Distracted by the footprints

24. March 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: advocacy, philosophy, politics · Tags: , , , ,

At many discussions about the climate crisis that I’ve had with professional colleagues, the conversation inevitably turns to how we (as individuals) can make a difference by reducing our personal carbon emissions. So sure, our personal choices matter. And we shouldn’t stop thinking about them. And there is plenty of advice out there on how to green your home, and how to make good shopping decisions, and so on. Actually, there is way too much advice out there on how to live a greener life. It’s overwhelming. And plenty of it is contradictory. Which leads to two unfortunate messages: (1) we’re supposed to fix global warming through our individual personal choices and (2) this is incredibly hard because there is so much information to process to do it right.

The climate crisis is huge, and systemic. It cannot be solved through voluntary personal lifestyle choices; it needs systemic changes throughout society as a whole. As Bill McKibben says:

“the number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb.”

Now, part of getting politically organized is getting educated. Another part is connecting with people. We computer scientists are generally not very good at political action, but we are remarkably good at inventing tools that allow people to get connected. And we’re good at inventing tools for managing, searching and visualizing information, which helps with the ‘getting educated’ part and the ‘persuading others’ part.

So, I don’t want to have more conversations about reducing our personal carbon footprints. I want to have conversations about how we can apply our expertise as computer scientists and software engineers in new and creative ways. Instead of thinking about your footprint, think about your delta (okay, I might need a better name for it): what expertise and skills do you have that most others don’t, and how can they be applied to good effect to help?

Why people don’t grok climate change

12. March 2009 · 8 comments · Categories: climate science, philosophy, politics, psychology · Tags: , ,
  1. Because their salaries depend on them not understanding. Applies to anyone working for the big oil companies, and apparently to a handful of “scientists” funded by them .
  2. Because they cannot distinguish between pseudo-science and science. Seems to apply to some journalists, unfortunately.
  3. Because the dynamics of complex systems are inherently hard to understand. Shown to be a major factor by the experiments Sterman did on MIT students.
  4. Because all of the proposed solutions are incompatible with their ideology. Applies to most rightwing political parties, unfortunately.
  5. Because scientists are poor communicators. Or, more precisely, few scientists can explain their work well to non-scientists.
  6. Because they believe their god(s) would never let it happen. And there’s also a lunatic subgroup who welcome it as part of god’s plan (see rapture).
  7. Because most of the key ideas are counter-intuitive. After all, a couple of degrees warmer is too small to feel.
  8. Because the truth is just too scary. There seem to be plenty of people who accept that it’s happening, but don’t want to know any more because the whole thing is just too huge to think about.
  9. Because they’ve learned that anyone who claims the end of the world is coming must be a crackpot. Although these days, I suspect this one is just a rhetorical device used by people in groups (1) and (4), rather than a genuine reason.
  10. Because most of the people they talk to, and most of the stuff they read in the media also suffers from some of the above. Selective attention allows people to ignore anything that challenges their worldview.

But I fear the most insidious is because people think that changing their lightbulbs and sorting their recyclables counts as “doing your bit”. This idea allow you to stop thinking about it, and hence ignore just how serious a problem it really is.

Unsustainable growth is a Ponzi scheme

10. March 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: politics · Tags: ,

In my first post, I said that the climate crisis will make the current financial turmoil look like a walk in the park. Several people thought that the line was too strong for a blurb advertising a session at a conference such as ICSE. They’re probably right, but only because it might serve to distract from the discussions around research ideas that I want to have.

But I stand by the observation that the whole unsustainability of industrialized capitalist economies is a much bigger problem than the credit crunch, and will lead to a much bigger crash when it all falls apart. As usual, Joe Romm can put it much better than I can: Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme, are we all Bernie Madoffs, and what comes next?

System aging

09. March 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: politics, sustainability, systems thinking · Tags: ,

Many years ago, Dave Parnas wrote a fascinating essay on software aging, in which he compares old software with old people, pointing out that software gets frail, less able to do things than when it was young, and gets more prone to disease and obesity (actually, I can’t remember whether he mentioned obesity, but you get the idea – software bloat). At some point we’re better off retiring the old system rather than trying to keep updating it.
Well, this quote by Thomas Friedman that showed up on Gristmill over the weekend made me think more about how our entire economic system is in the same boat. We’ve got to the point where we can’t patch it any longer without just making it worse. Is it time for industrialization 2.0? Or maybe it should be globalization 2.0?
The question is, do any of our political leaders understand this? No sign of any enlightenment in Canada’ House of Commons, I’m afraid.

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