Sci-Fi legend Bruce Sterling (Heavy Weather, The Difference Engine, Distraction and other great novels) is one of the cyberpunk gang of authors who have seen through the more pollyanna views of ‘cool new technology’ to warn that innovation can potentially create disruptions in everything from the climate system to the social system.

I’ve been a fan of his since coming across Heavy Weather in the mid-1990’s. Climate change was not cool back then. We’re so much older than that now and the planet is so much warmer.

I was delighted, and honored, when I ran into him earlier today at the FiRE Conference in San Diego and he agreed to be interviewed for Professionally Speaking.

I really had no idea what he’d talk about. The last thing I expected was a discussion on the Mafiosi-like features of the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels. In fact he’s planning to set his next book in Europe. To hear him explain why he finds modern “post-national” Europe so fascinating, and why he predicts the view from across the Atlantic will soon “return to the slightly paternalistic attitude of American’s as poorly educated hay-seeds,” click on the podcast icon below.

 

 Interview: Bruce Sterling [9:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Robert Swan: Boy’s Own Hero

Robert Swan is a modern hero cut in the cloth of Shakleton, Scott and the larger-than-life characters of the Victorian Era. His story is impressive. He’s the first person to walk to both the South and North poles. Given the effects of climate change on polar ice he’s quite likely also the last person as well - the melting of the ice means it’s now not possible to undertake the journey’s he completed twenty years ago - today you’d have to swim part of the way. The land of ice he traveled in his youth is now, literally, melting under his feet as global warming takes hold.

Since traveling to the Poles, and observing the effects of climate change and man-made pollution first-hand, Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of Antarctica by the promotion of recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of climate change.

This is detailed on his website www.2041.com.

Why 2041?

2041 is the year of the review of the Environmental Protocol of the Antarctic Treaty. Swan’s aim is to work towards the protection of this treaty, so there is never a need to exploit the last great continent on Earth for minerals and fossil fuel.

Following his success in removing 1,500 tons of rubbish from Antarctica and with the foresight and support of the Russian Antarctic Division, Robert Swan stood at the Bellingshausen Russian base on King George Island looking down on the beach that had been cleaned. From that moment he believed that an education station in Antarctica, where the world could see the beauty of this incredible continent, would inspire and educate people around the world about climate change and play a crucial role in promoting renewable energy, preservation and conservation for future generations.

He’s established an educational facility in Antarctica. The E-Base is a sustainable green building operated in an environmental and resource efficient manner.

Public speaking for the greater good

Swann is now traveling the world meeting with students in colleges and universities presenting the opportunity to join his campaign to help rescue these pristine wildernesses from the effects of climate change. He’s a compelling and fiery public speaker.

I caught up with him after a presentation to a small group of leadership coaches from Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto. He told me about the importance “telling it like it is”; about the urgency of his work; and how college kids are receiving his message.

To hear the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

 

 Robert Swan - Polar Explorer [5:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tell him there is measure in every thing
and so dance out the answer.

Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing

Hidden deep inside the HP Labs website on innovations for the environment which I profiled yesterday, is an important research theme for assessing the total environmental impact of technology on our planet.

Work being headed up by Chandrakant Patel on lifetime energy use introduces a new measure of environmental impact.

It can be argued that the environmental debate which is currently being conducted in terms of carbon emissions and carbon trading contain anomalies that limit full awareness of the impact of technology on the world in which we live.

It’s like figuring out the cost of running your car by only counting what you spend on petrol. As any motorist knows, there’s also the cost of repairs, insurance, depreciation and so on. From the day you drive your new car off the lot until the moment it is crushed and recycled there’s a total cost of ownership associated with running a vehicle. A savvy owner would want an accounting of this and not be satisfied with measuring one factor while ignoring others.

Just so, the concept of exergy allows engineers and policy makers a measure for performing accurate environmental accounting. Exergy-cost analyses evaluates the impact of human activity on the current natural environment and measures the overall environmental sustainability of different products: whether it’s a plastic drinks bottle or a supercomputer.

To attain true sustainability, it’s not enough to simply consider costs of powering, cooling and operating IT. It’s essential to take a ‘cradle to cradle’ approach, taking into account IT’s entire lifecycle – from the raw materials extracted to build the machine to its manufacturing and to its recycling and potential reuse.

HP Labs is working with the University of California at Berkeley to build a tool called the Lifetime Exergy Advisor, which would assess the total environmental impact (from extraction to shipping to operation and recycling) of using different types of materials (or different combinations of materials), different processes, operational or reclamation techniques.

Patel’s novel framework is based on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and aims to drive the deconstruction of existing value chains with high resource costs and replace them with net-positive end-to-end IT solutions.

This research moves the focus on Green IT solutions beyond the level of anecdotes and into the realm of rigorous analysis.

“In the future, we will end up judging IT decisions based on the pool of available energy resources that we are depleting from the ground,” Patel says.

Technically speaking, this is the second law of thermodynamics, which says that although using a resource (e.g., burning coal) does not result in destruction of energy, it does destroy its available energy – that is, its ability to do useful work.

Such available energy is often called exergy and the unit in which it is measured is a joule.

“In a flat world,” suggests Patel, “the only currency is going to be joules – not yuans, not rupees, not dollars. What we want to do in our future research is to look at the entire IT ecosystem from end to end and quantify the available energy destroyed.”

This is a potentially game-changing way of looking at the environmental impact of IT.

It’s appropriate that in the same week Al Gore gave his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, HP Labs - the research arm of Hewlett-Packard - has published an elegant summary of a range of innovations which help deliver on the promise of a greener information technology landscape.

Al Gore challenged the world’s scientists to focus their research on confronting a planetary emergency:

The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

So it’s significant that research institutions like HP Labs, with a network of seven R&D centers spread around the world, focus attention on environmental sustainability.

Innovative solutions from HP Labs which provide a way to minimize the environmental impact of data center computing include Dynamic Smart Cooling and Data Center Thermal Assessment Services – as well as looking beyond the data center to energy-adaptive displays, better ways to keep chips cool and video conferencing that has the feel of a face-to-face meeting. From the glass house to the executive jet there are now a range of environmentally sensible solutions that you can implement today, if you choose to do so.

These solutions from HP Labs allow customers the choice of an environmentally conscious alternative to the more profligate computing technology they may currently use.

So if you work in corporate computing, ask your CIO two things.

Firstly, ask them to evaluate the environmental impact of the entire IT life-cycle in your organization. Are there ways to implement technology that is good for business and good for the planet?

Secondly, ask them to consider their response to the question Al Gore posed yesterday in Oslo:

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

It’s your choice.

Congratulations are in order for Al Gore’s well-deserved Nobel Peace prize recognizing his work to raise awareness around Global Warming. Key to the public perception has been his documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which I’ve already recognized as a masterful presentation. Garr has written at length about the partnership between Gore and the awesome folks at Duarte Design who helped him realize his vision. The Nobel Prize is a real feather in their cap - wonder why there’s no mention of the movie on their home page?

For all intents the ‘debate’ over Global Warming is well and truly over. The race is on for solutions. Organizations like Chevron Energy Solutions are making a difference.

Leave it up to the dinosaurs in the British Judiciary to take issue with the film. Judge Michael Burton apparently feels the need to warn British teachers wanting to show the film about the “distinctly alarmist” tone Gore uses in the film.

… Dinosaur…
… Justice Burton…

Well, hello? What tone would his judgeship prefer? Something more, moderate, more ’sound’? Perhaps I say, chaps, things are getting a little warmer, but nothing to get alarmed over. Why, we’ve been through this as an Island Race before. Back in Roman times they had vineyards in Sussex. Decent glass of claret resulted by all accounts, what?

I’ve just registered to post a special blog entry on the topic of the Environment on Monday October 15. This as part of Blog Action Day. Over 11,000 bloggers reaching an audience of hundreds of thousands will post on the one topic on the one day. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any kind of network effect as a critical mass of bloggers mind-melds on the issue.

One thing we can be sure of, however, is the inevitable effect of tens of thousands of bits flying between server room and laptop; blade and router; requiring substantially more electric power generation that day than if all us bloggers had, ahem, simply stayed in bed (a la John & Yoko).

As Viridian List-meister Bruce Sterling wrote back in 1999 every ten megabytes burns five pounds of coal quoting Forbes magazine:

The infoelectric convergence is already having a visible impact on overall demand. At least 100 million
nodes on the Internet, drawing from hundreds to thousands of kilowatt-hours per year, add up to 290 billion kWh of demand. That’s about 8% of total U.S. demand. Add in the electric power used to build and operate stand-alone (unnetworked) chips and computers, and the total jumps to about 13%. It’s now reasonable to project that half of the electric grid will be powering the digital-Internet economy within the next decade.

Not using the internet to draw attention to the urgency of environmental issues in order to save coal is of course counterproductive. Better we lobby for some smart innovations such as HP’s Chandrankant Patel champions with his Dynamic Smart Cooling solution - a wake-up call for datacenter HVAC engineers to consider.

Thanks to Joel for altering me a great source of useful videos (no, it’s not YouTube). My favorite corporate pranksters, The Yes Men, are featured on a number of clips. In addition to spoofing audiences as bogus representatives of the WTO, they have taken to the streets urging Americans to sign a petition in support of Global Warming.

Since there will probably be a backlash to this week’s historic legislation in California designed to limit greenhouse gasses, you should take a moment to see the response of the Joe Six-pack to some very improbable claims that the Yes Men make when asking people to support climate change. They don’t go as far as claiming carbon dioxide actually is good for you. I mean, no-one would ever think of funding a national advertising campaign making such a ridiculous claim, would they?

Watch:

Peter Schweizer’s recent article on the apparent hypocrisy of Al Gore championing climate change in his Inconvenient Truth movie while living in three homes and flying in private jets raises some interesting questions.

As I noted in my review of the film, Gore’s travel schedule imposes a beefy carbon footprint, but given the urgency of his message may be justified.

Schweizer ad hominem critique highlights a number of areas where he claims Gore’s personal behavior is hypocritical:

Schweizer concludes:

Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.
.
.
The issue here is not simply Gore’s hypocrisy; it’s a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth, and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn’t he made any radical change in his life? Giving up one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

I think these are cheap shots. Asserting that someone’s argument is wrong because of something discreditable about the person rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself is a classic logical fallacy.

Consider. Gore has an important message he is trying to deliver across the planet. He can’t do this effectively if he was to travel by bicycle to talk to audiences. Flying in a private jet is environmentally damaging, but the captains of industry do it daily. If he is to be effective he can’t have one hand tied behind his back.

Secondly, the homes he owns are not a-typical of those owned by the elite in America. If he was to sell them and move into modest housing someone else would be burning energy to heat and cool them. What’s he to do, demolish them? Better he stays and tries to run them energy-efficiently.

Finally, any of us with a diversified 401(k) have shares in mining and petroleum companies. Of course, we could sacrifice returns and stay with socially responsible funds, but these often underperform the market.

The response that is needed to global warming is not necessarily to adopt a hair-shirt lifestyle. American public opinion is not receptive to those who’ve tried this. The reputation of Ralph Nader, President Carter and “Governor Moonbeam” Brown of California were not helped by their nods to personal sacrifice and low rent accouterments.

It’s not Gore’s personal lifestyle that’s in question. Rather, it’s the potential impact of climate change on a global scale. He’s done an excellent job communicating the urgency of this in his book and movie. Tripping him up for not living up to the suggestions he made to reduce carbon emissions distracts from the scale of change that is really needed.

Sure, we all need to try and reduce our carbon footprint. And those of us lucky enough to live in advanced economies will need to adjust our material consumption downward by a significant amount. The small percentage of the world’s population that live in the United States cannot continue to consume many times our fair share of energy resources.

Personal choices made by Americans play a role in helping the planet. But serious policy changes (for instance in the CAFE standards for average gas consumption) have a much larger effect. These changes will occur due to legislation resulting from democratic debate as the scale of the crisis unfolds.

Even larger changes will result in response to global forces unleashed by the rest of the world against those who foul the planet. A terrorist campaign with roots in the climatically dispossessed is not unthinkable. The way we deal with it is worth consideration.

And the largest role of all will be played by the planet. Once the ice melts and sea levels rise there probably won’t be a home in America that only has one family living it in. Refugees from the coasts will be billeted in the all of the Gore’s fancy residences. The water lapping at the doors of the Hoover Institution will give Peter Schweizer more concern than Gore’s personal lifestyle.

In a fascinating survey out this week, the Pew Research Center reports that anti-Americanism is on the rise across the planet.
The big issue is the war in Iraq:

The survey shows that the Iraq war continues to exact a toll on America’s overall image and on support for the struggle against terrorism. Majorities in 10 of 14 foreign countries surveyed say that the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. In Great Britain, America’s most important ally in Iraq, 60% say the war has made the world more dangerous, while just half that number (30%) feel it has made the world safer.

No surprise in this finding — neither supporters or opponents of the war should be shocked.

What did surprise me was the low level of concern, even ignorance, about the issue of Global Warming in the two countries that are responsible for the greatest output of CO2:

There also is a substantial gap in concern over global warming - roughly two-thirds of Japanese (66%) and Indians (65%) say they personally worry a great deal about global warming. Roughly half of the populations of Spain (51%) and France (46%) also express great concern over global warming, based on those who have heard about the issue. But there is no evidence of alarm over global warming in either the United States or China - the two largest producers of greenhouse gases. Just 19% of Americans and 20% of the Chinese who have heard of the issue say they worry a lot about global warming - the lowest percentages in the 15 countries surveyed.

The Chinese have an excuse, they live in a society where the free flow of information choked off. America claims to be the land of the free. Perhaps it’s just another word for nothin’ that don’t mean nothin’.

This “What, me worry?” attitude is indicated by many Americans reacting with disdain or hostility to Al Gore’s movie. President Bush famously says he ‘doubts’ he’ll see it — exhibiting a classic case of argument from a position of ignorance (”I can’t believe this is possible, so it can’t be true”). The American public continues in it’s tradition of being less aware of major issues the rest of the world:

For the most part, Americans are significantly less aware of events and issues than are the publics in Germany and other major industrialized countries.

There’s a lesson in this for communications professionals and speakers who find themselves addressing American audiences. Dumb it down. Then make it even dumber. Don’t assume your audience knows Jack about the major topics of the day. That includes the ‘educated’ professionals in business attire.

The good news is that a presentation which makes the audience aware of previously unknown facts and does so in an entertaining and engaging manner, will reduce by a small fraction the sum total of this great wall of ignorance. And that’s a good feelin’ — good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

Once he’s completed an inventory of the negative effects of modern civilization on the planet, Al Gore’s summary insight in An Inconvenient Truth is that

Old Habits + Old Technology = Predictable consequences

while

Old Habits + New Technology = Dramatically altered consequences

Gore notes: We exercise our technologically enhanced power in the thoughtless pursuit of age-old habits, which are, after all, hard to change.

Dramatic changes in agriculture, medicine, industrial production and transportation have brought unbelievable improvement in the quality of life for those few of us on the planet fortunate enough to live in the developed economies. In the space of a couple of generations we’ve extended lifespans and vastly increased material wealth.

Our new technologies, combined with our numbers, have made us, collectively, a force of nature. We like our pharmaceuticals; our automobiles and low cost airlines; the web; television; exotic resorts and gourmet dining options. We strive to add more of these enjoyments to our already comfortable lives. Those in positions of executive and political power have no limit, or shame, in their desire to increase their net worth. The captains of industry (Gates, Trump, Welch, Lay) and those who control the levers of political power are role models of excess for the masses.

Yet where is the consequent dramatic change in human understanding?

Gore’s book and movie highlight the urgency of the planetary emergency. The suggestions abut what every individual can do to help solve the climate crisis are all wonderful. But are they enough? Where’s the evidence that we exhibit the necessary understanding of the larger, long-term, implications of our individual actions? Where’s the evidence of foresight in a civilization whose systems are white sticks, knocking walls?

Old habits die hard. Change is tough. The secret of how to change is not to resist the old habits but to embrace new ones that render the old obsolete, as has been noted by the Western-born Spiritual Adept, Adi Da Samraj:

True change and advanced human adaptation are not made on the basis of any self-conscious resistance to old, degenerative, and subhuman habits. Change is not a matter of not doing something. It is a matter of doing something else — something that is inherently right, free, and pleasurable. Therefore, the key is insight and the freedom to feel and participate in ways of functioning that are right and new.

The tendencies and patterns of your earlier adaptations are not wrong. They were appropriate enough in their own moment of creation, and there is no need to feel guilt or despair about them. Likewise, efforts to oppose and change them are basically fruitless. Such efforts are forms of conflict, and they only reinforce the modes of egoic “self-possession”.

What is not used becomes obsolete, whereas what is opposed is kept before you. Therefore, the creative principle of change is the one of relaxed inspection and awareness of existing tendencies, and persistent, full feeling orientation to right, new, regenerative functional patterns.