2009.08.08 19:00 - Sustainability

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema Pera. The comments are by Pema Pera.

doug Sosa: hi pema
Pema Pera: Hi Doug!
doug Sosa: long time since we have had a talk. looking forward to the retreat.
Pema Pera: me too!
Pema Pera: Are you still commuting to Stanford?
doug Sosa: yes, and it has become more and more complex. Paul Ehrlich, Don Kennedy and I, and a few from europe, have started looking at culture and politics re sustainability.
Pema Pera: quite a topic -- are the discussions about sustainability sustainable?
doug Sosa: How to involve the humanities and social sciences - but the rub is, are they in a position to mae a contribition. The power of the economic rational man approach is fairly dominant and makes talking about human exxperience almost imposssible.
doug Sosa: On the sutainabiloty of sustainability. We di some scenarios.
doug Sosa: it is clear most sustainabalists think of a linear sequence of policies and technologies, but that would be technocratic and gnerate huge opposition.
Pema Pera: Hi Eos!
doug Sosa: hi
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pema and Doug
Pema Pera: opportunistic sustainability then?
Pema Pera: rather than planned?
doug Sosa: yes, more local, more uncoordinated might be much better.
doug Sosa: Good PAB exercise!
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: I read about a village in the UK trying to become sustainable
Pema Pera: perhaps a local example is more concrete and doable
Pema Pera: Hi Gaya!
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello :)
doug Sosa: In fact I bring that spirit to it all, and am thinking of getting paul and don to come to one of the pab sessions. They do now have avatars!
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Gaya
Pema Pera: Hi Pila!
Pema Pera: That would be great, Doug!
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Pila :)
Pila Mulligan: hi Gaya, Pema, Doug and Eos
Pema Pera: Do you think they will be up for talking about Being ?
doug Sosa: hi.
Pema Pera: Play will be the easier part . . .
Eos Amaterasu:
doug Sosa: rather than "as"?
Pema Pera: as?
Pema Pera: ah, the a in PaB?
doug Sosa: "play will e the easier part {of play as being}..
doug Sosa: yep.
Pema Pera: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Is sustainability the topic?
doug Sosa: good sleuthing :)
Pema Pera: Are you and the Stanford folks seriously planning an actual sustainability experiment, or will it remain mostly theoretical?
Pema Pera: yes, Gaya
Gaya Ethaniel: ah ok :)
Pema Pera: Doug's work at Stanford
Pema Pera: I asked about the sustainability of sustainability
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Pema Pera: and true enough, they were concerned about that :)
Pila Mulligan: sustaining ... the planet?
doug Sosa: The experiment is to afect polcy, a series of conferences brining humanities and scial sciencee people together, witha clear eye on actual behavior. the proposal is for 5 "observatories" including ghana, china, brazil, US and Georgia, to look at people's actua behavior toward sustainable practice.
Pila Mulligan: in all fields Doug
Pila Mulligan: ?
Pema Pera: interesting! Yes, people will always be the base . . . .
Pila Mulligan: or just, say , ag?
Pila Mulligan: agriculture
Pema Pera: just say ag -- hehehe
doug Sosa: no disvisions; the whole system and its vicissitudes.
Pema Pera: like just say no?
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: so the sutainability of the planet then ... nice
doug Sosa: agh?
Pema Pera: (ag with a Scottish accent, yes)
Pema Pera: ((or a Dutch one))
Pila Mulligan: sustaiable ______ (fill in the blank) is abig issue here, being islands
Pema Pera: Hi Vajra!
Vajra Radikal: good day friends
Pila Mulligan: most industires here have severly depleted everythiing
Gaya Ethaniel nods. I saw a series of documentary on South Pacific recently.
Pila Mulligan: hi Vajra
Vajra Radikal: long time no c
doug Sosa: hi.
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Vajra :)
Eos Amaterasu: Heh vajra!
Vajra Radikal: whats the subject 2 day?
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: sustainability, Vajra
Pila Mulligan: but we still have it relatively easy here (thanks to imports) compared to places where water and other natural resources are already mostly over the hill
Gaya Ethaniel: Over the hill?
Pila Mulligan: do good luck doug and thnaks for the efforts
Pila Mulligan: exhausted, Gaya
Gaya Ethaniel: ahhh
Vajra Radikal: the proble with susteinability is that you should address it at the individual level
Pila Mulligan: so*
Vajra Radikal: yet individual level knowledge is lacking
Vajra Radikal: all over
Gaya Ethaniel: Well even when one exercise knowledge, there are many barriers ...
Eos Amaterasu: question is whether individual awareness can develop without calamity
doug Sosa: The very idea of "individual" is a social construct, arriving late on the scene.
Vajra Radikal: yes however it is the individual executing decisions that impact sustainability
Vajra Radikal: yiur decision of buying a desktop or a laptop
Vajra Radikal: a plasma vs lcd
Vajra Radikal: all of those have impacts
Vajra Radikal: sustainability or lack thereof resides in the cumulative
Vajra Radikal: impact of our decisions
doug Sosa: The decision to cut down indnesian forests is not such a decision.
doug Sosa: The voting on cap and trade is not individual.
Vajra Radikal: yes it is if you keep on choosing product
Vajra Radikal: coming from that forest
doug Sosa: lets say you and i chose notto buy those products, the product then is cheaper for those who do buy.
Vajra Radikal: if the individual keeps on directing
Eos Amaterasu: individual thoughts are mostly on auto-pilot thru societal/communal means
Vajra Radikal: by cist rather than impact
Eos Amaterasu: memes
Gaya Ethaniel: A lot of countries go around this issue by mixing certain parts of the forest ... ie pulp in books.
Vajra Radikal: is the route to disaster
Pila Mulligan: Vajra, earlier Doug said his university is planning an experiment is to affect these types of policies by conferences bringing humanities and social science people together, proposing several international observatories to look at how peoples act toward sustainable practice
Gaya Ethaniel: I mean the Indonesian forests. Even when I talk to paper companies in person, they avoided the whole issue.
Gaya Ethaniel: talked*
doug Sosa: great summary.
Gaya Ethaniel: Many ways to 'go around' laws/regulations imo
Vajra Radikal: yep unless you give some concience to dthe regulators
doug Sosa: if we could prove the dollar system, incrasing population and non-sustainability are necessariy linked..
Gaya Ethaniel: And even 'environmentally friendly' books are mostly not so ... because of the global nature of manufacturing ... it's a complex issue.
Vajra Radikal: per example I govern IT policy for a large government body in mexico. My organization hast 35,000 service points
Vajra Radikal: we changed those from desktops to enviromentally friendly laptops
Eos Amaterasu: "transition" towns are finding that community currencies are what brings intentions down to earth
Vajra Radikal: reducing 220 wats per station
doug Sosa: interesting. mexico had one of the mpst thourough approahes to Y@K assessment of any cuntry.
Pila Mulligan: 15 years ago Hawaiian activists saved the rainforest where I now live by lawsuits and civil disobedience, stopping a large industrial plan -- this was direct action affecing policy
Eos Amaterasu: Brazil had to fend off the world bank to have it local policies succeed
Eos Amaterasu: *its
doug Sosa: These actions have a wonderful "interpret the meme at the local level" quality.
Vajra Radikal: im fending off us pc manufacturers who dont want us imposing european enviromental standards
Pila Mulligan: keep on feinding :)
Pila Mulligan: typo :)
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Pila Mulligan: -i*
Vajra Radikal: regardless iff the fact that they do comply with them in europe
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: Perhaps Mexico should apply to become part of the EU !
Vajra Radikal: they just want to dump their old tech on us
Vajra Radikal: hehe togh sell
Vajra Radikal: tough
Pema Pera: why not?
Vajra Radikal: wrong continent
Pema Pera: Cuba was part of the Soviet Union in some sense, so . . .
Vajra Radikal: yep thats true
Vajra Radikal: we are to stubborn on defending our national identity to the point of it hurting
Vajra Radikal: not easy being the next door neighbor to uncle sam
Pila Mulligan: indeed
Pema Pera: definitely
Pila Mulligan: even when he owns you (as in Hawaii)
Gaya Ethaniel: uh sorry ... what's Uncle Sam?
Pila Mulligan: U.S.
Gaya Ethaniel: ahhh dang
Pila Mulligan: :)
Vajra Radikal: a former mexican president used to say: poor mexico so far way form god and so close to the united states
Pema Pera: so what you described with the 35,000 computers was an actual case, Vajra?
Vajra Radikal: yep we are competing for recognition of this project
--BELL--
Pema Pera: :)
doug Sosa: So I keep brining PAB perspective to this problem. It already led to te idea that rather than trying to get to sustainability in a straight line, more random local efforts may be preferable.
Vajra Radikal: it is already in place
Vajra Radikal: we want to expand this as government wide policy
Pila Mulligan: Doug, as you may have seen, local politicans love the idea -- as rehtoric
Vajra Radikal: try and think of it 220 watts * 35000 per hour
Pila Mulligan: some are even sinscere about it
Vajra Radikal: thats a mid size town in terms of pollution
Eos Amaterasu: random local effects are constrained by global straitjackets, such as those imposed by monetary systems
Pila Mulligan: yes, and multi-nationals
Pema Pera: that's very impressive, Vajra
Vajra Radikal: we also want to impose new energy use regulations in our data centres as they are huge pollution generators
Vajra Radikal: by using innovative cooling systems we are expecting to lower our power consumption drastically
Pila Mulligan: cool :)
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Vajra Radikal: but i might add it is difficult to sell the ideas when you are green
Vajra Radikal: they tag u as tree hugger and thats the end of discussion
Vajra Radikal: you have a difficult time to prove value then they listen
Pila Mulligan: yep, economic arguments get their ears
Pema Pera: perhaps focusing on saving money may work better than on saving energy?
Pema Pera: :)
Eos Amaterasu: full life cycle costing
Vajra Radikal: and the problem is that if you live within the boundaries of subsided energy then its more difficult
Gaya Ethaniel: It is true ... people stopped using plastic bags at supermarkets because they are either charged for it or get some money back for not using them.
Eos Amaterasu: works like a charm
Vajra Radikal: we have subsidies on energy and water this selling these ideas is tough
Vajra Radikal: people use their wallets 2 think not their head
Eos Amaterasu: people do not see what they/we are paying for
Vajra Radikal: some of you work in karge scale research centres do you know if they have similar green it initiatives
Vajra Radikal: ?
Gaya Ethaniel: It is easy to be short-sighted I guess.
Pila Mulligan: I'm out of that picture now Vajra, so I do ont know
Vajra Radikal: if you guys still have a say on the subject you can press for the uso of laptops vs desktops, sealed cooling systems at the data centre, virtualization vs physical computing 4 starters
Gaya Ethaniel: My experiences are either personal or previous work with an international company I'm afraid.
Vajra Radikal: same concepts apply but at a different scale
Pila Mulligan: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Pila Mulligan: good luck, and thanks for persevering in the efforts Vajra
Pila Mulligan: [sending moral support]
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes thank you :)
Pema Pera: Yes, thank you Vajra!
Vajra Radikal: thx if possible ill try to publish a copy of our green it paper through the pab website so as to propagate the message
doug Sosa: vajra, can you send me any article r proposal about it?
Vajra Radikal: i need clearance being a govt entity
Vajra Radikal: sure doug
doug Sosa: doug@dougcarmichael.com
Pema Pera: (PaB the spy agency!)
Pila Mulligan: or the facilitating agency )
Pema Pera: The very fact that we meet here in a virtual world, rather than visiting each other by using airplanes is a huge energy saver too
Vajra Radikal: hehe
Pila Mulligan: easier also
Vajra Radikal: except maybe 4 the cost of the always on servers at SL
doug Sosa: excpet for my wonderful large scren.
Gaya Ethaniel nods :)
Vajra Radikal: unless its an lcd then its not so much of a drag
Pila Mulligan: I'm saving so much electricty with solar water heating that it exceeds my greatest expectations
Vajra Radikal: dont only do a price check do an amp/watt check on the stuff you buy
Vajra Radikal: solar water heating rulez
Pila Mulligan: really
Pema Pera: sorry, have to get back to RL . . . thank you Doug and Vajra and all for such an inspiring forward looking discussion!
Vajra Radikal: i have a solar water boiler and cut down my cost in half
Pema Pera: c u all!
Vajra Radikal: same here guys good conversation
Gaya Ethaniel: Bye Pema :)
Eos Amaterasu: ciao
Gaya Ethaniel: I shoudl also, good night :)
Pila Mulligan: bye
doug Sosa: bye too... thanks! ciao yes.
Vajra Radikal: namaste people
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: Eos, I'm happy to see you will attend the retreat :)
Eos Amaterasu: Ah, yes... a crack of possibility opened, and decided it was the best thing I could be doing, so "act in an instant"
Pila Mulligan: yep, often a wise method
Pila Mulligan: you inspired me to look again, but too much costs in airfare and time, unforunately
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, I looked into airmiles, but that didn't work...
Pila Mulligan: too close in time?
Eos Amaterasu: My brother lives in Berkeley, so will visit there beforehand
Pila Mulligan: nice
Eos Amaterasu: Limited seat availability, yes
Eos Amaterasu: Plus my sister, who lives in Wales, will be visiting toward the end, we'll overlap by part of a day, so will see her also
Pila Mulligan: oh, very nice
Pila Mulligan: plenty of omtivation for travel then
Eos Amaterasu: Group RL play as being - I suppose we use RL names :-)
Eos Amaterasu: play with identity, bodies
Pila Mulligan: maybe ... I seem to recall Paradise said at her RL music fest of SL people it was both
Pila Mulligan: intermixed indetities
Pila Mulligan: Wol was saying the meat body impression end squickly, yielding to the already established relaitonship
Eos Amaterasu: yes, my experience has been that authentic relationships transcend medium
Pila Mulligan: this has been something of a surprise for me, unexpected insofar as the chat media seems more restrictive
Pila Mulligan: but it is obviously so
Pila Mulligan: according to reports
Eos Amaterasu: the speech realm can be sharper than the physical body it emanates from
Eos Amaterasu: i've experienced this in online text forms
Pila Mulligan: yes, it is deeper in some ways, shallower in others
Eos Amaterasu: the avatar representation here is slightly different - we'll see
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: as an analogy, written snail mail in the old days seemed to have a unique and special quality to it -- pen pasl could get quite close in sympatico
Eos Amaterasu: the snail mail had analog physical embodiment including the handwriting
Pila Mulligan: I wonder if the avi may serve as an analog there?
Pila Mulligan: oh, that was what you sai :)
Eos Amaterasu: indeed
Pila Mulligan: read second half more tha first
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: it is about 5 pm here and I spent part of the afternoon physically preparing things for the expected somewhat less-than a hurricane impact of what is now a real hurricane to the east of us -- I'm a little distracted by both the effrot and prospect
Eos Amaterasu: Ah.... yikes.... take care!
Eos Amaterasu: I will turn in (to bed)
Pila Mulligan: thnak you -- they say it may be 50 mph winds and lots of rain Monday
Pila Mulligan: bye for now Eos
Eos Amaterasu: Bye Pila!