Sustainability: Harnessing a Process

The classic definition of sustainability, “providing for society’s needs today without compromising society’s ability to meet those needs tomorrow” originated in the Brundtland Report, 1987 and can be found quoted by the Canadian Lawyers Abroad, Genentech, and elsewhere.

The authors of the Brundtland Report must have been lawyers not engineers. Their definition is good, but abstract. When you ask the canonical engineering question: ‘How do we make it work?’ The answer is:

Sustainable systems harness a process, rather than consuming a resource. Solar panels transform the energy in sunlight. Wind turbines transform the kinetic energy in wind. Geothermal systems use the heat of the earth.

The sun will shine and the winds will blow regardless of the presence or absence of solar panels and wind turbines. And the core of the earth will stay hot for a very long time – on the order of five billion years.

Timeline of Doctors Without Borders

A timeline

of Doctors Without Borders

, created in XTimeline, a chrono-information tool. graphic tool Good use of the timeline graphic – and a good primer on doctors without borders.

Via Social Source Commons.

Emergency Preparedness, Israel, & Gaza

At Popular Logistics, while we believe in preparing for emergencies; we prefer to avoid emergencies, especially war.

Kassam in Sderot, Israel

As we see it, Peace is up to the Palestinians. The proof is Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas’ subsequent kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and launch of approximately 4,000 to 7,000 rockets like the one pictured above into Israel. We feel that the factories in Gaza would better serve the people of Gaza by building solar panels or wind turbines rather than guns, bullets, and Kassam rockets.

We would like to see Israel withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank and an end of Palestinian terrorism; a bilateral cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians. We see de facto states in the West Bank and Gaza; we would like to see de jure states that recognize the rights of all; male, female, gay, straight, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Moslem, and athiest. And that Palestinian state or those Palestinian states, along with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria must recognize Israel.

Rationale – software to aid critical thinking

Austhink, an Australian software firm, makes a package called Rationale, which makes it easy to create diagrams of rhetorical and decision-making processes.

I downloaded a trial version last-night – and immediately started using it to map risk risks associated with energy production. I plan on using it in my work here at Popular Logistics and elsewhere. Which is to say – I think I’m already using it for an off-label purpose.

It’s as easy to use as any graphics program – outputs to a variety of graphic formats. And so far, I’m quite impressed. Since we test software principally to recommend them to community-based groups on zero budgets – we’ve got a strong bias for free software – but at $69 USD this may be an exception.

The people at Austhink think this is an educational tool. They’re right about that – it could be used from grammar school on up. And certainly in law school. But I think it’s got applications in planning and risk assessment.

Worth a look. Learned about this at Social Source Commons.

RECYCLED LAPTOP PROJECT

Popular Logistics needs several laptops and laptop drives. We need Macs running OS X, Linux machines, or netbooks running Windows or Linux. Non-operational machines that can be used as spare parts are also of interest. If you would like to donate, e-mail Larry at “L Furman 97 ‘@’ gmail . com”. Donations to Popular Logistics are not tax deductible.

As Economic Activity Declines, China’s Energy Consumption Follows

Andrews S. Revkin reports on Dot Earth that Chinese energy use has declined more or less following economic activity.

chart by Richard K. Morse, Stanford University; data by Statistical Bureau, China

Good news or bad? Depends on what’s happening with Chinese energy infrastructure while its economy contracts. Our guess – and it’s a guess – is that high energy prices provide an incentive to switch to clean, sustainable energy. Air quality, of course, is inversely proportional to the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power.

The Dot Earth Project (at our hometown paper) – and Mr. Revkin’s work– are supported in part by the John Simon Guggenheim Project. We’ll try to keep up with it.

Clean Coal, My Ash

On Dec. 22, 2008, a billion gallons of sludge covered 300 acres, and spilled into the Clinch and Emory Rivers when the retention pond burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Steam Plant. That’s 1,000,000,000 gallons of toxic soup containing Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Selenium and other toxics and carcinogens. Tennessean.com, Knoxvillebiz.com.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s law firm, Kennedy, Madonna, LLP, and the Levin Papantonio Law Firm have joined to investigate the Tennessee Coal Spill on behalf of property owners living in the impacted area. For more information call 888-435-7001 or click here.

According to TVA spokesman Gilbert Francis, “Most of that material is inert. It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.” However, according to the EPA, coal fly ash and sludge contains carcinogens and high concentrations of heavy metals. Furthermore, “concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold” AP, NYTimes, Yahoo.

Continue reading →

Invasion of the Red Lionfish

The Red Lionfish, Pterois volitans, Smithsonian is a poisonous tropical fish native to southeast Asia. The fish is invading the Atlantic from Florida and the Bahamas to Rhode Island, and wreaking ecological havoc. The big problems with non-native species are a lack of natural predators and a lack of natural defense on the part of the prey.

: Image courtesy of New England Acquarium, neaq.org, Used with permission.

Sharks, Groupers and other predators keep the populations in check in south-east Asia. Red Sea Cornetfish (Fistularia commersoni) are natural predators of Pterois miles, a related species of scorpaenidaea. Importing south-east Asian sharks or red sea cornetfish would probably be a stupid idea, one where the cure may be worse than the disease. I wonder, however, if we can train dolphins or sea lions to hunt or trap the Red Lionfish? Continue reading →

The Bahamas, New Jersey, Recycling, & Clean Energy

People say “all politics is local.” People in The Bahamas, New Jersey, Europe and California have more or less the same solution – re-usable shopping bags – to the same problem – plastic bags in landfills. Personally, I favor charging for plastic bags, which rewards people for doing the right thing and penalizes them for doing the wrong thing. It seems fair, given that we are paying, in our taxes, for burying the plastic bags. I would also like to see more cellulose based plastics.

Another common problem is converting our electric grid to run on electricity generated from clean, sustainable systems. Based on our brief conversation, it seems that the U. S. has four advantages over the Bahamas: Net Metering, Economic Incentives, Rulings in the Supreme Court, and possibly, our President-Elect, Barack Obama.

Continue reading →

1 Pound of Gasoline = 3 Pounds of Carbon Dioxide

) which is approximately 360 billion pounds of gas (each gallon of gas is 5.8 to 6.5 pounds).

Water isn’t normally thought of as a pollutant. Up till November 13, the EPA refused to think of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, but big storms and rising sea levels are among the problems associated with global warming. Storms, very simply, are water vapor in the air condensing and falling to the ground. More on this next time.

Data in this post came from Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economics, and one of the driving forces behind 350.org. Data on Gasoline came from Mad Sci Network and California Energy Quest.
Information on the chemical make-up of gasoline came from Wikipedia.

State to State comparisons – CERT team numbers by population

Our first experiment at displaying data in this way. NB: ((Nota Bene, or “take note” – Lat.))

This is data reported to FEMA by the states – or directly by local administrators;
We know nothing from this data of size, effectiveness, equipment, capabilities of CERT teams
Other volunteer organizations – volunteer ambulance corps, fire departments, and other groups, like The 3 Steps – wouldn’t be reported here anyway.

With those caveats – based on current FEMA data:

State	Population served per team
New Jersey	20,437
Wyoming	29,046
Mississippi	31,726
North Dakota	31,986
Rhode Island	36,477
Maine	36,589
Utah	37,790
South Dakota	39,811
Missouri	41,108
Massachusetts	46,401
Vermont	47,789
Total	31,161
Idaho	55,533
Texas	57,325
New Hampshire	69,254
Oregon	76,479
Kansas	81,647
Iowa	85,373
North Carolina	87,971
Florida	89,030
Kentucky	90,244
Washington	95,124
Connecticut	103,009
Oklahoma	106,392
Montana	106,429
Tennessee	111,940
West Virginia	113,252
Louisiana	116,033
Ohio	118,216
South Carolina	119,127
Michigan	122,827
Arkansas	123,252
Indiana	129,496
Arizona	132,057
Alaska	136,696
California	145,052
Minnesota	157,504
Alabama	159,581
Nebraska	161,325
Virginia	175,275
Georgia	207,495
Colorado	231,501
Maryland	255,379
New Mexico	281,416
Nevada	285,042
Illinois	313,477
Hawaii	427,796
New York	438,585
District of Columbia	588,292
Pennsylvania	592,038
Puerto Rico	657,063
Wisconsin	800,234
Delaware	864,764

Many thanks to Dannny Sanchez and his excellent table-to-html tool, Tableizer.

35 MM TO JPG

Remember slides? The 35 mm slide was a key presentation technology of the 50’s to the 90’s. Some scanners, including the Epson 3590, can scan slides, and do it well. It’s a time consuming and a labor intensive operation. But it can be fun.

Explosives found at Paris department store – International Herald Tribune

French police found a package of explosives at the Printemps department store complex in central Paris on Tuesday, a spokeswoman at Paris police headquarters said.

The spokeswoman, Mélanie Leprettre, said a warning about the explosives had been sent Tuesday morning to the French news agency Agence France-Presse, which alerted the police.

A previously unknown group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan claimed to have planted the explosive devices. Officials said that five sticks of dynamite had been found.

Explosives found at Paris department store – International Herald Tribune .

Pratik Mhatres Urban Planning Blog

Pratik Mhatre’s Urban Planning Blog

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus ipod is an outstanding blog, on the order of Inhabitat or The Pump Handle. Excellent recent articles include:

Time Spent Sitting In Traffic, including this infographic:

Disaster Preparedness and Voter Response [PDF link], an economist at Loyola Marymount University concludes that “on average, every $1 spent on disaster mitigation prevents roughly $8 of disaster damage over the following five years” but voters tend to reward disaster response and recovery efforts more as compared to disaster preparedness leading to governments underpreparing for disasters.

IdeaTree – collaborative knowledge mapping AND decision-making

IdeaTree is an on-line mind-mapping and knowledge-mapping application which has decision-making/voting features that I don’t believe exist – in that combination – in any other application.

And – on first use – it’s pretty easy to use. Worth consideration for the planning and problem-solving toolbox. And likely a good way to substitute for certain types of on-line meetings, in-person meetings and for the “infinite email round robin” we’ve all participated in.