{"id":1412,"date":"2011-01-31T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2011-01-31T00:00:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T04:00:38","slug":"competing-dashboard-options-measures-for-saving-the-earth-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/competing-dashboard-options-measures-for-saving-the-earth-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Competing Dashboard Options: Measures for saving the Earth & Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Designing a \u201cdashboard\u201d of \u201cOutcomes and Metrics\u201d<\/strong> for guiding worldwide efforts for our pulling back from the brink of of environmental catastrophe, to begin healing our relationship with the earth, is of some considerable importance, and a fascinating task. Below is one email exchange and links.<\/p>\n

Applying the transformational vision of\u00a0Four Years Go<\/a> a work group developed a\u00a0draft plan and resources for a comprehensive transformational approach you can find linked to our draft 4YG Dashboard<\/a> (image below). We wanted to use a wiki to develop key indicators of essential changes in direction, of material, political and\u00a0spiritual\u00a0transformation,\u00a0within 4 years.<\/p>\n

Our starting points had been other models, like the <\/span>Ursula Project\u2019s metrics of sustainability<\/a> and the <\/span>European Commission’s MDG Goals Dashboard<\/a>. We also looked at different PES<\/strong> (Payment for Environmental Services) approaches, and found them objectionable, and <\/span>CSR <\/strong>(comprehensive sustainability reporting) models, but found them nebulous for our purpose, of defining concrete achievement goals. We ended up\u00a0having difficulty deciding what to include, not understanding each other’s definitions, and with other 4YG work groups getting more attention. \u00a0 We seem to have accomplished a lot in terms of the conceptual design, though.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The draft 4YG World Transformational Dashboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mark,<\/p>\n

You\u2019re right, there still is a need for a more ethical \u2018dashboard\u2019 than the approach the financial community seems to be taking with \u201cPayment for Environmental Services\u201d (PES) instruments, and “Sustainable Performance Indicators” seemingly for monetizing all of nature for trading in new commodities markets, like repackaged mortgages are!<\/p>\n

The Ursula Project model does show considerable effort in constructing a holistic measurement system.\u00a0\u00a0 Their metrics are interesting too.\u00a0 \u00a0They seem to rely on consensus value judgments, though, and not to identify physical boundaries or thresholds.<\/p>\n

key indicators of essential changes in direction, of material, political and\u00a0spiritual\u00a0transformation,\u00a0within 4 years.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/h3>\n

Relying on value judgments could also allow the popular mistakes that got us into our present fix to slip right through again.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The problem is not the intent, but with relying on our own unreliable social values to represent nature\u2019s values.<\/p>\n

Take the difference between \u201csustainable growth\u201d (big applause!) and \u201csustainable transformation\u201d (ah\u2026 what\u2019s that?).\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The former is familiar maximizing benefits as we try to be sensitive about incurring undesirable costs.<\/p>\n

The problem is that\u2019s the underlying motive of capitalism too, finding every profitable way to change nature in our own image. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Regardless of how carefully it is done I think it leads to much bigger mistakes than are contemplated.<\/p>\n

\"succession<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I certainly don\u2019t reject human values, but see defining the needs of nature in terms of our values as a sign of bigger problems.\u00a0\u00a0 The worst effect to my mind is how it represents our values as complete, and so hides our need to discover new values ourselves.<\/p>\n

In searching nature for the values that successful growth systems exemplify, you find there\u2019s a point of changing values as they transition from explosive growth toward becoming established.\u00a0 \u00a0They graduate from one form of organizational change to a higher one.<\/p>\n

The real puzzle of course is, How? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hazel Henderson and Fritjof Capra also have this natural succession from quantitative to qualitative growth at the center of some of their proposals now.<\/p>\n

Learning from natural growth systems is like biomimicry, studying successful examples of systems that internally reorganize at the end of their initial growth and then progress toward becoming secure in their environments.\u00a0 You find suggestions in them for how we might do the same thing.<\/p>\n

In part what you find is a change from efficiently expanding control to assuring freedoms, a switch between two different kinds of responsiveness. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It can help to study almost any kind of growth system as starting with \u2018viral events\u2019, looking for how they work and what becomes of them.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0They have internal energy transferring parts that respond to each other and so allow distributed systems to emerge and behave as a whole.<\/p>\n

So, I think measures tracking that physical change in form are needed as part of any \u201cdashboard\u201d for planet earth.<\/p>\n

Phil Henshaw\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8.\u00b7\u00b4 \u00af `\u00b7.\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8
\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Then Dick Hogan suggested that a better well known philosophy to center on might be found in\u00a0Deep Ecology<\/a> approach.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dick,
\nThat\u2019s a good connection.\u00a0\u00a0 The core philosophy of Deep Ecology fits closely with what I find implied by how autonomous natural systems develop, need to be recognized as individuals and allowed to work on their own.\u00a0 \u00a0To me Deep Ecology only falls short in lacking practical applications.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I think that lack of practical applications comes partly from blending in the wrong \u201cnew physics\u201d and its beautiful but intangible philosophy.\u00a0 What\u2019s impractical is the lack of references to the working parts of nature that people can relate to.<\/p>\n

That \u201cnew physics\u201d was an extrapolation from strange world of Quantum Mechanics.\u00a0 It described nature as essentially statistical and offered no way to discuss change as involving building processes, such as growth, or any other macroscopic process either. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My form of \u201cnew physics\u201d points clearly and directly to the individual building processes by which the organisms and cultures of nature develop and change, and to how they need to work on their own.\u00a0 \u00a0So I think a \u201cnew physics\u201d more like mine would provide a much more direct way to apply a philosophy that recognizes the inherent worth of things in nature.<\/p>\n

The stumbling block seems to be that the kind of organization nature uses for making individual things is written in their own original languages, as it of course logically would be.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0So to study them means finding some of their sentences first before having a way to discover what some of their words mean\u2026.\u00a0\";-)\"<\/p>\n

phil<\/p>\n

This seems to be the key to our making a go of the earth, learning how lasting change begins with things \u201cbreaking out\u201d in an explosion of creativity, to then change course and find how to fit in.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that to change the behavior of a society organized around people hoarding money and multiplying their control over everything else on earth, when people who see the problem reach a critical mass, it will become necessary for them to stop doing business with people who insist on continuing to hoard their disproportionate earnings and not spend them. At that point, things will happen very quickly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

_________<\/p>\n

2\/3\/11 – In response to a question about contacting Al Gore, perhaps, about bringing together other a team of NGO\u2019s to work on building a real Sustainability Dashboard for the Earth I replied the following, to which Walt replied \u201cCool\u201d:<\/p>\n

Walt,
\nWell, there are lots of possible purposes and measures one might include, so it is demanding to think about. Others included on that invitation have spent a good deal of time struggling with it, building different concepts of what is measurable and important to show connections between. I\u2019d like to see what their interests are before adding them to a cc list for discussion, unless you want to copy your reply to this to others you want to share it with.<\/p>\n

I just ask what measures and control indicators might be most useful for human \u201cpilots\u201d of the earth. I guess in terms of driving a car that\u2019s \u201cdo you have the gas, see the situation and the road, and are able to get the cooperation of the parts to control the vehicle\u201d. Did you look at\u00a0my 1st dashboard model concept<\/a> that I\u00a0made for a 4YG group<\/a>? A dashboard needs at least a combination of 1) clear functional and cultural purposes and progress indicators for 2) strains on the parts of the economy & ecology, 3) their limits of stability, ability to adapt, and needs for time or guidance and support from others, and 4) signs of approaching natural limits, like physical bankruptcy thresholds, and rates of responding to them.<\/p>\n

So what to select for a dashboard is then a combination of functional systems ecology measures linked to human aspirations and experiences, so everyone can begin to intuitively connect the cultural values to the functional necessities, connecting those physical steering dimensions of the problem. In that email I was pointing partly to the lack of good functional indicators. A lot of organizing seems to presume that nature will respond as we want if people just have the right moral and social purposes in mind. That\u2019s not true at all, of course. Prime examples are how the effort to prevent climate change came to include sustaining the ever escalating demands of the financial system, and so to avoid responding to natural limits rather than accommodate them gracefully.<\/p>\n

My starting point for selecting functional indicators is my little glyph (\u00b8\u00b8.\u2022\u00b4 \u00af `\u2022.\u00b8\u00b8), used as a generic map of developmental phases for energy using systems, their sequence from take-off\u201d to \u201clanding\u201d, you could say. That\u2019s a univesal experience for energy using systems, that I identified in connecting my observatons with theoretical physics research, and found useful as a guide to learning about them. Our current growth challenge is to determine what to do with the first main turning point ( \u00b8\u00b8.?\u00b4 \u00af ). Our growth system needs to change its way of changing, switching from multiplying our control of our environment as a resource to the opposite way of interacting with it, integrating with it as a partner free to act on its own. So indicators of progress or barriers to reorienting our world that way are part of what I put on the dashboard.<\/p>\n

You might think of a long list of progress or barrier indicators, perhaps. It takes both an idea of an achievable threshold and an indicator of approaching it. To me, one indicator of reorienting from expanding our control of nature as a resource to taking nature as a partner would be just getting the idea of that as a critical whole system turning point discussed in the SD community, as a functional performance indicator to guage other things with.<\/p>\n

Seem OK?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Designing a \u201cdashboard\u201d of \u201cOutcomes and Metrics\u201d for guiding worldwide efforts for our pulling back from the brink of of environmental catastrophe, to begin healing our relationship with the earth, is of some considerable importance, and a fascinating task. Below is one email exchange and links. Applying the transformational vision of\u00a0Four Years Go a work … Continue reading Competing Dashboard Options: Measures for saving the Earth & Economy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8,11,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-among-best-2","category-econn","category-theory","category-research","category-trans","category-whattodo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}