GreenBiz.com® |
ClimateBiz |
GreenerBuildings |
GreenerComputing |
GreenerDesign |
Greener World Media
Recent Posts by Brad Allenby
-
Educating students about the environment and sustainability has never been easy, particularly because the reductionist paradigm inherent in the disciplinary structure of education inherently conflicts with the broad scope of the field, and the mixed backgrounds of students entering the programs. A globalized economy, ever more sophisticated technologies and systems, and rapid development in countries such as India, Brazil and China, are driving an explosive demand for competent professionals.
At the same time, the wave of baby boomers nearing retirement age means that record numbers of technically trained people at all levels are leaving firms and government agencies, taking with them important parts of institutional memory and irreplaceable capabilities. Moreover, many
-
Perhaps the most common query a lecturer on sustainability gets is also the most difficult: "what can I as an individual do?" It's a deceptively simple question to which some respond with platitudes about recycling or buying local, while others go into convoluted discussions about global systems. But either response is just rearranging deck chairs, although whether the ship is doomed or not, or for that matter is even a ship at all, remains unclear.
The underlying dilemma is illustrated by a case I participated in several years ago. The goal was to preserve an old growth North American forest, and the means selected by the environmental activists involved was to get companies to agree not to purchase any forest products from the Canadian province involved until
-
Since Western technocratic culture has globalized so effectively, it is worth reflecting on what that culture considers the "routes to truth," and how they have evolved over the centuries. This is especially pertinent if one has a sneaking suspicion that the grounds are shifting, perhaps even being re-negotiated, in ways that have serious implications for environmentalism, sustainability, and indeed, science generally. At a very high level, there is an historical interplay in Western culture of two different models of truth. In medieval Europe, how an observation aligned with revealed authority -- the Church Fathers, and to some extent Plato and Aristotle -- was in large part determinative of validity: Faith based on authority trumped observation. It was not that
-
Several years ago, Dan Sarewitz and Dave Guston wrote an influential article about "real time technology assessment," or RTAA. They understood technology as a complex phenomenon combining elements of engineering, economics, and social science, demanding an appropriately flexible approach. It is increasingly apparent that a similar approach needs to be developed to be able to work rationally, responsibly and ethically with the integrated human/built/natural systems that increasingly characterize the anthropogenic world -- in short, that we also need a "real time macroethical assessment" capability, or RTMA. While there are many subtleties to RTMA, its essential importance is evident. We have developed ethical systems appropriate for conditions where either a
-
Plato in his Republic celebrates the state lucky enough to be ruled by philosopher-kings, lovers of wisdom who avoid both the lure of money and military glory, and the call of the mob, governing by expertise, intelligence, and not a little Skinnerian behavioral modification. Many scientists, perceiving fundamental shortcomings in democratic processes, find themselves ideally suited to this role.
History, however, indicates that, while most authoritarianism is unfortunate, scientific and technocratic authoritarianism is even more so. This is especially true in a world increasingly characterized by new and unanticipated emergent behaviors that arise from integrated human/natural/built complex adaptive systems reflecting a profound multiculturalism.
The inclination towards
Sponsored Links
What Environmentalism Could Learn from L.A.
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Stumble Upon
Apologies to James Lowell, but books praising Los Angeles are about that rare -- actually, rarer. That's one reason Rayner Banham's book, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, is so thought provoking.
He applauds L.A., arguing at the end that "This sense of possibilities still ahead is part of the basic life-style of Los Angeles . . . [which] by comparison with the general body of official Western culture at the moment, increasingly given over to facile, evasive and self-regarding pessimism, can be a very refreshing attitude to encounter." He was writing in 1971, but if anything his point is more valid today. Moreover, although the irony is palpable, environmentalism could learn from L.A.
One must begin by understanding that L.A., more than any other city, is mythic. It is mythic because it is at the end of Route 66, where the (also mojo mythic) American West met the Pacific -- "California, Here I Come"; because Hollywood is there, and the reality of the movies keeps seeping into the postmodern fantasies of the city (is L.A. a movie pretending to be a city, or a city pretending to be a movie?); because it is film noir, rocker noir, and now gamer noir; because no city, no culture anywhere combines the world's prime iconology of psychological freedom -- the automobile -- with the infrastructure, the youth, the 'tude, the Valley gurl culture with such verve and insouciance. Las Vegas doesn't come close: it's an all too plastic stage set, but L.A.'s primal postmodernism perturbs reality itself.
And, of course, it's also the nightmare myth of environmentalists: A vampire city that sucks water from not just Northern California (which by being in the same state is asking for insult), but from the entire Southwest, and is now eyeing the Midwest. A culture that idolizes automobiles and freeways in a world that must be weaned off fossil fuels and cars, and on to mass transit. (A historical note: contrary to popular belief, the transport system in L.A. was framed not by freeways, but by the tracks of the Pacific Electric Railway; see their route map at www.erha.org/pe_system_map.jpg).
Charter Sponsor
Integrated Facilities Management Sponsor
Design Sponsor
Document Management Sponsor
Work Environment Sponsor
Innovation Sponsor
Environmental Services Sponsor
Technology Sponsor
Energy Management Sponsor
Climate Sponsor
See ClimateBiz.com
Public Relations Sponsor
Legal Sponsor
Greener World Media offsets its carbon footprint provided by Green Mountain Energy Company.
