Endless Knots

David Goodman on food, water, energy, health & wellness, governance & public policy

Each year, my friend (Antioch alum, too, we met in college) David Goodman sends a letter to friends with his thoughts of days past and those soon to come. This year's letter, posted with David's permission, is particularly cogent and forward thinking with a lot of downright useful information (be sure to read down to Governance and Public Policy). Hope you enjoy it too.

 

WINTER SOLSTICE LETTER
FROM DAVID GOODMAN
DECEMBER 21, 2010

Dear Friends, Family and Business Associates:

We are now starting the second decade of the 21st century. This season’s 10 second sound bite seems to be “The American people are angry at their elected politicians. They went to the polls on November 2, and voted accordingly.” My grandfather used to say that when I was angry and blaming someone for a perceived wrongdoing, I should take a deep breath, look inside myself,and see what part I played in causing the problem in the first place.

The seeds of anger leading up to our November mid-term election were sown long before October, 2008 when our economy collapsed. They were sown by unsustainable practices in business, politics and how we live our lives. Didn’t we learn in Sunday school that ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap’? What will be the harvest of excessive self-interest and lack of willingness to take responsibility for making changes? Here is my take on some of the problems we face, broken down into 5 interconnected global categories:

Food is something we all need - but US citizens are amongst the most obese in the world. 66% of all Americans are overweight, according to the US Center for Disease Control. Certainly the politicians we voted into office did not force us to SuperSize ourselves by eating unhealthy junk food promoted by Mad Men. When people are either malnourished, or overnourished, psychological problems magnify and may result in extreme frustration and anger. Many people are alarmed about our food stock’s nutritional value. They are angry at food agribusiness practices based on intense chemical fertilization, related soil erosion, patented genetically modified seeds and Roundup Ready herbicides that are poisoning us, the soil and contributing to the demise of agriculture’s most important ally, the pollinating honey bee (Colony Collapse Disorder); all of these practices and more directly affect the quality of our food supply and are unsustainable.

Water is critical to our survival as is food. Globally, humans are either depleting or polluting their water resources at a rapid rate; we have basically run out of potable water in much of the world. None of our politicians told us to despoil our sacred global water resources although they may be doing little or nothing to abate this continuing disaster. Americans consume about 150 gallons of water per day while many in other countries consume less than a ½ gallon per day. In the US, many natural subterranean aquifers are overused and are not renewing. This includes the largest underground reservoir used for irrigation in the United States (and the world) called the Ogallala aquifer which runs from the Dakotas down through Texas. The Ogallala waters one of the most “productive” farming areas in the entire world which is our country’s breadbasket. This depletion of water was not caused by any coordinated effort from our elected representatives, but rather by our collective demand for “cheap” food grown and delivered by big corporations, which includes irreversibly sucking up our water resources...all of which is unsustainable.

Energy is needed by humans for everything; including growing food, lifting water out of the ground for drinking, and purifying water for health and wellness reasons. Much of our energy comes from fossil fuels formed in the Carbonaceous Era 300,000,000 years ago; but in the last 100 years, the world population has used half of the planet’s oil stores. It appears to me we take energy for granted in the United States, where it remains about the cheapest in the richest 33 OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Gasoline, the oil derivative we consume (and waste) more than any other country, costs about $2.70 per gallon in the US. In Europe, gasoline costs about $7 per gallon because they accept a higher tax to “discourage” wanton consumption. If our government levied a $4 gasoline tax on us, you would see a revolution and politicians wouldn’t be yelled at by the voters, they would be lynched by both voters and corporations. US consumption runs at about 1000 gallons of gasoline per person per year while average global consumption, not counting the United States, is about 140 gallons per person per year (the Chinese consume 100 gallons annually per person). The global result of this massive consumption of fossil fuel is an unprecedented concentration of atmospheric CO2. This is why we have global warming which along with many other energy derived pollutants is unsustainable.

Health and Wellness is a subject about which virtually all US citizens have an opinion – most often unhappy and angry. Politics aside, all of the above three paragraphs describe global dynamics detrimental to our health and wellness. Without a necessary abundance of food, usable and plentiful water, and sufficient sustainable energy, we have no basis for assuming that global health and wellness is likely to continue into the future. Even though the average life expectancy is improving globally, the health and wellness of Homo sapiens in geologic time may be coming to an end if we continue our present ways which are unsustainable.

Governance and Public Policy mixed with public anger often results in a volatile and
unpredictable outcome. Unfortunately, I have seen this “dynamic” up close and personal when my brother was murdered in 1964 by angry extremists (The Ku Klux Klan) who objected to our public policy that all citizens have an inalienable right to vote. I believe the anger we see today manifests as a result of complex challenges humans are facing that are almost overwhelming, but that we have created ourselves. The matter in which Food, Water, Energy and Health and Wellness are dealt with are decreasingly requiring local solutions and increasingly requiring
global public policy solutions. A majority of Americans overwhelmingly voted in a Democratic Administration in 2008 because so many people were fed up with the Republicans. Now, a majority of Americans overwhelmingly voted in more Republicans. It is unlikely that our governance and public policy will be able to address the underlying challenges when so much money and effort goes into “political football” games. If each of us is not paying attention to public policy, someone else will make it for us (most likely the business community). Flip flop
voting and perpetuating the fight among politicians is a net losing game for all of us and is unsustainable.

What can we do to address some of these issues? I have attached Exhibit A with a few
suggestions on improving our condition in all of the five topics above.

I hope you have a good holiday season,

Warmest Regards,
David Goodman

PS: I have taken the 5 topic words of “Food”, “Water”, “Energy”, “Health and Wellness”, and “Governance” from Antioch College’s Pedagogy for the 21st Century in a new initiative called the “Global Seminar”. However, what followed in each of the paragraphs above are my own thoughts, albeit similar to what others are discussing around the world today.

Exhibit A
THINGS YOU CAN DO TO CHANGE THE WORLD (Just Examples)

Food:
1. Eat sustainably produced food. Support small, organic farms and be willing to pay more for better quality. If possible, eat locally grown food that has not traveled 1500 miles to your table; this will help avoid loading our air with unhealthy diesel fumes.

2. Eat more meals at home because it is probably healthier (and less expensive).

3. Cut down on red meat irrespective of where or how it is grown. It is a huge contributor to GHG’s (greenhouse gases)

4. Eat less ocean fish; we are globally exhausting our fish stock and fish we eat are often laced with PBTC’s (perpetually bio-accumulating toxic chemicals), like mercury, which are detrimental to your health.

Water:
5. Stop drinking bottled water. If you are concerned about water quality, invest in a filter and re-use bottles. Shipping bottled water, particularly from Europe, does nothing but poison the air with more diesel fumes.

6. Give money to support clean water for underserved US communities and people in
“Third World” countries.

7. Read as much as you can about water practices. Understand water public policy in your community.

Energy:
8. When your existing incandescent bulbs burn out, buy fluorescent, halogen or LED bulbs which last longer, use a fraction of the electricity and therefore lower pollutants and GHG’s.

9. Try not to use your clothes dryer, one of the biggest users of electricity or gas in your house. You can buy a $10 clothes drying rack instead.

10. Drive a car (Prius or other hybrid) that uses less fuel. Insist that car companies sell electric powered cars and power companies deliver renewable energy, particularly wind and solar. The US has about 1 million megawatts of installed electric generation. There are potentially 4 million megawatts of wind power that could be developed off the US coast and even more inland. Insist on public policy leading to healthy uses of renewable and sustainable energy.

11. If you are buying a new house, make sure it is green certified. See this website for an example www.e-solarproperties.com. It should not cost a lot more and will add big resale value later, and can eliminate most of your energy uses. Buildings of all types generate 40% of US GHG’s.

Health and Wellness:
12. Do all of the above

13. Get rid of your supermarket-purchased cleaning agents and buy green products or use plain soap and vinegar. Many studies show our home air environment is more
concentrated with carcinogens from cleaning fluids than the air outside our houses or
apartments.

14. You know what to do.

Governance and Public Policy:
15. Be sure to vote since only 41.5% of the eligible voters cast their ballots in 2010.

16. Work hard at understanding what drives public policy. After having been a CEO of an electric generating power company for 23 years, I have seen how business determines most public policy over time. When the voting public does not pay attention (or understand), business gets what they want. Follow the money. Unlike 50 years ago, big corporations are global and less beholden to their country of incorporation, but are still driven by profit. We, the people, must take control of public policy and demand that corporations not only make a profit, but are also socially and environmentally responsible. We may be angry, but let’s not get discouraged and leave public policy to others, particularly corporations, because that is unsustainable.

“Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten”.
-- Cree Native American Prophecy

Telecommuting goal to reduce carbon footprint in Hubei province

Remember my obsession with "green teams" and ideas generated by readers to use virtual meetings to clean up the carbon? Encouraging article in China Business News: "Telecommuting to solve Hubei’s carbon emissions problem." Check out the optimistic last paragraph about the impact of virtual meetings on carbon emissions. (My only nit is whether the virtual meeting carbon reduction is corrected for emissions of the IT infrastructure to support such meetings - a quibble, to be sure):

When the China Mobile Hubei Company recently called on other companies and the public sector to work together on a low-carbon smart city initiative, to turn Hubei province into a “low-carbon area” a dozen companies applauded the idea...

The National Development and Reform Commission selected Hubei, earlier this year, as one of the first group of bases in the country for low-carbon pilot tests.

It did not seem to be an easy job. The province is famous for its traditional concentration of heavy industries and scant regard for the environment, but, emerging telecom developments seem to paint a much more hopeful picture.

In fact, the telecommuting sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reductions in China, and could save 340 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2020, Guo told the audience of environmental experts, local government officials and company representatives.

In the long run, he said, savings from virtual meetings will increase at a much greater rate – about 623 million tons of CO2 annually – by 2030, thereby cutting commercial aviation emissions by nearly 40 percent...

Michael's reports from Christchurch

Three years ago this past February, I spent three weeks in New Zealand with Daughter #1 and son-in-law #1. At the end of that journey, we visited Christchurch (A), the city near the bottom of the world, and the taking off point for many a visit to the Antarctic (viz. Shackleton, etc).

 

That the city is named for the Oxford college located across the street from my hubby's, Pembroke College, made it feel a bit like it was related to us (I know, it's a stretch but...).

While there, I spoke to the NZ Knowledge Management Network, thanks to Michael Sampson, the collaboration expert who lives there. After the talk, Michael drove Miranda, Jay, and I to his house outside the city for dinner with the Sampson family, numbering 9 at the time; now there are 11 (including the parents).

So no puzzle whom I thought about when the 7.0 (or 7.1, both reported) earthquake struck yesterday fewer than 20 miles from the city center. Michael's done three posts so far, beginning with one just a few hours after. They're all fine (yay). Here are a few paragraphs:

It's almost 16 hours since the earthquake hit near Christchurch. We had a lot of cleaning up to do - broken glasses, fallen bookcases, bedroom furniture on the ground, a huge mess in the garage, and more. Two garage cupboards collapsed, and so Timothy (8) set to work and put one back together. He worked for at least 2 hours with the drill, and has built it much stronger than it was. There weren't enough screws to finish the second one, but that was started too.

My office computers sustained minor damaged. I haven't been able to turn the iMac on yet, but it almost hit the floor. It was half on my desk, face down, and half off. On the lab desk, the 30" monitor fell off the desk backwards and landed on a pile of books. Again, I haven't been able to test anything yet. My brand new Lenovo W510 got scratched - even before I turned it on.

Message to other consultants about BP disaster

Dear colleagues,

Many of us have worked with BP (we did one small project for its-then Organizational Engineering group in 1993, thanks to Lilly Evans).

Many more of us have pointed to some great examples at BP, like its early start in knowledge management, communities of practice, and its unusual organization designs.

Now BP is at the heart of a colossal safety failure that killed eleven people, seriously injured many more, and which threatens the entire Gulf of Mexico.

Those of us in consulting spend so much time talking about communication and organization and so many other terms that I first listed them here then deleted them all because the stream together sounds like so much gobbledygook.

Although it will take time to determine everything that went wrong (here's an excellent piece by Forbes blogger Christopher Helman, "BP's Deepwater Disaster: What Happened and Why?", who suggests, among other reasons, a decision-making call that may have been in part to blame), this horrific incident offers both a practice field for prevention and a readiness plan for the next time something like this happens.

What advice can we, brilliant consultants of the world, offer BP and the US government right now--and offer to future BP-like disasters? No one in this catastrophe may ever hear what we have to say but every disaster (Haiti was barely 14 weeks ago) cries out for better collaboration, faster knowledge exchange, greater innovation.

I posted an initial thought yesterday. Yours?

Curtis Ogden on "Dimensions of Social Spaces"

Father of twins+1 and deep thinker about networks at Interaction Institute for Social Change, Curtis Ogden, has a thoughtful post on the IISC blog that draws some boundaries and installs some furniture in the invisible space between people, the relationships. Curtis draws on anthropology's "moral spaces"--Autonomy, Community, and Divinity (don't be put off by your preconceptions of this word)--and applies them here. I think they work--his "few thoughts" on what to do with the insight:

• Autonomy: Differentiation. Create the opportunity for people to individually speak/write about their own hopes, fears, skills, etc.  Don’t force agreement. Encourage differences of opinion. Create opportunities for individual thinking.

• Community: Integration. Direct people’s attention and conversation to what they share with others. Help facilitate agreement. Point out shared interests beyond differences of opinions. Create opportunities for a group to work together toward some common goal.

• Divinity: Elevation. Share stories of moral exemplars (virtue can trigger feelings of uplift). Have people think/speak about places and events that are “sacred” and expressive of their deepest values. Play inspiring music.  Read poetry. Meet/immerse people in the natural world.

"Computers, eReaders, and cell phones don’t grow on trees"

How green is your eReader/Kindle/iPad (not that anyone has one yet)? Common sense suggests that digital-anything is greener than the analog device it's replacing. "Which is Greener: Paper or Digital? The Answer May Surprise You" gives a bit of pause, right up there with the finding that Google searches are, yup, not without environmental impact.

One quote from the article worth thinking about:

“Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver, and palladium as well as extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. To function, digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. Until recently, there was little, if any, voluntary disclosure of the lifecycle ‘backstory’ of digital media.”

Hail! Wind! Flickering Lights!

I was staying just a few blocks from Central Park in New York on Tuesday night when a sudden, vicious storm came up. At first, I thought someone was throwing things at the window, which was odd, as I was on the 12th floor.

Then I realized it was hail and atrocious winds, pelting rain and hair-raising rounds of thunder...and then the lights flickered. I'm not particularly afraid of storms but this one, well, here's what happened in said park, "Brief, Violent Storm Turns Central Park Into an Obstacle Course of Downed Trees," an article in yesterday's NY Times by By Sewell Chan and Sarah Maslin Nir.

Sadly, more than 100 trees took the fall, some soon to be firewood. How sad.

Swan song at Purgatory Cove

Maybe everyone is as smitten with where they live as I am...and as surprised as I at the nearby places they've never been.

Case in point yesterday when we altered our walking routine, which often leads to a trek to the woody-leafy conservation areas west of Boston (Concord, Lincoln, Weston, Wayland and the like) and simply went to "The Cove," another of Newton's many delights in the village of Auburndale, just a long walk from our house.

I've been to the Cove many times but my trusty trail guide always can be counted on to have discovered a path I've never seen. Thus, our approach through nearby Waltham past Purgatory Cove. Who knew? Not me. An isolated baylette along the Charles where we spotted a family of swans.

I thought we'd only be able to see them from a distance but, as we sat in silence on the bank, a chipmunk running back and forth in front of us, they came closer.

 

And closer

 

Still closer until their reflections were as clear as their silhouettes

And then the mother decided to show us her stuff ...and float away

If you can't join 'em, swim 'em

Virtual teams gone to the next level. And, ahem, they're in my beloved home state of Pennsylvania, or, as my father preferred to call it, Penciltucky.

According to Tamar Lewin ("For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings"), who follows education for The New York Times, budget cuts caused some virtual creativity to transpire between two colleges, one near Philadelphia, the other on the opposite side of Harrisburg:

At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., the women’s swim team held a “virtual swim meet” with Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, about 112 miles away. Each team swam in its home pool, then compared times to determine the winners. (“We probably saved $900 on bus travel,” said William G. Durden, Dickinson’s president.)

Interestingly, all the other anecdotes in the story are about typical cost-saving measures, like cutting out a traditional bus tour, eliminating window washing, and picking up trash weekly rather than daily.

I wonder how many other places are being as creative as Dickinson and Bryn Mawr. And I wonder who won. Just spent about half an hour searching for the results and for reactions from students, trying to find out how the whole thing worked. How, in fact, did they "compare times?" Did they have video? Audio? If anyone knows, please post. This is interesting!

Yesterday on the Charles

It's just another one of those phone pictures but...how beautiful, really, this remarkable river that runs through nearly two dozen Massachusetts towns before emptying into the Atlantic (bays and such in between). No matter how often I walk this route along the banks in Newton and just brushing Watertown, I'm always thrilled again to live so close to the river.

From Wikipedia for the nature lovers:

The Charles River is fed by about 80 brooks and streams and several major aquifers as it flows snakelike for 80 miles (129 km), starting at Echo Lake (42°11′35″N 71°30′43″W/42.193012°N 71.5119°W/42.193012; -71.5119) in Hopkinton, through 22 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts before emptying into Boston Harbor. 33 lakes and ponds, and 35 communities are entirely or partially part of the Charles River watershed. Despite the river's length and relatively large drainage area (308 square miles; 798 km²), its source is only 26 miles (42 km) from its mouth, and the river drops only 350 feet (107 m) from source to sea. It is the most densely populated river basin in New England.