Entries Tagged 'politics' ↓

The terms of service used to forbid linking:

  You are prohibited from creating links in other Web sites leading to this Web site without prior express authorization from the Site Owner. (To obtain an authorization, contact our Web site administrator at info@tourisme-montreal.org) — retrieved May 21st

Today I checked again, and lo! the terms have changed:

  The Site Owner reserves the right to request, at any time, that any link to this Web site created from a third party’s website be deleted if, in Site Owner’s sole discretion, such link causes the Site Owner a prejudice.

We can assume some clueless nitwit insisted on keeping the provision, no matter how often it was explained to them that it was ridiculous and unenforceable.

“A man, working in a laundromat?” It wasn’t really a question, nor a rhetorical device. She was just floored I’d ask why the help wanted sign on the window explicitly said “Woman wanted for 3 evening shifts per week”.

When I indicated the laundromat on Duluth St. had 2 men working there, she told me that when they hired a man at their previous location, they lost a lot of customers.

See also a blog entry from a year ago: Women can’t lift heavy weights.

What should I do? Report, boycott, ignore or try and cajole?

On Earth Day, I announced I’d be be spending some time thinking about a ’sexy’ vision of the (bright green) future. When Jamais Cascio blooged about Feedback, Tipping Points, and Hard Choices I asked him about a better vision than the one offered by Monbiot. He pointed me to Joseph Romm’s Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 2: The Solution.

Romm builds upon Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies. I don’t particularly like Romm’s proposal, and since he asks dissenters to read the Stabilization wedges paper before critiquing him, I gave it another read.

Now, the first time I read about stabilization wedges, the idea was very exciting. By breaking down the problem of carbon emissions into smaller, tractable problem, the authors gave us a credible, positive vision. While no single element or ‘wedge’ could solve even half the problem, any 7 of the many they proposed could do so.

The 15 proposed wedges are summarized on the Carbon Mitigation Initiative’s website, broken down into the four categories of Efficiency, Decarbonization of power, Decarbonization of fuel and Forests and agricultural soils

David Weinberger’s excellent book Everything is Miscellaneous has made me suspicious of such neat classification systems. It is one of those deceptively profound books that will permanently warp the way you see the world. Now I read about climate policy and think about the Dewey decimal classification system, or Linnaean taxonomy.

These classification systems not only fail at classifying important things (the inevitable ‘miscellaneous’), they also imply a certain worldview, which has political consequences.

Here’s a miscellaneous: sometimes planting a tree is not simply a mechanism for CO2 sequestration, but also a way to cut air conditioning costs. Does that fit under “Forests and agricultural soils” or “Efficiency”?

Another unclassifiable wedge is population. Yes, it’s a politically sensitive issue, yet right now there are governments encouraging higher birth rates, and others not giving women access to contraceptives.

There are other problems with the wedges. As the authors put it, wedges can not be combined willy-nilly:

Because the same BAU [business as usual] carbon emissions cannot be displaced twice, achieving one wedge often interacts with achieving another. The more the electricity system becomes decarbonized, for example, the less the available savings from greater efficiency of electricity use, and vice versa.

The wedge concept assumes linearity:

A wedge represents an activity that reduces emissions to the atmosphere that starts at zero today and increases linearly until it accounts for 1 GtC/year of reduced carbon emissions in 50 years. It thus represents a cumulative total of 25 GtC of reduced emissions over 50 years.

Of course, wind and solar have been growing at rates above 30%: not exactly linear.

Along with linearity, the very classification and sheer size of wedges, as well as the examples given favour bureaucratic solutions and state intervention. In fact, bureaucracies often can’t handle solutions like planting trees which have multiple benefits for health, environment, water management and energy use.

There’s a lot to like in Pacala and Socolow’s original paper: breaking down the problem into manageable chunks, insisting on stabilization with existing, ready technologies and a framework with which we can more sanely compare the cost of strategies.

What would be useful now is a way to think about solutions from the bottom-up. Maybe there’s a way to account for strategies with non-linear and multiple benefits.

Google has a post up about Helping others go green, including news that Google Transit is continuing its expansion.

If any Googlers are reading this, I’d like three green additions to Google Maps:

1. Lines connecting Metro stations.
2. Bike lanes. In Montreal, they’re faster than the metro.
3. Travel-time maps.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve finished reading Monbiot’s Heat and subscribed to organic food delivery by Le Jardin Des Anges. Today I asked Natasha for help with a vermicomposter, since I know I’ll have plenty of organic food scraps.

Still, it all feels inadequate given the enormity of the challenge. While scientists and the environmental movement have finally made us realize climate change is real and deadly, we have not yet seen a very compelling vision that could galvanize political change.

Talks of restraint, rationing and cuts aren’t sexy. And changing light bulbs to compact fluorescents or LEDs, eating less meat and offsetting air travel emissions - while necessary and good - just won’t cut it. In the coming months, I’ll be spending some time thinking about a ’sexy’ vision of the (bright green) future. If you have ideas to share, you can do so in comments. If you live in my neighbourhood, let’s meet up face to face.

When AngesQuebec announced $750k of funding from the Québec government, I asked what the justification was for giving money to already wealthy investors.

Austin Hill is one of the network’s members, as well as one of Standout Jobs’ 3 founders. I pinged him, teasing him about getting government financing. He argued that while he’s generally opposed to the idea of subsidies, it makes sense in this specific case. In our discussion, a few facts came out that changed my mind about the project:

-$750,000 is over 3 years, after which the network should be self-sustaining
-AngesQuebec aims to have a network of 200 angels
-Over the next 5 years, $50 million should be invested in 120 companies, creating 800 jobs
-Other angel networks have gone bankrupt trying to bootstrap from member fees.

AngesQuebec is a non-profit, trying to build a public infrastructure good - something markets tend to fail dismally on. They are currently all volunteer run, and seeking their first paid staff. Hopefully this hire can improve communications and start the process of recruiting angels in order to grow to a sustainable size.

This thread is worth following. In the past couple days:

-Jamais Cascio posted an interesting essay on “The Big Picture“, looking at the important drivers for the next 20 years.

-Prag Programmers published “Augmented Reality: A Practical Guide” (See O’Reilly’s post)

-Schneier posts about using cell phones to detect nuclear radiation. Those in power will want this to detect terrorists, but it will also shine a light on the transport of nuclear fuel and waste.

The futurists are theorizing, the alpha geeks are playing and writing software. It won’t be long until we get a political crisis because of data that citizens weren’t supposed to collect.

A gambit is a chess opening in which material (usually but not always a single pawn), is sacrificed in order to achieve an advantage.

Kasparov was arrested for leading a demonstration against Putin. Following his arrest, he was photographed flashing the v-sign to the media and supporters.

Putin may be a smart man, but he is being severely out-maneuvered by a brilliant strategist.

Paul Hawken, interviewed with Bill McKibben on Blessed Unrest and Deep Economics:

The United States is a confused place, traumatized by war, confused by its media, underserved by its health care system, insecure economically, arrogant in its policies, and unsure of its identity. The country as a whole is internalizing the inner climate of so many, and this gnawing rise of anomie is eating away at the core.

Being familiar with many of the most common cognitive biases is not only useful to lead happier lives; it’s also becoming essential for survival.

Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes. We pursue things that won’t make us happy and perceive the world as more violent than it really is, even as wars have decreased by orders of magnitude. The availability heuristic affects how we (mis-)spend money on security, including in information security.

Jamais Cascio nails it when he says we have trouble envisioning a future that isn’t catastrophic. He appropriately concludes:

Sometimes, being a futurist isn’t about making forecasts or spotting trends.

Sometimes, being a futurist means acting as a civilizational therapist.

All the essays, books and videos linked above can help us do our individual part for this civilizational therapy project. Have fun

I have been a fan of Kiva since Jamais Cascio wrote about them on worldchanging. Kiva works on a simple idea: 20 people in rich countries can each lend $25 to a person somewhere half-way around the world. It’s small change for us, but that $500 can be enough for a borrower to build a decent livelihood.

99.7% of loans made through Kiva are repaid. It’s easy, cheap and changes lives; a lot of people love the idea.

They’ve had trouble keeping their servers up after receiving mainstream media attention, so when news came out that Oprah was to feature them I figured they might crash hard. They were only down for three 20 minute periods. 94,000 people visited the site that day, and 4388 new registered users lent $145,000 - more than triple their previous week’s total.

With two years of operation, Kiva has managed to get some solid data on repayment. Their knowledge and experience is paying off. What mainstream media recognition they are getting is richly deserved.

Because of the sudden influx of loaners, they have run out of businesses to fund. This is an excerpt from their site:

We’ve funded EVERY business on the site!!

[…]

With your help, one day we’ll run out of businesses forever. We at Kiva.org look forward to the day our website ceases to be a functioning microfinance site and instead becomes an online museum dedicated to showing future generations what we used to call “poverty.”