Douglas Purdy

I normally tweet things like this, but I have been reading Thus Spake Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil for what seems the 21th time (they should be read together, I have found) and this post really spoke to me.

From EcoGeek.org

Lori Marino at Emory University is taking a scientific approach to determining how human dolphi[n]s are. She’s simply running them through an MRI and measuring the complexity of their brains. The result, unsurprisingly, is that dolphins are extremely smart. Their brains, according to Emory, are more complex than any other non-human brain, beating out Chimpanzees for the title.

The question that post raises is how this fact should impact the way that treat dolphins and the ethics associated with that.

My question is a little more in depth, as I would love to question the fundamental values that led us to believe that (generally) humans are more valuable than dolphins.

As absurd as it may seem, ask yourself the question, “Why am I more valuable than a dolphin?” and then follow the chain down to your axiomatic values.

You may think that has a simple answer, but under careful scrutiny you end up with a teleological question and those sorts of questions are very hard indeed.

That aside, I think it is wonderful that we are getting some quant that we can use to determine the intelligence of a given non-human species.

I posted this before and I am going to post it again for affect (I just used it in an email thread).

People said it was impossible, but [Dean] Kamen hates that word. Don’t tell me it’s impossible, he says, tell me you can’t do it. Tell me it’s never been done. Because the only real laws in this world — the only things we really know – are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell’s equation — no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell’s equation, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That’s all we know that’s true. All the rest are man’s laws [bold mine].

http://www.esquire.com/features/dean-kamen-1208-3

I cannot tell you how important this view is to my personal philosophy or to the vision that I strive to achieve.

Non Serviam.

There is a interesting comment thread going on my One World post.

I closed my response to the comments by asking a question that I want to raise in a top-level post.

If we roll the clock forward 200 years, how do we think humanity will communicate quantitative information at a global level?

As a comp, take a quick look at what is going on in 1808.

I don’t consider this a science fiction exercise.

I consider it an exercise in brainstorming what we want the future to be like.

I am a fan of “The Long Now” and “The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn’t violate too many of Newton’s Laws!”

It is time for us to embrace that we live on “Spaceship Earth” (read the operating manual here).

There is a huge debate about how to “run” such a “ship” and what problems we need to address right away, but I would love for us to start with some simple things:

1. Adopt UTC time everywhere on the planet
2. Adopt the metric system (SI) everywhere on the planet

It is just unbelievable to me that I have to spend anytime at all doing time zone and measurement conversions (which I have been doing a lot of lately, so it is top of mind).

Also, I don’t think it is possible for people to work effectively unless they are all communicating using the same mechanisms and metaphors.

The same time and measurement mechanisms would be a great start to getting everyone on the planet “on the same page”.

Of course, that principle begs two other questions.  When do we move to a same currency?  When do we move to the same language (at least one we all agree that everyone should speak)?

I hesitate to even blog about this topic openly as know that these sorts of issues cause one to call into question one’s identity and values in a deep way, but if you have internalized that we are on a small ship in a vast sea with no land in sight (that could be taking on water), issues like language, currency, time zone, and measurement pale in comparison (at least for me).

One other point worth mentioning, I view measurement, currency, etc. as “encodings” for information.  The high order bit for me is efficient information flow.  Moving to a standard encoding (think Unicode, etc.) for time, economic value, etc. would be a huge win.

I wonder if there is an “Adopt UTC” or “Adopt SI” groups out there, may be I should start my own group: “Spaceship Earth Foundation”.

I have lived here for more than 8 years.

This is the most snow I have seen at ~sea level in that time.

I am still thinking a lot about how to get the market to reflect the “true” cost of carbon-based assets.  You could completely disagree with the merits of the climate change argument and still think this an interesting policy to price in the actual cost of importing oil from people that may not like you too much.

For me, the matter is decided, the question is how best to implement it.  Below is an interesting approach, proposed by Dr. James E. Hansen:

A “carbon tax with 100 percent dividend” is needed to reverse the growth of atmospheric CO2.  The tax, applied to oil, gas and coal at the mine or port of entry, is the fairest and most effective way to reduce emissions and transition to the post fossil fuel era.  It would assure that unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil shale and tar sands, stay in the ground, unless an economic method of capturing the CO2 is developed.

The entire tax should be returned to the public, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts.  No bureaucracy is needed.

A tax should be called a tax.  The public can understand this and will accept a tax if it is clearly explained and if 100 percent of the money is returned to the public.  Not one dime should go to Washington for politicians to pick winners.  No lobbyists need be employed.

The public will take steps to reduce their emissions because they will continually be reminded of the matter by the monthly dividend and by rising fossil fuel costs.  It must be clearly explained to the public that the tax rate will continue to increase in the future.

When fuel prices decline, the tax should increase, to retain the incentive for transitioning to the post-fossil-fuel-era.  The effect of reduced fossil fuel demand will be lower fossil fuel prices, making the tax a larger and larger portion of energy costs (for fossil fuels only).  Thus the country will stop hemorrhaging its wealth to oil-producing nations.

Tax and dividend is progressive.  A person with several large cars and a large house will have a tax greatly exceeding the dividend.  A family reducing its carbon footprint to less than average will make money.  Everyone will have an incentive to reduce their carbon footprint.

The dividend will stimulate the economy, spur innovation, and provide money that allows people to purchase low-carbon products and a low-carbon lifestyle.

A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective.  It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead.  The rate of infrastructure replacement, thus economic activity, can be modulated by how fast the carbon tax rate increases.  Effects will permeate society.  Food requiring lots of carbon emissions to produce and transport will become more expensive and vice versa, encouraging support of nearby farms as opposed to imports from half way around the world.

Beware of alternative approaches, such as ‘percent emission reduction goals’ and ‘cap and trade’.  These are subterfuges designed to allow business-as-usual to continue, under a pretense of action, a greenwashing.  Hordes of lobbyists will argue for these approaches, which assure their continued employment.  The ineffectiveness of ‘goals’ and ‘caps’ is made blatantly obvious by the fact that the countries promoting them are planning to build more coal-fired power plants.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081121_Obama.pdf

I just completed Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

I previously claimed that Warfighting was the best book that I read all year.

That is still true, but Hot, Flat and Crowded is the most important book that I have read in many, many years.

I am prone to hyperbole, but I am quite serious about this.

I have watched any number of documentaries and read countless magazine articles about climate change and energy policy, but this is the first time that I have really internalized the magnitude of the problem that we face.

More to the point, this is the first time that I have felt compelled, morally compelled, to do something about it.

I am not talking about buying carbon offsets (which I have considered in the past) or some other form of personal “greening”, but actually getting involved in changing policy and attitudes.

It turns out that all my “greening” isn’t going to amount to anything on the planetary scale (environmentally or politically).

I am doing a ton of research right now to get a handle on this issue and see what leverage is there.

One thing that I will admit, I am excited by the problem and I think there is HUGE financial opportunity here.

This is one of the reasons that I loved Hot, Flat and Crowded; it embraces the market as a force that can bring this change about.

The conclusion that I have reached thus far is that we will not find a solution to this problem with the current cost structures we have in place.

We are not pricing in the true cost of energy.

Friedman quotes Jad Mouawad (article here) as the source for this comparison, which I will update with today’s prices:

• 1 barrel of oil = 42 gallons
• price of a barrel of oil today = ~$45.00
• price per gallon of oil today = ~$1.08
• price for a gallon of (non-organic) milk = $2.58

There is something wrong with the world when a gallon of crude oil is cheaper than a gallon of milk.

I’ll close with the two best quotes in the book:

If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

That was Henry Ford.

Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly.

That was Mao.

21 years old.  Still germane.

The interesting thing is the primary spine of the demo.

It is personally ironic since I am reading Hot, Flat and Crowded (more in another post on this).

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=100196171226719096]

For feedreaders: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=100196171226719096

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/most-popular-stories-of-the-week-dec-7-14.php

This is a great interactive quiz that highlights how MPG can fool you.

http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news/mpg/mpg.html

Via: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/the-illusion-of-miles-per-gallon/?hp