January 28, 2012
Evolving into the Ice Age
This, I kid you not, is the "control" panel in my room at the Inn at Penn here in Philadelphia.
I'm sorry the pictures here are a bit blurred, but I'm not in tip top shape. What happened is that I woke up a 3am gasping for air - only to discover that that you can't open the window. You can stare at a curtain-rail-that-is-not-a-curtain-rail (below) - but doing that does not increase the supply of oxygen
Ok, I thought, so I can't have air - what about water? I strode purposefully to bathroom to turn on the light.
Now in pre-modern times, there would have been an on-off switch on the wall by the door. But these being Evolved times, I had to fumble around inside the (dark) bathroom in order to locate this second control panel. It's conveniently located just below groin height right next to the electrical socket; you turn on the light by sticking your finger onto one of the buttons....
I stared for some time at the menu of options. The first item on the menu is "Vanity". I have enough of that already, so I settled for item 4, "On".
They say that dehydration contributes to dementia, so my judgment may by now have been impaired. But I decided to go online and catch up on my mail.
Bad. Idea.
Now I'm not easily rattled, but by this time I needed coffee. So I decided to call room service using the iPad interface. (Yes, I know, the words "He" "Never" and "Learns" spring to mind). Anyway, instead of a cup-of-coffee icon I could press, this nightmare geezer appeared.
He babbled on about my "Interactive Customer Experience" - or ICE, as it's called. "To begin your experience, touch the screen" he then said. Now I'm not sure that my forceful motoric action at this point was strictly-speaking a 'touch' - but it did the trick: My nemesis disappeared.
A rational response to this tech insanity would have been for me run naked down to reception and start screaming at the duty manager. What in fact happened was a kind of high-tech Stockholm Syndrome. I stared stare at "Evolve > Off" and wondered when it was, exactly, that *I* had gone mad.
Posted by John Thackara at 10:23 AM
January 25, 2012
Roasted By A Chicken
I did not realise, I swear, that my talk in New York next week, which is about design in a gift economy, will coincide with the city's huge 35,000 visitor International Gift Fair. Someone out there in gift-land is on is on the marketing ball, because they sent me an email the day after my talk was announced.
Perplexed, I risked a peek at the Gift Fair site. Bad idea. The ground fell away. I felt like one of those astronauts, cast adrift in space, floating helplessly away from the mother ship.
The gift fair website took me into a parallel universe that contains the chick-a-dee designer smoke alarm (shown in the photo above). The designer smoke alarm led on to a pink designer shopping cart that someone had left in a laundrette. And that led to the upside down plant pots below...
These "evolved gardening design" artefacts, I was told, will "purify the air, conserve water, and transform your view of nature".
Of course they will. In fact, I'm very keen to introduce the upside-down nature team to my own advisor on all things natural; he's shown in the image below:
The talk next Monday, it seems, has become a contest between two different meanings of the word "gift". There's the kind that you pay for, and that will transform your view of nature. And there's the kind that you don't pay for which is what i thought everyone meant by a gift economy until received the email about the chicken.
My starting point is this (I quote from the Pratt Institute website): "Jobs and money are in short supply — probably for ever. Are there ways that design can add new value to sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, exchanging & swapping?".
Could there be a win-win space that unites us? Come next Monday, and we'll find out.
Posted by John Thackara at 07:09 AM
January 20, 2012
Apartment for sale
Posted by Kristi at 12:04 PM
January 19, 2012
Navy Yard, GradComD, Brown Bag, Hard Hat
My talks and encounters in the US next week are about design for life after the industrial growth economy. I hope to see some of you there.
DESIGN IN THE LIGHT OF DARK ENERGY
The Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster is an innovation hub at the Navy Yard. This conference on Architecture and Energy is at Meyerson Hall, Pennsylvania School of Design, Philadelphia. Friday 27 January,
DESIGN IN A GIFT ECONOMY
Jobs and money are in short supply - probably for ever. Are there ways that design can add new value to sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, exchanging, & swapping? (I know GradComD sounds like something in Dr Strangelove but is in fact my host, Jeff Belantoni's, excellent programme). Monday 30 January, 6pm, Higgins Hall, Brooklyn campus of Pratt Institute
BROWN BAG at STUDIO X
Bring a brown bag because I'll be talking about catabolic collapse at my lunchtime chat at Studio X the New York hub of GSAPP’s (look it up) global network of advanced research laboratories for exploring the future of cities. 180 Varick St, New York, NY 10014, January 31, 2012, 12:30-1:30pm MAP
HARD HAT at SVA
Allan Chochinov must be expecting aggro because we all have to wear hard hats to his "at home" session on the occasion of his new masters programme Products of Design. SVA, 136 WEST 21 STREET NEW YORK, NY 1011-3213 (productsofdesign@sva.edu Thursday 02 February 7-9pm
Posted by John Thackara at 01:49 PM
January 16, 2012
Virtual Boring Agent
I've seen this Virtual Boarding Agent a couple of times now at Orly Airport in Paris. A It's a life-sized, life-like, two dimensional human figure that talks pleasantly about liquids and gels. It's spooky, clever, and very well executed - and most people seem to ignore it after a first casual glance.
I therefore feel sorry for its designers, and for the airport managers who deployed it. Billed without too much exaggeration as a "futuristic travel experience", it must have taken an age to develop, and cannot be cheap. But the traveling public appear to be so saturated with input that this mini-marvel barely grabs their attention.
Once, when my flight was delayed, and I spent half an hour watching the thing, I daydreamed that this could be the teleconferencing toy - sorry, tool - I've been looking for. I'm desperate to replace my shameful flying for work with virtual talks and workshop - but the transition is proving slower than I had hoped. It occurred to me that perhaps a holographic JT, plonked onto the podium at the allotted hour, might be an acceptable substitute.
Then, as I observed how underwhelmed were the Orly passers-by, my optimism waned. Tensator, who made the creature, seem also to have modest ambitions; they describe their fabricated life-form as a "next generation digital signage solution" and "a unique advertising and instructional platform to convey your brand messaging".
I've explored the subject of telepresence - and why, for the most part, it sucks - in numerous marvelous papers. I'm stuck. Even though the first videophone was launched with much kerfuffle back in 1964 (at the New York World's Fair) it seems that technology simply cannot and will not recreate what it is like to be in a meeting with people somewhere else. People seem to want to breathe the same air, and that's it.
And yet, and yet. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote about kissing the picture of one's beloved. "When we kiss a photograph, we do not expect to conjure up a spectacular manifestation of the person in the picture represents—but the action is nonetheless satisfying.” So: who will be the first to invite me to give a talk - and be happy when I send a family snapshot to represent me?
Posted by John Thackara at 09:43 PM
January 09, 2012
A Reading List for Mr Monti
When the new Italian Prime Minister, Mr. Mario Monti, gave his acceptance speech to the Italian Senate before Christmas, he used the word "growth" 28 times and the word "energy" - well, zero times. Why would this supposed technocrat neglect even to mention the biophysical basis of the world's economy? Well, Mr Monti is better described as a theocrat, than a technocrat. His main job is to keep us all believing in the impossible: an economy that expands to infinity in a finite world. It's important that we stay mesmerised: once we stop believing in his his make-believe world it will all come crashing down.
Perhaps that's what happening now. I've spent the last couple of weeks immersed in a pile of texts on what actuaries, physicists, and mathematicians have to say about the relationship between the economy and energy. [My homework is for a talk I'm giving in Philly at the end of the month at a seminar about architecture and energy.] I haven't finished the talk yet but I thought, as an exercise, that I'd share with you (and Mr Monti) the ten best writers of my reading list.
1. TOM MURPHY - DO THE MATH
If you suspect, but cannot prove, that modern life simply does not add up, you'll love Tom Murphy's work. "My focus, as a physicist, is to understand whether the impossibility of indefinite physical growth (i.e. in energy, food, manufacturing) means that economic growth in general is also fated to end or reverse" explains this University of California professor. His writing is full of dry but stunning asides: "If you object that exponentials are unrealistic, then we’re in agreement. But such growth is the foundation of our current economic system, so we need to explore the consequences"; or, "The artificial world that must be envisioned to keep economic growth alive in the face of physical limits strikes me as preposterous and untenable" He remains perplexed by our collective blindness to a simple fact: It takes energy to obtain energy - the very commodity that is in short supply. He concludes in a matter-of-fact way: "Global transportation means pushing through air or water over vast distances that will not shrink. Cooking means heating meal-sized portions of food and water. (and so on). Can all of these things be done more efficiently? Absolutely. Can (these efficiency gains) go on forever to maintain growth? No." These three texts go together:
Galactic Scale Energy
Can Economic Growth Last?
What Does Sustainability Mean?
2. UGO BARDI - ENTROPY, PEAK OIL, AND STOIC PHILOSOPHY
"There are thermodynamic constraints to the system that we cannot dismiss - even though these limits may not appear in economics textbooks. The final result is collapse in one form or another. We cannot avoid it.". Ugo Bardi, who teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence (and who alerted me to the Monti speech) is a stoic scientist: "What is collapse, after all? A collapse is just a period in which things are changing faster than usual". As perhaps only an Italian would do, he compares our civilisational plight to crashing a car into a wall: "maybe you can't avoid it, but if you wear seat belts and you have an airbag you'll be much better off. Even more important is to see the wall as soon as possible and start braking". Hmmm
Peak Oil Thermodynamics and Stoic Philosophy
Peak Civilization: The Fall of the Roman Empire
3. IVAN ILLICH - ENERGY AND EQUITY (1973)
"It has recently become fashionable to insist on an impending energy crisis". Energy & Equity was first published in Le Monde in early 1973. He continued: "This euphemistic term conceals a contradiction, and consecrates an illusion. It masks the contradiction implicit in the joint pursuit of equity and industrial growth. It safeguards the illusion that machine power can indefinitely take the place of man power".Yep, pretty much the whole story in a few lines.
Energy & Equity
4. JOHN MICHAEL GREER - HOW CIVILIZATIONS FALL: A THEORY OF CATABOLIC COLLAPSE
Our economy is in danger of 'catabolic collapse' because it depends on perpetually growing throughputs of energy and resources that are simply not going to be available. Greer lately writes as if this process is well under way. He describes a "growing sense of apprehension that it *can* go on—that the troubles currently pressing in on the industrial world could just keep on getting worse, day after day, year after year, for decades to come, following the same gradual curve that the industrial world followed in the days of its growth, but in reverse". Sounds about right. And so? (This will be the conclusion to my talk).
A Theory of Catabolic Collapse
5. JARED DIAMOND - COLLAPSE
"One reason societies fail is that their elites are insulated from the true energy costs of their society". We are not the first. Diamond focuses on Easter Island, where the overuse of wood products eventually destroyed its inhabitants' survival prospects. Do today's financial elites worry at night about about energy? If Mr Monti is any guide then, no, they jolly well do not.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail orSucceed
6. DAVID MACKAY - SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR
This book is full of surprises, few of them pleasant. For example: turning off your phone charger for 24 hours saves as much energy as driving your car for...one second. MacKay was Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge until, last year, he became Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change. The mind boggles at the thought of zero-attention-span pols being given this kind of reality-check: "How 'huge' are Britain's renewable resources, compared with its current (huge) energy consumption?" (not very much); How big do renewable energy facilities have to be, to make a significant contribution? (add one or two zeros to what's happening now); Which efficiency measures offer big savings, and which offer only 5 or 10%? (bye bye to pretty much all the politicians' pet green projects).
Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air
7. DAVID FLEMING - LEAN LOGIC: A DICTIONARY FOR THE FUTURE AND HOW TO SURVIVE IT.
Lean Logic does not sugar-coat the challenges we face: an economy that destroys the very foundations upon which it depends; climate weirdness; ecological systems under stress; shocks to community and culture. Neither does the book suggest that there are easy or even any solutions to these dilemmas. But a positive spirit infuses its 800 pages : "Large-scale problems do not require large-scale solutions; they require small- scale solutions within a large-scale framework." The book's greatest strength, for this mesmerized reader, is the lightness with which it draws on knowledge from earlier periods of history, and from other cultures.
Lean Logic
8. GAIL 'THE ACTUARY' TVERBERG - OUR FINITE WORLD
Quite apart from the maths, or the thermodynamics, or the simple logic, "a lack of cash flow for investment in infrastructure will eventually bring the system down" says another dry doomer, Gail Tverberg, an actuary. She describes a political impossibility:" the need to make choices on which things we maintain: schools; or roads; or oil distribution pipelines; or a smart electric grid; or our housing stock". She sees no way that we can do them all. "Which roads do we turn from asphalt to gravel? Can we eliminate purchase of military jets? Do we stop building and upgrading schools and universities? Do we stop building new homes and office parks?"
Our Finite World
9. CHARLES HALL - ENERGY RETURN ON INVESTMENT (EROI)
"Few issues are likely to be more important for the future of civilization". The issue? Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI). EROI represents a simple ratio; the amount of energy obtained from any energy-producing activity divided by the energy used to make that amount of energy available for productive activities. A related term, Net Energy, refers to the remainder from subtracting energy input from energy output. Total Net Energy represents “productive energy”, the energy available for all the economic, social, cultural and other activities of daily life. "The quality of fuels available is at least as important in our assessment as is the quantity" Hall explains; "many of the contemporary changes in our economy are related directly to changing EROI as our premium fuels are increasingly depleted". As the realities of EROI make themselves felt, Hall, a professor of Environmental & Forest Biology, concludes, "Americans will need to acknowledge the reality of biophysical constraints if they are to adapt to the coming energy crisis. Discretionary spending will be increasingly abandoned as humans attempt to meet their basic needs for food, shelter and clothing
New Studies in EROI (Energy Return on Investment)"
See also: Hall, C.A.S.; Klitgaard; K. Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy. Springer: New York, NY, USA, 2011.
10. PHIL HENSHAW - SYSTEMS ENERGY ASSESSMENT (SEA)
Most economic sectors use at least give times more energy than is visible, let alone paid for. This is because the standard measures of business energy use, such as Life Cycle Analysis, do not count the energy needs of the distributed and sub-contracted operating services businesses employ. "That uncounted business energy demand is often 80% of the total, an amount of “dark energy” hidden from view". The energy cost to the economy for delivering business products - including energy - is five times more than what was thought when the energy demand is added in of the support services that technology requires to operate and deliver products. Thyese support services include the energy demands of employees, management, design, advertising, maintenance, Insurance, rent and taxes, etc, System Energy Assessment (SEA), measures the combined impacts of these material supply chains and service supply chains, to assess businesses as whole self-managing net-energy systems.
System Energy Assessment (SEA), Defining a Standard Measure of EROI for Energy Businesses as Whole Systems
[The photograph at the top? I think of it as the kind of retirement home this optimistic doomer will end up in. It's a real apartment block, in downtown Sao Paulo, which terrifying-sounding gang members and their families have squatted].
Posted by John Thackara at 07:48 AM
