On a 5/14 Global Foresight thread Wolfgang Spendel had said: Phil, I call it Capitalism Plus. The old rules don’t work anymore. Many of multiple persuasions are in denial about the lack of utlility for business as usual. Given the load on the planet and the desire for many to improve their standard of living … Continue reading Capitalism Plus Plus?
On the LCA list Simon asked: Are there any tangible examples of where something meaningful was created (not necessarily materially produced) by humans undertaking a “whole systems accounting” approach? I had offered the obscure example of one of my proud little examples, a whole system account of money exchange in a 1985 paper for SGSR … Continue reading Examples of “whole systems accounting”
Comment on Dot Earth2/14/09 regarding Darwin, “On the origin and fate of species“ — One of the more curious omissions in the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution, still, is to account for learning. Every kind of ‘foraging’ and ‘risk avoidance’ behavior is clear evidence of an individual complex system engaged in learning essential to its wellbeing. … Continue reading Survival and creative learning, that Darwin left out
CCGroup post 2/12/09 responding to Alex: Phil, I liked your coded message. You mean a threshold like ‘peak oil’? Or the peak carrying capacity of the earth in terms of population? The question is, how do you propose to reduce demand? Right now, governments are doing their damnedest to stimulate demand to save the global … Continue reading Getting peeks at the the coming peaks
Steve Salmony’s 1/12/09 Post Embrace change My reply: Why the rules changed, below Embrace change for planet’s sake – Steve Salmony In calling for change in our time, scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true, speaking out loudly and clearly to wealthy and powerful people who adamantly insist that the “business as usual” … Continue reading Why “new rules” apply? – Nature changed them
re: WNYC’s “Tell Me More” 9/22/08 Michel, I don’t think you, or anyone else, is getting a good picture of what happened, why, or what effect it will have. I’m not a mystic with secret answers, but a systems scientist who has been studying this kind of collapse in natural systems for 30 years. It’s … Continue reading What the collapse really means
Anselmo & all, I think it’s very relevant to consider the accumulating adverse genetic change due to human intervention. The principal process of evolution is not yet well understood yet though. “Punctuated equilibrium” requires a mechanism for relatively rapid change of the whole genome rather than a selective drift of individual genes, and as yet … Continue reading Human interference polluting the genome??
O2 post: Mauro asked about sorting out “carbon sinks” That’s an excellent question. What you want is the *accumulative* total effect, for the *choice* being made, not so much the particular carbon sink (if what you want is to give people ways to decide what choices are better than others). The way you’re starting is … Continue reading Measuring CO2 lifespan… and signs of nature’s rejection
post to FRIAM 1/20/07 marking a map to help navigating the sysems territory One of the things that Roger’s comments bring out about the discontinuities you find in tracing organism growth (epigenesis) is the question of markers. Normal single growth curves are famous for representing huge changes and having almost no markers at all to … Continue reading Quite easy to mark
Posted to AIA COTE forum 1/11/07 A great old oak that’s been the center of it’s neighborhood for decades, home to wild life and children’s play, a long labor for leaf raking and thing of beauty in every season, began it’s life with exponential growth that was equally splendid in its transformative magic even if … Continue reading What do you tell a tree?