Complexity & Catastrophe – Page 20 – Public Intelligence Blog

2008/04/122009/10/30

Review DVD: National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Environment (Problems), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Reviews (DVD Only), Survival & Sustainment, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Spectacular. Professional. Visually Powerful. Life Changing., April 12, 2008

Alec Baldwin

This is a spectacular piece of professional work and so compelling as to be inspirational.

I watched this with my wife with no lights, and decided to take no notes. Here are the highlights from my memory.

1) Brilliant, utterly brilliant, history, photography, personalities (such as the Indian guru that has photographed the source of the Ganges for 50 years) and sequencing. I don't want to overdo it, but this may well be the single most important DVD of the century, and so worthy of both buying, showing to groups, and giving as a gift to others.

2) We are well on our way to 2-3 degrees rise, and if we do not begin to act sensibly now, toward six degrees. I absolutely loved the way this film developed, showing the changes one degree at a time. My wife had to point out the computer simulations, the producers and editors of this film are world class–they should share the Nobel with Herman Daly, Lester Brown, Paul Hawkin, and Anthony Lovin, Gore's Nobel was an ill-advised politicized award, he is in the fourth grade compared to this film and the serious people it focused upon.

3) Oceans as the critical carbon absorbing element, and coral as the “canary in the coal mine” really grabbed me The overall screenplay, photography, voice overs, everything about this is spectacularly professional and rivieting.

4) Amazon as the next most critical element, with riveting views of the Amazon river drying up in 2005, and the potential scenarios of drought, fires, more drought.

5) Increasing destructiveness of weather. Katrina as the first of what could become every month storms, instead of 100 year storms. In passing, the film shows the world-class levies built by the Europeans, and they do not show the downright retarded cement levees of the US Army Corps of Engineers, levees that are the laughing stock of the rest of the (sophisticated) world.

A highlight of the film was its focus on the one man that has figured out the total carbon footprint of the cheeseburger, to include the methane farts of the cows. I am not making this up. This film is AMAZING, it is spectacular, it is professional, it is precisely the kind of well-crafted material that We the People need to begin self-governing rather than entrusting war criminals and and cronies (both parties) who sell us out.

Here are ten links that augment the deep insight and value that this DVD provides to anyone able to see it.

High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Apart from these, allowed by Amazon, I recommend the many books on climate, catastrophe, etcetera. See my many lists.

2008/03/202010/01/05

Review: The Nine Nations of North America

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Catastrophe, Country/Regional, Democracy, Future, Geography & Mapping, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Secession & Nullification

Merits Reprinting and Slight Updating, March 20, 2008

Joel Garreau

I thought I had reviewed this long ago, but evidently not. It is still very relevant to understanding and nurturing America today, and I would be very glad to see the publisher commission a slight update and then reprint this superb work.

As America strives to migrate from a disasterous and nearly fatal two-party spoils system and an Executive that is both corrupt and delusional, those who seek to lead America into a brighter future need to understand America in a new and more nuanced way. It is not about left or right. This book has been on continuing value to me as a point of reference, and I recommend it very highly in its existing state, more so if renewed.

The nine nations, each unique, are:

1. The empty quarter (which global warming will open up)
2. Quebec
3. Ecotopia (a model for the rest of us)
4. The breadbasket (which wastes water on excess foot and grows corn for fuel and cattle that is inedible and wastes more water)
5. New England
6. The Foundry (mid-Atlantic coast)
7. Dixie
8. MexAmerica
9. The Islands (of the Caribbean, where Cuban sugar cane sap could power 30-35 million cars, while Cuban health care would inform our own).

This book is one of my top eleven essential references for understanding America and the Americas. Here are the other ten:
The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880's
What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States
The Clustering of America
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/03/092010/12/26

Review: The Philosophy of Sustainable Design

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Amazon Page

Can Be Considered “Ref A” or the Prime Directive, March 9, 2008

Jason F. McLennan

I came late to bioneering, after I was inspired by Herman Daly's Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications, Brian Czech's Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All; and everything by Paul Hawkin, but especially The Ecology of Commerce.

I have had an interest in the intersection of global science, sustainable political and social and economic orders, and the vulnerability of the nation-state in the face of growing complexity for some time, and many of my other reviews focus on these literatures, as well as the literatures of collective intelligence, global assemlages, wealth of networks, localized resilience, and so on.

I make mention of that broader literature to add emphasis to my view that this book is one of the most extraordinary I have ever encountered. I made a mistake when I first got it months ago and put it sight unseen into my “hard and dense, save for intercontinental trip.” This book is not hard, not dense, and it is both easy to read and intellectually elegant. I can easily see this book as the single mandatory first year or summer pre-reading at any level–undergraduate or graduate–along with contextual books such as:
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The Future of Life
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century and
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

The sixteen chapters and five appendices are elegant–concise, clear key points, short, just the right mix of photos (including color in a center spread) figures, and text.

The publisher has been criminally remiss in failing to load the varied items that Amazon allows, such as the table of contents. I am increasingly disenchanted with publishers and of the view that Amazon should get into the book publishing business, sending digital copies to FedExKinko's, helping authors self publish (full disclosure: BOTH Fred Smith at FedEx and Jeff Bezos at Amazon blew me off–these guys are simply not serious about innovation).

Preface: Philosophical Beginnings
Chapter 1: The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Chapter 2: The Evolution of Sustainable Design
Chapter 3: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Biomimicry)
Chapter 4: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Human Vitality)
Chapter 5: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Ecosystem/Bioregional)
Chapter 6: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Seven Generations)
Chapter 7: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Energy/True Cost)
Chapter 8: The Principles of Sustainable Design (Holistic Thinking)
Chapter 9: The Technologies and Components of Sustainable Design
Chapter 10: Shades of Green–Levels of Sustainability
Chapter 11: Productivity and Well-Being
Chapter 12: Greening Your Organization
Chapter 13: Green Economics
Chapter 14: The Sustainable Design Process–Holistic Thinking
Chapter 15: The Aesthetics of Sustainable Design
Chapter 16: The Future of Architecture
Appendix A: The Green Warrior Reading List
Appendix B: Who's Who in Green Design
Appendix C: The Phases of Green Design
Appendix D: The Elements of Green Design Methodology
Appendix F: The Principles of Sustainable Design–Summary

I put this book down with several thoughts:

1) Enormously impressed with the University of Oregon in Eugene, to the point of trying to get my oldest to take his computer and creative skills there.

2) Profoundly delighted with the deep philosophical underpinning that one finds throughout the book, without pretense or pomposity.

3) The one appendix I would have liked to see that is not there is the one entitles: Green to Gold–Bottom-Line Dollar Savings Over Time, and then a whole range of the elements of sustainable design by climate zone.

This is an extremely satisfying book to read. My last throught: it's time to write the Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Read more about this at Earth Intelligence Network. This book by Jason McLennan is a perfect model for what the larger systems book should strive to be.

See also the literatures under panarchy, resilience, sustainability.

2008/02/242009/10/30

Review: The Ingenuity Gap–Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable Future

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Future, Information Society

Key Piece in a Body of Work of Great Import, February 24, 2008

Thomas Homer-Dixon

I have read and reviewed one earlier book by this author, and bought the two more recent works a week ago after realizing I had seriously under-estimated the relevance of this author's work to my holistic integrative “civilization resilience” intent.

This is a five-star book and I expect Upside of Down will be as well.

I was immediately struck by the grace with which the author credits key other minds in the body of the work rather than just as a footnote.

Here are the highlights from my flyleaf notes, and a few other recommended readings:

+ Complexity soaring, need ideas for better institutions and better social arrangements.

+ Delusion of control over complex systems we barely comprehend

+ Citing Paul Rober: ideas co-equivalent to capital and labor

+ Not enough time to reflect (I am reminded of

The Age of Missing Information
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin

+ Full credit to H. G. Wells for anticipating the need for a World Brain to manage the complex of complexes

+ Excellent overview of mistakes by the economists. I recommend as well

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

+Wealth gaps + migrations = poor global management

+ Losing 25% of our biodiversity

+ Delays in policy understanding, decisions, action, and outcomes compound losses over time

+ Mike Whitfield cited on need for holistic view, keystone species, and radical differences in compressed time scales. I am reminded of everything written by Richard Falk, Ervin Laszlo and others in the 1970's and 1980's.

+ Population factor is profound

+ Corruption is the primary obstacle to reform

+ Garbage overtaking coastlines while nitrogen leeches into water and carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere

+ Citing David Harvey, “hypercapitalism” compresses time and space while over-producing both wasted production and concentrated wealth

+ Our collective ego is blocking our collective intelligence. See the new book, Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

+ Losing our sense of place, not getting enough signals to understand the tipping point circumstances

+ Complexity goes awry (he cited Perrow, whose book Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies remains a seminal work (simple systems have single points of failure easy to diagnose and fix; complex systems have multiple points of failure that interact in unpredictable and sometimes undiscoverable ways; we live in a constellation of complex systems well beyond our ken)

+ Complex systems characterized by multiplicity; causal feedback; some tightly coupled; interdependence; openness; synergy; and nonlinear behavior.

+ Chaos theory warns us that nature will magnify the smallest perturbation from humans

+ Four stages of human perception of nature: 1) Balancing; 2) Anarchic; 3) Resilient; 4) Evolving.

+ Citing Wally Broeker: “Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking it with sticks.”

+ Social systems are path dependent, delay at any point can be disastrous

+ Lessons of financial crises: governments and the IMF are out of touch with speed and breadth of financial systemic changes; computer-driven changes can accelerate and deepen mistakes

+ Citing Kofi Annan: “imbalance between economic, social, and political realms can never be sustained for long.”

+ Author: social system out of synch with natural and technological systems

+ Software code doubling every two years, bugs a real problem, still in pre-industrial era

+ Information glut has a critical bottleneck, lack of a sense-making bridge from data to our cognitive absorption

+ Ingenuity is both technical and social

+ Our biggest problem is the failure of our economic institutions and policies

+ Washington DC bureaucrats, including senior CIA analysts, “largely out of their depth”

+ Pace of change, depth of ignorance, and political resistance all assume scary proportions

+ Self-organizing resilience and adapting systems could be key

+ As ingenuity gap widens “need imagination, metaphor, and empathy more than ever.”

+ Afterword: relentless increase in complexity while “world economic system is profoundly dysfunctional.”

+ Most interesting to me, as I have committed to publish a book on “Cultural Intelligence” in 2009, is the author's citing of Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, saying culture is “information–skills, attitudes, beliefs, values–capable of affecting individuals' behavior.”

There are other notes but Amazon imposes a word limit. This is a great book, and I honor it by listing other great and relevant works below (to my limit of ten):

The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

2008/01/192010/01/04

Review: The Culture of National Security

4 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration)

Great from an academic point of view, missing some pieces

January 19, 2008

Peter J. Katzenstein

I confess to some impatience with this book, published in 1996. It is very much state-centric, although to its credit in the conclusion it postulates a need to focus more on non-military resources and objectives, and on non-state actors.

The book opens with the statement that the key to understanding is to focus on how people view their interests and how that changes, but I searched in vain for any differentiation among the eight tribes that define my own study of international and internal relations: government, military, law enforcement, academia, business, media, non-governmental and non-profit (and in the US, especially, foundations), and finally, civil including religion, labor, and advocacy groups. This book may well be one of the last gasps of “state uber alles” literature.

I have a note, bridge between the European literature of the 1980's and the new view emerging in the post 9-11 environment, where most of us now recognize that security in all its forms, including human, food, and water security, are easily as important and often more important than military security.

The editors themselves recognize that all the theories were wrong, and that academia slept through the revolution, failing to foresee or explain.

I am amused by the discussion of identity, and how this presents the academics–poor dears–with moral issues.

I love footnotes, and this book has many of them, but as I went on and on I felt two things: 1) holy cow, the best of the best talking to themselves; and 2) where is everything else? This book strives to examine the fault line between Kennedy's focus on resources and Fukiyama's focus on ideology, while missing the impact of technology on the rise of indigenous peoples. In some ways, this book marks the end of the state-centric academic era, and the rise of the practitioner non-state actor era. There is now more to be learned outside the university than inside.

On balance, I would recommend this book as torture for aspiring PhD's who need to be steeped in the arcane debates among the varied schools of international politics and the effect of domestic politics on foreign policy, but very candidly, I find the books listed below to be a better investment of time and more accessible to broader minds.

Modern Strategy
Security Studies for the 21st Century
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Preparing America's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

2008/01/112009/10/30

Review: Plan B 3.0–Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

The Best and Most Essential Guide, Not the Whole Picture, January 11, 2008

Lester R. Brown

I have followed Lester Brown's dedication to evaluating the state of our planet for over a decade, and wrote to the Nobel Committee urging them to recognize him, Herman Daly, and Paul Kawkins and the two Lovins instead of Al Gore. They have all done a great deal more of the heavy lifting.

I decided to purchase this book when Medard Gabel, creator of the analog World Game with Buchminster Fuller, gave me a budget for saving the planet that totals no more than $230 billion a year (at a time when we spend $1.3 trillion waging war).

I've gone through the book and consider it to be a best in class effort, a seminal work no one else on the planet could have produced. In the author's chosen area of focus, there is no other book like this one. However, some other books are easier to read and understand, such as High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, and others do a better job of addressing all ten high-level threats to Humanity and Earth, such as A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

Here are a few highlights:

+ Book is offered free online (but the hard copy is much better deal, easier to work with, mark up and return to as a reference….use the online version to search for specifics.

+ The Introduction is clear and inspiring. This book is loaded with carefully collected facts ably presented.

+ $12 per gallon of fuel in “true costs” externalized and not billed

+ One 25 gallon ethanol tank takes enough grain to feed a person for a year. This means that those in hunger going to double from 600 million to 1.2 billion, as cars compete for grain (which is nuts).

+ Food-oil axis is developing into a triple crisis: oil, food, water. As 50% live in cities, the fuel intensity of food in the face of Peak Oil is becoming a major issue.

+ Stopping the ethanol program dead in its tracks is the single best thing US Government could do, followed my more wind farms and an end to coal plants.

+ Amazon reaching a tipping point, mega-fires are foreseen (as with New York City if its 1920's water system fails and a firestorm emerges)

+ Western model will not work for China or India (or Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and other Wild Cards)

+ Ice cap is melting fast, gfalciers are melting fast and causing small earthquakes.

+ 600 million refugees expected if sea level rises ten meters (33 feet)

+ Mortality has been reduced, but fertility has not, leaving persistent population issues.

+ 15 of 24 primary ecosystems degraded or pushed beyond their limits.

+ Climate has become more destructive, with 55 weather events costing $1.5 billion or more each since the 1980's.

+ Great discussion of the ecology of cities, Bioneers would resonate with all the author recommends.

+ Scarcity crossing national boundaries.

+ Excellent notes, heavy reliance on UN and other primary sources.

+ He proposes a budget of $190 billion a year to achieve our social goals and restore the Earth.

+ The only thing missing from this book are some of the positives, for example bacteria as an energy source, healing bacteria, eletrified water as a cleanser needed no other ingredients, the recovery of the Dead Sea with furrows that retain every drop of water.

I am so surprised to find only one review that I wanted to quickly add my praise for this author, while also pointing out three things that a handful of wealthy philanthropists could do tomorrow to execute this vision.

#1 We should all support the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER) as created by the Natural Capital Institute, and encourage colleges and universities around the world to begin loading the “true cost” information for all products and services (e.g. 4000 gallons of water in a designer T-shirt). Delivered to end-users via cell phone query at the point sale, this will dramatically affect markets.

#2 We should ask the 90 major foundations in the USA to host a summit to which all governments, non-governmental organizations, prominent wealthy individuals, and the United Nations are invited. The objective should be to create an online “Range of Gifts” Table that identifies specific contributions that can be made at every cost level, to eradicate the ten high level threats within fifteen years, by harmonizing the twelve policies such that ALL organizations and ALL individuals can opt in on a master budget that is strategically sound, operationally executable, and tactically open to all.

#3 We must absorb the wisdom of C. K. Prahalad, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and others listed below, and recognize that the only enduring sustainable solutioin lies in educating the five billion poor, who do not have the time or the money to sit in a classroom for 18-22 years. We can create today, using Telelanguage.com, an immediate registry of 100 million volunteers with Internet access, speaking 183 languages among them, who can educate the poor–who are not stupid, just illiterate–one cell call at a time.

I believe that Reuniting America, True Majority, and WISER are reaching critical mass. All we lack now is one well endowed champion who sees that it is our collective intelligence that will solve the world's problems, and there is no need to run for President. Here are the handful of books I would recommend to Michael Bloomberg if he were to ask me today how to fulfil his vision of political, educational, and philanthropic reform.

Visit Earth Intelligence Network for free public intelligence on the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers. The weekly report “GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review,” will appeal to anyone interested in this book and its topic.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
The Future of Life

2007/10/182009/12/04

Review DVD: Pandemic

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Humanitarian Assistance, Reviews (DVD Only), Threats (Emerging & Perennial)

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb and worhty of public attention

October 18, 2007

Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, French Stewart, Faye Dunaway, Michael Massee, Vincent Spano

It was a very long flight to Oakland (to attend Bioneers), and this movie got me through the last two hours. It is superb. It should be required viewing for every citizen, every official, every foundation leader, every elected person. It is well-crafted, credible, absorbing, and thought-provoking.

Highlights:
* How the selfishness of one “run-away” infected person can kill tens of thousands and defeat the pre-quarantine containment process.
* Failure to control *each* passenger by name in the delicate transition from infected aircraft to controlled environment is the one thing that can destroy a containment.
* Failure to be candid with citizens and put public ran-away notice with photo of the run-away makes the situation much worse. Failure to tell the run-aways office workers and home family the exact threat they represent negates their value in bringing the run-away in before they infect hundreds more directly, thousands indirectly.
* The movie provides a fascination depiction of the scientific investigative process, while also depicting the political tensions among the Mayor, the Governor, and others, each seeking to balance archaic political calculations with unknown biological “runaway train” implications.
* The movie reminds us that a run-away worst impact is among first responders who missed the alerts and begin to die as fast as the people they are treating.
* The utility of ice rinks as emergency morgues for hundreds of bodies.

Overall this is a great movie with a fine plot including a worst case break-out of a convicted drug lord, and what happens when people turn off the radio or silence the witness before they can complete a sentence that begins “it's not so simple.”

NOVA: Epidemic – Ebola, AIDS, Bird Flu and Typhoid
Congo
Not listed on Amazon: Hot Zone with Dustin Hoffman