Tag Archives: Feedback

China Air Pollution: The Bitter Years Return?

China Air Pollution 中国空气污染

The Bitter Years Return 的苦涩年返回

Projection of air pollution deaths in China, based on reported deaths in 2006 and 2010.

Projection of air pollution deaths in China, based on reported deaths in 2006 and 2010.

During the “Bitter Years” from 1958 to 1962, an estimated 15 to 43 million people died of starvation in China (wikipedia). Mao, who ate well during that time, did not want help from the west. Fast forward to today. It has been reported that due to air pollution, an estimated 650,000 people died in China in 2006, and another estimated 1.2 million died in 2010. Knowing these 2 data points of this dynamic system, we can plot a curve. The blue line assumes a linear curve, the red line, the exponential uptick of a sigmoid curve.  Assuming reinforcing feedback, the red curve is more likely.

The three most important questions are

  1. “How serious is the air pollution?”
  2. “What will it take before the Chinese government acts?”
  3. “What will be the delay between action and results?

The short answer to Question 1 is “Very.” If this is as serious as I think it is, the challenge for the government of the People’s Republic of China as for other governments, will be to stop polluting and clean up the pollution it has allowed to be dispersed into the bio-humano-sphere. However, this conflicts with the apparent goal of the Chinese government to be the world’s biggest producer of stuff without regard to pollution.

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It's The Feedback – It's Always The Feedback

NYPD Interacts WithProtester  Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet On Nov 2, 2011, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced a Constitutional Amendment that would overturn the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court (Technorati / WSJ).

The managers of Bank of America, who accepted $45 billion in TARP money, and decided to pay back its customers with a $5 per month fee for the privilege of holding a debit card, recently recently decided to reverse course on the fee for debit cards ( CBS Miami /Oregon Live).

Meanwhile, back on the streets, the authorities appear to believe that a show of force and the use of force by the police will quell the demonstrations. Yet the opposite is the case. As the cops overreact – pepper spraying 4 women in NYC (NY Times / YouTube), running over a lawyer for the Occupiers (CBS / Daily Mail / Salon / Yahoo) people get angrier and join the Occupation – causing the police to either moderate or escalate their response.

The Plot to Sieze the White HouseAfter a US Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war was injured in Oakland other veterans come to occupations all over the country. They came quoting Smedley Darlington Butler, the Marine Corps General who wrote “War is a Racket,” ISBN: 978-1434407009, and figured in the events described in “The Plot to Seize The White House,” by Jules Archer, ISBN: 978-1602390362.

These are examples of balancing feedback loops, as described by Dana Meadows in Thinking in Systems, A Primer, ISBN: 978-1603580557. (A researcher with Jay Forrester at MIT and Dartmouth, Meadows founded the Sustainability Institute.)

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Systems Thinking and Politics, or Rachel Carson and Donella Meadows meet The Frankenstein Monster

The Frankenstein Monster as interpreted by Boris Karloff may have been a big guy who didn’t know his own strength – again unbalanced reinforcing loops. As interpreted by Mel Brooks he was just misunderstood. Once those reinforcing loops were balanced – put the big lug in a tux – all hell didn’t break loose.

Frankenstein_monster_Boris_KarloffSystems Thinking

is a framework and a toolkit (check out Stella and i Think from I See Systems ) with which ecologists and ecological economists can model the real world of the carbon and hydrologic cycles, ecosystems and economic “bubbles.” But how do we model systems that are difficult to quantify? Is it science fiction, as in the psychohistorians of Asimov’s Foundation Series ( e-book )? The actions of the government of the United States have profound effects on this country and the world. Can we use Systems Thinking to model political movements? Did Bill Clinton and James Carville, George W. Bush and Karl Rove and Barack Obama, David Axelrod and Dan Plouffe use  Systems Thinking to create a balancing feedback mechanism and win an election? Could they have?

As we were taught in high school, the Constitution set up a system of government of three balanced branches. The “checks and balances” of the Executive enforcing the laws written by the Legislative and interpreted by the Judiciary. This is a system with balancing feedback mechanisms.

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