers to go under and those that remain are operating in a restricted manner. What does this mean for transparency and accountability in our societies?

This is a complex question.

I personally have never bought more than a few newspapers in my life and get most of my news through the internet versions of newspapers and various blog sites. Besides the fact I find the whole idea of chopping down trees, processing into paper, printing, distributing and then paying for a giant wad of paper that I will spend say 30 mins flicking through to read on balance a handful of articles, perhaps 1% of the actual paper before casually disposing of it (hopefully recycled) completely ludicrous and deeply unsustainable, I personally don’t find too much relevant with what the mainstream media reports. For me there are a few inherent flaws with the way in which the news is reported that means the idea of buying a paper rarely enters my mind.

Firstly, it is a slave to the 24 hour news cycle. This in some ways has made the media into a wing of the entertainment industry. People get bored with the same old news and are wanting fresh stories, the more scandalous the better. This has led to three things, the dumbing down of the stories reported, recklessness with the truth and the overuse of the word crisis. Everything is a crisis these days, so much so I think that the word has almost lost meaning and has made it harder to sort out what the real problems are in the world at the moment. The other problem with the 24 hour cycle is the constant pressure of deadlines, to pump out material regardless of it’s journalistic quality. We often assume that because something is in print that it is correct and has been validated, just as we assume most of the products we buy from the store are completely safe for human consumption/use. But the reality is much farther from this than we would care to admit. My last job was in a government water utility and we tracked all mentions of us in the media. The amount of times the articles mis-reported an issue or simply got some facts wrong was quite astonishing. It made me wonder just what percentage of the newspaper articles were correct and what the impacts of this mis-information had on public opinion.

This leads me to my main issue of contention. Editorial direction. Being an Australian most of our papers are owned by one Mr. Rupert Murdoch and the same can be almost said for many of the US and UK papers. Now what control management has on editorial direction and content I can not say, but there clearly is varying levels of bias. Now I am not naive enough not to expect any bias, but the big papers, such as the NY Times have a duty to maintain journalistic and editorial integrity to accurately reflect the most important issues going on in the world today. In this I think they have failed. I believe that climate change and the broader issues of sustainability is THE most important issue in the world today. It underpins the economic crisis, our political systems, our societal values and ultimately the direction of where humanity is heading. I have my own bias but the actual impacts a changing climate will have on us all means it is the biggest issue facing us all by about a dozen country miles. But this is not the impression you would get from sampling a bunch of broadsheets today.

But the design of traditional newspaper media process means that it is almost inevitable that it will fail in reporting such a complex issue. The complexity of the world and science has magnified exponentially over the years making it increasingly more difficult for a reporter or a reader to wrap ones head around the issues. Take me for example. I left my job as an energy efficiency engineer a little over a year ago. In the process of trying to figure out how I could help with the climate situation on meaningful scale I ended up latching onto the subject of peak oil. I have spent a fair chunk of the past year researching the topic, reading numerous reports hundreds of pages in length. Before all of this I thought I was reasonably knowledgable on the subject but now I realise just how little I knew and also how much mis-information is out there on this topic. It’s up there in terms of importance with the financial/debt crisis stuff rampant in the media today but I would guess it wouldn’t get 1% of the coverage. But how many reporters would actually have the time to read all of these various reports properly? How many have the background knowledge built up over many years to understand it all? Then how would one actually be able to present the complexity of the topic so that the average reader would really get it or would want to read it in the first place? We can see by the quality and quantity of the general media on the topic of climate science that it is a little beyond most journalistic entities. As I have been struggling with all of this for almost a year now I am not surprised.

But what of the alternatives? Blogging and the internet is better at serving my specific interests but they too have far more bias than the average newspaper. It’s just usually a bias that I prefer. But what does this mean for the general knowledge of the people and society? Will peoples views be more fractured and society less able to find common ground? Also, what does this mean to the foundation of investigative reporting? A blog site can hardly pay to have a reporter on the ground in Baghdad or be bothered to cover the more mundane aspects of politics and governmental accountability. This costs money and as I am painfully aware, there is very little financial incentive to choosing to be blog reporter for a living.

There is no question that the role mainstream media has performed in the past is critical to a healthy society/democracy. But in so many ways it is becoming redundant and a new model needs to emerge. The future of where we will view this media is no doubt on the internet, but how to fund and maintain the required foundation of journalists, in both terms of numbers and variety of fields, remains an unanswered question. As much of the internet is stealing or at least basing themselves of the the journalistic foundation that the NY Times and other such news sources provides, can these existing private models continue to exist? And what will be the consequences if they disappear?

One obvious solution is through tax payer funded institutions such as the BBC and the Australian ABC but this will hardly deliver the variety of opinion needed. As the internet has now become this virtually free domain we can all play in, maybe the role of government to support the workability of this platform needs to increase. The industry is struggling to find a financial model that will work, but they are having to compete with sites and organisations that are able to externalise many of the costs. In the meantime I can only hope we can honour the original source of our news and if asked, be prepared to pay a little for the service they provide.

Climate Science, media

CSIS – International Energy Agency WEO 2010 Summary

Posted by Matt Beer - November 7, 2011 - Climate Destabilisation, Climate Level 4, Coal, Energy, Level 4, Natural Gas, Oil, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Level 4, Renewables, Sustainable Economy
0

Definitely worth a watch. The big boys from the IEA give their take on the very important annual World Energy Outlook report which was released November 2010.

Click the link for the csis.org page detailing the event, the speakers and the slides that go with the presentations.

Climate Change, Conventional oil, Economy, environment, fossil fuel, GDP, Global Warming, Oil, sustainability, Transport, Unconventional Oil, Video

The Real Story on Fuel Economy – Stanford Uni

Posted by Matt Beer - September 10, 2011 - Climate Level 4, Level 4, Oil, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Level 4, Sustainable Economy
0

January 7, 2009 lecture by Lee Schipper for the Woods Energy Seminar. In his talk “When the Rubber Hits the Road: The Real Story on Fuel Economy in the US and other Developed Countries, with Implications for Developing Asia,” Schipper discusses better and more realistic fuel economy options in the US and other industrialized nations.Lee Schipper is a Senior Research Engineer at the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency at Stanford University.

His discussion on solutions covers the main areas for improved fuel efficiency and how the difficult areas of transport policy and urban design usually get ignored. Until these are properly addressed vehicle use will only expand in undesirable ways causing gridlock in our cities and further dependence on oil. Technology and pricing can only go so far in the quest for a sustainable transport model.

Economics, fossil fuel, Fuel Efficiency, Gasoline, Oil, Peak Oil, Petrol, population, Stanford Uni, steady growth, sustainability, Transport, United States, Video

Water Changes Everything

Posted by Matt Beer - September 5, 2011 - Communication+, Just for Fun, Sustainable Economy
0

Another quality Jonathan Jarvis animation.

The Ecological Cost of Pets

Posted by Matt Beer - September 5, 2011 - Climate Destabilisation, Sustainable Economy
0

It seems that owning a pet can be worse than owning an oversized car.

You can check out the original article by New Scientist if you want to check out the methodology.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy – Al Bartlett

Posted by Matt Beer - June 8, 2011 - Economics, Economics Level 2, Energy, Level 3, Peak Oil Level 3, Sustainable Economy
1

On first glance it would be hard to see why, but this talk by Professor Bartlett is one of the most utterly compelling things I have watched and makes you totally rethink what “reasonable growth” means. A must watch.

Professor Al Bartlett begins his one-hour talk with the statement, “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” He talks about:
- arithmetic of steady growth
- concept of doubling time
- impact of unending steady growth on population
- consequences steady growth in a finite environment
- growth as applied to fossil fuel consumption
- oddly reassuring statements from “experts”, the media and political leaders – statements that are dramatically inconsistent with the facts
- widespread worship of economic growth and population growth in western society

The talk brings the listener to understand and appreciate the implications of unending growth on a finite planet, and closes noting the crucial need for education topic.

Part 1

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=8BMEImNf9M8 width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 2"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=fG_PL-dRMA0 width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 3"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=V3LryW47B_M width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 4"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=hmfXfx3XKsI width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 5"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=9oalwwtlYjE width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 6"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=RW_cPRWpDB8 width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 7"]

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=90VgHSZa-2M width=560 height=450 anchor="Click here for Part 8"]

consumption, doubling time, Economics, environment, finite, fossil fuel, Growth, media, population, steady growth, sustainability

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