We will look back on the 20th century as the Dark Age. That means we've entered a Medieval Period.

They burned fossil fuel in the 20th century and blew a hole in the ozone layer - that's what they're gonna say about us in 3000.

Humans are so cocky - do you think that's gonna change by 3000? I'm being cocky writing this. Do you think we'll still be here in 3000?

I've been watching a few episodes of V - Jeez!
I'm insulted watching that trash - imagine how the aliens must feel watching that stuff!
No wonder ET's not interested in making contact. Why would aliens come to us as people? Why not as butterflies? We'd make them locusts. They might choose to join the dolphins. Why not?

Do you really think that a stupid iPhone or whatever the latest gadget is - iPad da-da-da - makes us so up with the times, so modern.
Gutenberg probably thought that. I don't think he even got the profits of his movable type.

So at least Apple has one up on Gutenberg - it's making a profit.

If you put yourself in the shoes of someone living in 3000, or even in 2050, or even 2030, then looking backwards at 2010 all of this is laughable - isn't it?
Keep buying stuff. Like that's going to make it all better.
DOOMED! We're all doomed. That's the thought that goes through my head when I take the plastic wrap off the plastic covered Easter egg.
Yeah it did taste good but did I need it? I ate it yes. Would have been wasteful to throw it out! ;)

Is social media good? Will newspapers survive? Doo..doo..doo.... Do you buy a first generation iPad or wait for better Wi-Fi? Do you convert existing content or purpose-build iPad content from scratch? Good questions.
But they won't define us as a race in the end. What will is culture: philosophy, literature, arts, architecture ... what will remain of this Medieval Period?
What's your perspective?

The iPad will be in a museum. Will Apple or Microsoft or Facebook or Google or Twitter still be around in 3000?
Exciting isn't it? I think so. I want a macro-telescope to zoom in for fine work close up and detail in the distance - on our timeline.
Anyone got any ideas on that one?

The flourishing of Athens happened after the human race got agriculture down pat and started to diversify into the arts: pottery, painting, thinking, writing ...

We ain't there yet kids. No where near there yet.

The new CULTURE is just a sparkle in the eyes of children - and the unborn.
The thing that we're involved in here is the formation of an economy - the digital economy.

Culture is not only unproduced it's not even imagined yet - we don't have the technology, we don't have the economy.

Which is why I like to spend a little bit of time passing on the things I learn (video editing, audio editing, music composition, writing) to my nephews and nieces.

I'm fueling the fire - it's all I can do.

Spent some time teaching Alex and Emma how to use the Soundtrack program - making music using loops.
You think kids today can't focus? Think again. HOURS of focus.

Here's the results:

Greenhouse is personal - but when does the national interest take priority? 2020? 2050?

When you cut open a piece of fruit, you discover something about its intrinsic nature. 

The fruit is divided into sections. 
A cross-section reveals a floral pattern - you might even think that you have discovered straight lines in nature (a rarity).
But if you look closely you will see an ever so slight gentle curve in the lines. These are called observations.

If you were a scientist, an agrarian economist even, you'd create an avalanche of statistical data: where does it grow, how much is harvested, how much is exported, the sugar content level optimals...
Observations and data make up the weight of evidence about the nature of the thing...

An artist's perspective is different to a scientist's which is different to a grocer's view or a shopper's view. But all views take in a level of uncertainty: cost versus quality (is it rotten inside?), how much can I sell (popularity?), why does the season shift (climate change?).  

Your personal interest and taste determines whether or not you buy and eat the fruit - your personal taste may run against popular taste or industry interests.
So when does it become necessary to put personal interest - or industry interests - aside?
You can't keep growing persimmons if the cost of production skyrockets. Similarly, the cost of production for many industries (affecting many people's personal interests) are going to skyrocket if we fail to make a transition to a low-carbon economy.
This is true whether or not Australia takes action to reduce the human carbon footprint - as Ross Garnaut says, any money raised by a carbon tax should benefit the future not be used to "smooth the pillows of dying economic activities". This is not a threat to our way of life. Even coal-fired power plants like Tarong are looking clean alternatives such as bio-sequestraion - they see the need to make the transition.
At the CSIRO's Greenhouse 2011 Forum in Cairns last week, economist Ross Garnaut reiterated the point he has been making since 2008 when he presented his report to then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
"Economics says it's worth doing something about the issue (of climate change) and that it won't be unmanageably expensive if we do it well," Garnaut preached to the converted. 
It was an assembly of representatives of the mainstream scientific view: human contribution to climate change must be mitigated as it poses a significant threat to our civilization (and our global economy).
"We can't solve the problem on our own," Garnaut said, "but we make it much harder if we don't participate." The lowest possible cost way is to put a price on carbon.
"China has moved emissions growth a long way from business as usual and that makes quite a big difference to the risks humanity faces. Even they have a long way to go but we have even further."
The awful reality is that Australia is not pulling its weight. Our skyrocketing consumption of electricity and excessive use of motor vehicles makes us one of the most wasteful countries (per capita) on Earth.
"Setting an economy-wide price for carbon on external costs will gie us the lowest cost solution," Garnaut advises. 
Australia is richly endowed with renewable energy resources and with the technical expertise (engineering, geological and earth sciences) to thrive in a low-carbon global economy, he says.
"Uncertainty is not a case for not acting that's an unanalytical way of approaching this," Garnaut said. Humans take out insurance against uncertainty - what's the difference here, he asks. "It would be a reckless country and a reckless species that turned its back on the weight of authority coming from mainstream science. 
"We know from that the world is warming. We know that from observation without much science except statistical analysis."
Shifting seasons, flowering plants, bird migration - these are observations biologists and gardeners have been making for years.

 

This is an article I wrote for a newsletter sent to financial planners - I'm publishing it here because the comments made in response might be of interest. I'm not identifying the authors of the comments.

Hero's journey: making decisions in the face of terror.

This old John Wayne movie reminded me that Hollywood changed its mind (around the 1960s) about portraying "the Indians" as bad savages. 

So we got "Revisionist Westerns". Australia has no Hollywood. Australian stories are disappearing from our screens as we speak.

Frankly, our film & TV producers are girding their loins to battle for stronger Australian Content Standards and Quotas on subscriber, free-to-air and "somehow, some day, somewhere" online services.

It is the culture war! They will die with their boots on. It feels like an episode of Minscule in the big, wide world. 

So it is uncertain if revisions of our treatment of refugees will make it to the tickertape news that runs across the bottom of our screens - considering that in the political and social spectrum culture comes somewhere behind carbon pricing, refugee processing, jobs and the Australian dollar, not to mention the mining tax.

Still, Australians aren't taking to leaky boats yet.

This John Wayne movie made me think how times change but history doesn't.

I mean the systematic removal of the "redskin" (the now-outlawed Hollywood Western turn-of-phrase) from their homelands condemned them to live as refugees. 

Here's proof of prisoners (including the famous Geronimo) from the National Archives of the USA  - or maybe it was just staged, right?

Had "the Indians" fled, they would call themselves citizens of another land not "Native Americans" - do we think less of people who flee?

Today's decision to redraft refugee laws is a defining moment, just like 1975's dismissal - just like the Howard Government's decision to bring in off-shore processing in Naru or turn back the Tampa.

This is a blog. This is opinion. This is a democracy. Comprende?

 Heroes define us. I guess that's why Australians stick to sporting heroes - there's a scoreboard.

Leave it to elected representatives to define our character - just as long as they don't interfere with the real game.

Politics is history. You can't separate civilians from "party wars" - even civilians who switch off the TV, even citizens who cast a donkey vote or don't vote or can't vote.

Who is the hero of our story today, and who will be the hero tomorrow? 

Cradle nature with cradle-to-cradle innovation - a new industrial revolution. Muir Wood video 30MB

Ralph Waldo Emerson was wrong when he wrote: "Essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf". Because the Industrial Revolution has touched everything.

The 18th Century is coming to a close - a little late - in the 21st century when what we need is another industrial revolution, thanks to peak oil and peak debt and climate change. Revolution of universal design with universal application ... if you want to invest, invest in community, invest in people.

This is the message from today's philosophers who gathered at Berkeley's Ecoliteracy Centre for the Systems Thinking seminar by Fritjof Capra in June.

 

In one action-packed week in San Francisco, I managed to more than fulfil all three goals for my trip:

  • to catch up with family
  • to hear Fritjof Capra speak
  • to walk in nature.

 

On the riverboat trip across Lake Tahoe to Emerald Bay, we listened to words of Mark Twain delivered by an actor who impersonated Twain.

"To obtain the air the angels breathe, you must go to Tahoe." _ Mark Twain

My cousin informed me that "They ran a bumper sticker campaign to "Keep Tahoe Blue". Turns out climate change has warmed the waters of one of the world's largest alpine lakes. 

The dramatic landscape and cool, cool basin of blue water was carved by melting glaciers. But less snow falls in winter, more rain falls, the seasons have changed. To me, it seems that angels still breathe the air there but imagine what it must have been like when Emerson and Twain were around? 

My father's cousin took me to see Muir Woods - a massive, old-growth, redwood forest basically in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is as incredible as the Daintree Rainforests of North Queensland. Except instead of ascending into the mountains, you descend along a winding road into the depths of a fairytale forest.

Here's a quick video of Muir Wood:

What's all this got to do with Systems Thinking? Well, ecology is a system and we are part of this system. Definitely no better than a redwood.

I'm guessing that the wood may exist due to the cloud forests - the infamous bay mists - just as the Daintree's Uplands are sustained by the cloud forests that blow in from The Great Barrier Reef. If these mists disappear due to seasonal changes (read global warming) these ancient ecosystems will fail due to climate change.

Scientists say Evolution started in places like these. The oldest coastal redwoods in Muir Woods are up to 1200 years old - so they were giants even 200 years ago when Ralph Waldo and Twain marvelled at nature.

Ralph, a philosopher poet who loved nature, could not ever imagine that man could exhaust nature - even though he worried about the consequences of the great Industrial Revolution's inexhaustible drive to make more stuff quicker. This is quite a feat.

 I travelled to San Francisco to hear another philosopher, the physicist-author Fritjof Capra, talk about Systems Thinking at the Ecoliteracy Centre. 

He's writing a new book on Systems Thinking. I've wanted to hear him speak ever since I read his book The Tao of Physics in about 2008 - I came to it late. It was first published in 1975. I managed to ask him to elaborate on how he came to write it.

The physicist took took time out from his academic and scientific research to write this book about how physics is proving Eastern philosophy. People hung on his every word.

Climate skeptics can deny all knowledge and ban climate science from being taught in schools but the truth is that when you teach ecology you are teaching systems thinking and systems connect us to everything in the cosmos - all the way through evolution to the first bubble the popped.

Fritjof Capra, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Ecoliteracy Centre, Aristotle share one trait - they teach that we must learn from nature rather than try to defeat nature.

I bought many books at the Ecoliteracy Centre, like Cradle to Cradle, Remaking the Way We Make Things, ©2002, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. 

Many books, such as this one and the one Capra is writing, advocate a new Industrial Revolution. We need to learn to make things better so that there is not so much waste - as in nature.

"If the first Industrial Revolution had a motto, we like to joke, it would be 'If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough of it'." _ Cradle to Cradle.

If "make it fit" was good enough for industrial solutions in the 18th century then what's wrong with industry of today? Make it fit again, redesign it, make it fit in ways that follow nature's design. Build new industries, build new markets, isn't that what business and industry do? 

See Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation. Berkeley's Ecoliteracy Centre is funded through philanthropy and is designed to the tip-top sustainability ratings in the USA.