Question Everything

A casual thought on scientific questions

I've recently been poking around a web site posing a new kind of outreach from the international science community to the general populace to help formulate the next generation of scientific questions about "Earth Systems". The International Council for Sciences (ICSU) has put up an open page called Earth System Visioning where anyone can register and pose a question they think needs near-term scientific attention. Registrants can then vote for the questions they think are the most important. Sounds like a worthy endeavor (the open period ends August 15th so you'll need to get there quickly to be able to pose a question/comment or vote). I first read about it in an editorial piece in Science. So I figured this would be a high-quality process with participants using their real names and not just another Web commentary site that attracts anyone who can type. After perusing the questions and some of the comments, I'm not so sure. But time will tell. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

The apparent point of the site is to start thinking strategically about what are some of the other important systems questions after we have spent so much time working on climate change and its impacts on society. What are some of the other things we should be working on? But it appears, at a glance, that the questions are pretty standard concerns, mostly about the environment, biodiversity, etc. and their impact on societies. In other words, the questions posed are already on the scientific agenda in one way or another.

But as I wandered through the questions and some comments I began to sense an aspect of what kinds of things were covered that I hadn't really thought much about before. All (or most) the questions revolve around what effects would be relevant to humanity from such and such phenomena. These are all the kinds of questions we've been asking all along, and, based on the sorry state of affairs in our human-constructed world (global warming and everything else that threatens our existence, let alone our comfort), we haven't been getting very useful answers!

You can't get the right answer if you don't ask the right question. Or ask the question in the right way.

The predominant theme of questions people ask about our earth system is something to the effect of: "How do we humans prosper?" We keep getting nasty answers that seem to say something to the effect that: "Sorry, but your prosperity seems to mean poverty for the rest of this system."

Isn't the truly core question for humanity to address something like: "What is the proper place and role of the human species on this planet?" Are the ultimate global existential and epistemological questions centered on humanity or should they be centered on the Earth as a whole system? Is it just about us, or is it about the unified whole? Shouldn't the intent be for the whole Ecos to prosper?

Our formulation of research questions seem to have as an implicit assumption that mankind is supposed to be the primary beneficiary of knowledge. Even our concern about the stability of the environment and biodiversity comes down to an argument that mankind is to be the beneficiary of conservation. The environment needs to be kept robust and stable so that mankind will be safe and comfortable. Isn't this just an anthropocentric view of why the world exists? What is really different here from the biblical vision of god creating the world for humans to rule?

Perhaps this is really the wrong way to frame the question. Maybe the answer we keep getting — like 42 — is because, as Douglas Adams pointed out in "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" we didn't really have the question quite right. As it appeared to the pan-dimensional beings (who took the form of mice in our four-dimensional universe) the answer is incomprehensible because we didn't actually know the right question to ask ("The ultimate question...you know, Life, the Universe and Everything?").

We keep asking what can the Earth do for us. We, maybe, should be asking what can we do for the Earth (to borrow from John Fitzgerald Kennedy). We keep asking how does this knowledge of science allow us to better exploit the Earth. How can we use this bow and arrow to kill more animals? How can we use this plow to convert more land to grow our food? How can we burn this fuel in a controlled fashion so as to allow us to go faster and farther? Maybe we should ask questions like, how much of the land is fairly taken to provide our food? How many fish should we harvest so as not to deplete the stocks?

Of course there are many of you who have already converted to asking these kinds of questions and the answers make obvious the dangers of thinking we are the center of the universe. But the vast majority of people still think that these answers help us only insofar as we can use the knowledge to assure our future comfort in some way. Let's face it, most of us still really want to have our cake and eat it too. We go so far as to ask, how can mankind live in harmony with nature? But this assumes that nature will somehow provide an ideal environment suited for human habitation and all we have to do is observe our proper limits. What if this is still the wrong question?

Try this one on for size. What are the best things that humanity can do to allow the Earth to follow her natural evolution? Given our nature to try to understand the natural world, what is our role in this evolution? Might it not turn out that we discover that our own evolution is intertwined with that of our planet as a whole? Could it be that our current species isn't the end point at all, but rather just a stop along the way? And could it be that we are supposed to be an integral part of the whole Earth evolution? Might it be perfectly natural for humanity to have contributed to mass extinctions setting the stage for the next burst of evolutionary efflorescence? I know that last idea is completely anathema to the common wisdom. We're supposed to be saving the planet, not letting ourselves off the hook for screwing things up. But I keep coming back to the fact that we aren't omniscient beings who know what is best for the Earth. We just look at what seems best for us and assume the rest.

Obviously we can't know the outcomes of evolution, but this approach to formulating questions with a different focus from just what is good for us might provide some surprising insights into where this is all going and what it all means. We're here. We act and cause things to happen. We have an effect on the world. And we got here through evolution. But so did everything else. So maybe thinking of ourselves as just components in the very complex Ecos and trying really hard to ask how we can be in tune with that evolutionary complexity might be more useful than trying to figure out how we can control it all for our safety and benefit.

It's just a thought.

The Tricks Magicians Use: Slight of Hand

I've always been a sucker for magic tricks. Try as I might to see how the magician palms a card or pulls a flower out of thin air, I just see the magic and not the slight of hand. Modern perception science research explains it to us. Good magicians know how to distract our involuntary eye movements (saccades) so that we miss some crucial movement. Voilà, the trick is done and we never notice how it was really accomplished. I may be fooled by professional magicians. But there are some tricks I won't fall for.

Politicians often work like magicians, the ones that manage to stay in office with high approval ratings while the system goes to hell. They know how to trick the majority of people into thinking what they are doing is the right thing. Meanwhile something entirely different is going on.

I'm beginning to wonder if President Obama is really a good magician.

Politicians are aided and abetted by the mainstream news media and, I am sorry to say it, increasingly the big political blogs as well (lead articles on HuffingtonPost for how many days now??). When I left for Europe several weeks ago, Michael Jackson's death and the seemingly endless tributes to the King of Rock (or whatever his official title was) was the big news. It was quite a distraction in and of itself. It was like the media was setting things up while the magician was preparing for his trick.

Then the real distraction. The national health care system (!emergency! Remember Bush's claims about the emergency surrounding Social Security?). And what trick is being performed while your gaze is on this terrible problem? There are actually two. The weakness of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey) and the likelihood that it will die in the Senate is one (actually cap-and-trade is a distraction in its own right!). The other is the fact that the energy situation is worsening by the day. You (well maybe not you regular readers!) forgot all about these, didn't you. While the President and the media are clamoring over the health insurance reform and cost controls on health care as if those were absolutely the single most important things that we have to attend to everyone is forgetting that the very basis of western civilization is crumbling beneath our feet.

Don't get me wrong. I don't wish to suggest that the health care (insurance and costs) issues aren't somewhat important. If there weren't more drastic, immediate problems facing us, I'd put health care right up there in priority order. The problem is that when the rest of our social order collapses around us, worrying about getting quality health care at the lowest cost is going to be the last thing on anyone's mind. Getting any health care will probably come in second to getting food and water!

Remember the problems with the financial markets? While everyone is scurrying to come up with a health care package (legislation that will pass), Goldman Sachs seems to be up to some old tricks. See Matt Taibbi's Take-Down and James Howard Kunslter's analysis. Meanwhile the jobs numbers are abysmal (not just job losses but the fact that no new jobs are being created!). There is still plenty of debt unwinding that needs to take place in consumer and real estate (I hear commercial horror stories are in the wings). If you have been following my arguments about how our financial fiasco, and the incredible debt load we've taken on, is the result of declining net energy to do real economic work — the creation of real wealth, not just numbers on a piece of paper or in a computer memory.

So while the magician is distracting us with the health care issues (remember this has been a problem for years, why rush it now? OK the excuse is that it is a major contributor to our economic problems, but believe me when the financial collapse s**t hits the fan we'll know exactly what the BIG problems were) we're being robbed blind and the pressures that will blow up our social order are building up.

And the media, like that gorgeous magician's assistant, is doing its part to keep us distracted.

When the show is over what will we have? The ticket stub in our hands. A memory of some excitement about a subject that seemed to really matter at the time. Then we walk out of the theater and WHAM! We get hit by a bus, because we were distracted.

Of course I should also acknowledge Congress' role in all of this. What a ship of fools! I have never been so ashamed of that body of get-nothing-really-worthwhile-doners. Partisanship, ideological subjugation, petty bickering, special interests, moneyed lobbyists, and complete lack of vision has turned our legislative branch into the comedy act that follows the magician. Only I ain't laughing. They're not funny.

I would like to say I'm glad to be home (US) from my European jaunt, but as soon as I got on the freeway and saw the god-awful proportion of SUVs and trucks compared with more fuel efficient, smaller cars over there, I was reminded of just how unwise a people we are. I can see how it is so easy to distract our attention from what is important, how easy it is to be tricked. We are so distracted by illusory things.

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PS. Just so you know I have a number of chronic and potentially life threatening health conditions while working in an industry hard hit by the recession (read: could reduce health care benefits at a moment's notice). Health care should matter a lot to me. But compared with the deeper and more dangerous global problems we face...

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[EDIT:] Oh my! SLEIGHT of hand! thanks Nominal. The title has to stand as is since it is actually part of the URL and Typepad gets confused if I change the title! Oh well. As Nietzsche says - Human, all too human.

Vacation coming to a close!

Dear readers,

I'm leaving from Munich in the morning and so closes a much needed respite from the routines at home. I toured Austria; Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, several small villages, the Tyrolean Alps, and a small jaunt to the Czech Republic. All-in-all a hectic 11 days, but well worth it.

Now its back to the grindstone! I did manage to upgrade my Nietzsche background while racing between cities and over leisurely meals (once dangling my feet in the Danube on a lazy afternoon).  The visit has put into stark relief the difference between our cultural heritage and what we in the west have come to expect from our society and in our future versus what the advent of peak energy will bring. Naturally, I will be trying to capture some of the ideas I developed along these lines while taking in the grandeur of palaces and cathedrals. And I suspect I will share some of those with you in the near future.

For now I have to get to bed early (local time) to catch an early flight tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to getting back on track with this blog.

Auf wirtersein

What did you expect from the G-8?

A quick note from Innsbruck, Austria. Internet access isn't what one is used to in the US! So I've not gotten a chance to catch up on events. Actually that is a good thing! Relaxing amid beautiful scenery and very pleasant cultural attitudes (except for the fact that every third person smokes and smoking in resturants is common) is actually quite nice.

But I did catch a report on the G-8 summit in Italy regarding the talks on climate change and what the countries are going to agree on doing about it. Not surprisingly they appear to have agreed to put off agreeing about anything substantive. What a surprise there?

The leadership of the world powers continue to disappoint me in their failure to grasp our situation and their lack of courage in standing up for real change. But then consider that real action in slowing greenhouse gas emissions means slowing and retracting economic progress in producing the gadgets and luxuries that the people in developed nations have come to expect as their birthrights, then it shouldn't surprise anyone that the 'leaders' are impotent. They got into their positions by promising the people (especially the wealthy and powerful) that they would do what would be in the interest of keeping this illusion of wealth going. Doing the right thing would be breaking their promise!

I love Europe. I love the generally easier pace of life. I love that in the evenings people get out and walk through the cities, or bike. I love the lower traffic congestion in smaller towns. I could easily live here even if it meant learning a foriegn language. But even here there is a sense that consumption of things is completely normal and justifiable. The few people I have talked to about energy and climate change do not seem to see the connection between having stuff and burning fossil fuels. Two people actually thought the whole problem was based on automobiles and the US's over-the-top life styles. They didn't seem to get that electricity generation was a bigger problem.

The average European energy consumption per capita is, indeed, much less than the average American's. Nevertheless, the average European still expects to have a lifestyle that accounts for huge consumption of fossil fuels. But the connection between having stuff and burning fossil fuels seems to be as hazy in their minds here as it is in the US. Granted I've talked to very few people, so this isn't anything like a valid sample -- just an impression. I think the greater part of this impression comes from looking in the store fronts and seeing pretty much the same sorts of products and glitz that one sees in a typical American mall.

Anyway, it is refreshing to get away from the American rat race for a bit and enjoy more of a rat promenade! I've finally gotten some time to study more Nietzsche. The more I read of his work and some interpretations of his work, the more I think he and I would have had some pleasant conversations were we contemporaries. I will probably have many more thoughts to share on this in the future.

Tom, Tom, Tom. When are you going to pay attention to reality?

Once again I applaud Tom Friedman ("Can I Clean Your Clock?", Sunday, July 5, 2009, New York Times Opinion) for at least getting in the right quadrant of the problem domain. But unfortunately he still is a Pollyanna when it comes to technological 'fixes' for the energy/GHG problems we face. In referring to his previous interactions with Chinese folk regarding economic growth on dirty fossil fuel energy, he says...

It’s a hard argument to refute. Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: "You're right. It’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then we're going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock — how do you say ‘clean your clock’ in Chinese? — in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. I'd prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want."

He goes on to warn that now the Chinese get it and are turning to green technology. They will, in his view, end up cleaning our clocks when it comes to developing what he calls 'ET', energy technology.

Friedman continues to talk to enthusiastic entrepreneurs and economists who push the idea that green technologies will allow us to continue on in our lifestyle (USA), let the developing nations achieve our lifestyle, save the planet from global warming and provide endless jobs for the burgeoning population. What a miracle from capitalism at its best, more investment (presumably from deeper debt), and that 'can do' American technological inventiveness that made this country great! Wow!

Friedman ought to talk to real physicists and biophysical economists. He ought to talk to people like Vaclav Smil who has made an academic career working on the nuts and bolts of energy economics, including actually understanding some things about energy technology. He rightly called the corn ethanol scam long ago and has many insightful comments about biofuels overall — as in they can't possibly fill the liquid fuels need of a nation or world bent on everyone owning a car. It's physically (biologically, photosynthetically) impossible. He also has pointed out the woeful gap between the energy density of fossil fuels and solar/wind alternatives. The vast majority of people, and Tom Friedman it seems, listen to the enthusiastic claims made in the press and think that is reality. And believe me there is a huge amount of enthusiasm out there. The vast majority of it is delusional, I'm afraid. Doesn't anyone pay attention in physics classes anymore?

Actually, the Friedman article points out that the Chinese do get it and are launching massive efforts, marshalling major resources as only a dictatorship can, it seems, to go green. This is a good thing for us for no other reason than we will watch them do the experiments in converting to green power and see how it goes. They will invest the resources trying to substitute green for fossil fuels and we can learn from their experiences. What we will learn (after you factor out the inevitable hype) is that green can help marginally but it will never replace carbon (and hydrogen attached) in the generation of huge amounts of electricity and liquid fuels needed to run a large, affluent-achieving, and growing economy. The only technology that could conceivably produce that much power is nuclear, and the scaling problem (building enough units in time) as well as remaining technical problems with safety and waste disposal aren't going to just disappear (though there are some hopeful ideas out there on both fronts).

Once the Chinese have made a go of it with green and we still see massive hunger, unemployment, and many other consequences of not having enough energy per capita to build the kind of world we Americans have created, then maybe we will start looking reality in the face. Unfortunately, by the time that experiment runs itself out, it will be way too late for us to rationally direct our remaining resources to what will work. See my series: Steps Toward an Energy Solution

• * Step 1. Waking Up
• * Step 2. Follow the Science
• * Step 3: Eliminating Unnecessary Consumption
• * Step 4: Redirect Investment into Energy Production/Saving
• * Step 5: Adopt A New Kind Of Money Based On Energy
• * Step 6: Redefine Useful Work and Wealth
• * Step 7: Determine True Sustainability

Friedman and other pundits who advocate technological (and capitalistic) solutions to our energy/climate/population/food/etc. problems are unknowingly steering us toward a bleak future. Their hearts are in the right place. They want a good life for all. But their heads are screwed on backward. They are looking at the past and the way the free enterprise approach produced all this material wealth (at the expense of the environment, our health and real happiness) and assuming that more of the same is the way to go. All they advocate is changing the direction of what investments we make. They honestly, but wrongly, believe that there is a technological fix right around the corner and all we need do is unleash our inventive entrepreneurs who will, like white knights on horses, come charging in with the 'solutions'. Friedman likes the 'ET' acronym because it emulates the 'IT' acronym for information technology. But unfortunately for Tom and the rest of us, energy doesn't work the same way information does! It has its own set of laws that have serious implications for just how much leverage technology can get us (see the series above for where those true leverage points are).

So I can't blame the pundits for their enthusiasm. I can, however, voice my disappointment in the lack of unbiased, objective investigation into the nature of the real problem and the realization that we will be operating by a new set of rules as fossil fuels decline in abundance and energy return on energy invested declines more precipitously. My greatest fear is that as this pollyannaish vision gets trashed by facts on the ground, there will be a significant amount of anger directed at those who steered us in the wrong direction on the basis of a vision through those rose-colored glasses and blind-sided by ideology.

Organizing Question Everything

Some time back I received several e-mails from readers requesting that I figure out a way to provide a convenient index of links for the various series of subjects that I have been working on. I thought the category list (on the left panel) would suffice. But since Typepad organizes posts with the most recent at the top, and since they are in reverse chronological order, it is almost impossible to track down a sequence with interspersed odd posts here and there.

I just got back from California and am about to leave for another trip (3 weeks) so may not be writing much for the next month. I thought this would be a good time to fix that problem.

So I've put together a page with a set of indexes for each of these series. The page is located on my work server. Each of the subjects are actually part of my "official" work as an academic, so this is justified use of state resources. There is a new item in the left panel with the link also there. So those of you who might want to read (or re-read) any of these subjects in order you can always reach the index page and then get to the posts.

A reader identifying herself as an editor for a "small" publishing house actually triggered this reorganization effort. She was interested in editing some or all for one or more books! While I am not interested in trying to write books (I have about three in various stages of completeness!), except for the Systems Science series possibly, it did make me think about at least providing a rational organization for reading in order.

I'm not interested in writing books anymore because, frankly, it is too constraining. Writing a blog is liberating. I don't worry about writing in a particular style or restraining my line of thinking to one concentrated subject. And I am not concerned with deadlines.

Moreover, I've seen what having a published book does to someone. It turns them into a salesperson! Their objective is to sell as many copies as possible. They are obsessed with reaching the largest audience and having a demonstrable impact on people's thinking. Sure, I offer my blog to a few other blogs (like Dot Earth or The Oil Drum) where there is an audience of similar mind. But I don't push it much more than that and I certainly don't have a publicist!

I write for myself. I write to clarify my ideas for myself. I write to discover new questions. And I write to work out what answers seem appropriate to me. If others (you dear readers) find anything of value here that is heartening and I'm glad.

Maybe that editor will tackle the job (I won't necessarily say no). But what I write is put out for free. I expect no compensation and don't expect anyone else to profit from my efforts.

The next month should be extremely interesting in terms of the global economy. There is a lot of fulmination in various markets and especially in the financial sector. Will GM fail to come out of bankruptcy court in a salvageable shape? Will more banks fail? Will housing prices bottom out and recover at least some paper value? Will the job losses continue apace? So many questions.

One thing I am reasonably sure of; the political leadership will not grasp the reality of declining energy available to do economic work any time soon. Nor will they recognize the deep relationship between energy and true wealth. So as things get worse (and I am reasonably confident that even with some small short-lived recovery signs things will get worse) they will simply bear down harder with their wrong-thinking "solutions". Some bankers may get richer in paper terms in the short run. But we will all be a lot poorer in the longer run. When, I wonder, will people finally have had enough?  Well, when they do they will need some real ideas about what to do. The several series of posts linked above might be worth thinking about in that regard.