Earth from Space

Question of the Day ~ April 28, 2013 Describe Our Earth

Describe our Earth as seen from space – to a blind person.

What the earth looks like depends very much on how close you are to it, and what is happening in the atmosphere.

Usually between a third and a half of the planet is covered in white cloud, and exactly where the clouds are and what they look like varies greatly from season to season, as well as the time of day at the place you are looking at.
If there are storms, you can see weird upward jumping lightning called sprites.
The atmosphere looks like a very thin wispy shell.
The oceans vary in colour, from a deep blue well away from land, to a greener blue closer to land (where there is more fertility from mineral bought to the surface my wave action, current action, and river outflow).
Very large rivers can be seen for the brown smudges of surface water that can extend well out into the ocean, where the fresh water is floating over the sea water.

The forests are a deep green, the prairies a lighter green, and the deserts more brown, and there are all imaginable shades in between, with various mixes of things.
In some areas, large bright green circles of irrigated land are clearly visible even from many hundreds of miles above in space.

As you move further from earth, the colours blend together, becoming white for cloud, blue for water, and green for land.

Further out still, and the earth and moon can be seen spinning slowly around each other (once a month), as their combined centre of mass spins around the sun once a year.
By the time you are twice as far away from the earth and moon as the moon is from earth, they both appear to be very small marbles floating in the vast void of space, with the nearest planets being a very long way away.

In the background is a truly vast collection of distant points of light. Over 100 billion other stars in our galaxy alone, and over a billion other galaxies that we have identified thus far.
The further away you move, the smaller and more insignificant our earth looks.

Conscious Earth?

Question of the Day ~ April 27, 2013 Conscious Earth

Do you believe the Earth is conscious?

No – not at all.
The earth is very complex, and I see no evidence whatsoever that the earth has any sort of self-aware consciousness.

I have walked barefoot over a lot of NZ, dived in waters full of sharks and many other things. I feel an awe and wonder at the amazing complexity that is the living ecology in which we find ourselves.
Understanding much of the evolution of those systems, and of the functioning of those systems, does nothing to lessen the feelings of awe and wonder at being present in it.

A cleaner Earth

Question of the Day ~ April 25, 2013 A CLEANER EARTH

What have been some of the ways you have discovered more about creating a cleaner earth?

For me, most if what I learn comes through science and the scientific method.

For me this has involved my looking deeply at the systems that are in place, and starting to get an intuitive feel for the types of strategies and levels of systems and some of the subtleties of the interactions between those various levels of systems.

In this context, I see a need for developing ever more efficient technologies that work with the natural world more effectively, and deliver more freedom and power for humanity with less detrimental effects on the rest of the natural world.

We have a major issue with the conflicting incentives of markets.
Markets cannot value abundance at other than zero, and thus it is very difficult to deliver a total solution to any problem with a market mechanism. Markets are incentivised to maintain an optimal level of scarcity. I cannot think of a single example of a market solving a problem for all time. I can think of many examples where people have decided to solve problems, and done so, without regard to the market – one notable example is ending smallpox.

What we need to do, is to stop thinking in terms of markets (which only measure cost of production) and to move to thinking in terms of whole systems, and the impact of what we do in and on those systems.
That is far more than just counting costs, and optimising profits.
Much of the advertising we are bombarded with is about creating needs for stuff we have little or no need for. It is all just about money.

To create a cleaner earth, we need to bring some integrity to the information systems around us, and actually report the real results of tests, rather than letting money dictate what information is promoted and what is suppressed.

It is all doable, and it will take some real efforts, by a lot of people.
And conversations like this one are an essential part of the process.

Earth Day Gardens

Question of the Day ~ April 24, 2013 Earth Day Cont’d, GARDENS

Do/Did you have a flower or vegetable garden – what do/did you plant and where?

We have several gardens on the property.
Ailsa has flower/tree gardens on two sides of the house.
We have planted fruit and nut trees (4 blueberries, 3 madarins, 2 lemons, 1 lime, 2 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 2 avocados, 5 feijoas, 1 fig, 1 walnut, 1 macadamia, 2 hazels. There was already an established orchard when we bought the place, with apples, plums, pears, and an apricot tree.

I have two vegetable gardens, currently with raspberries, strawberries, various herbs, spinach, kale, broccoli, one tomato.
I have just bought a 6m x 2.2m tunnel house, that will be assembled soon if things go to plan, and should give us some fresh winter greens, and should allow us to grow some of the wind sensitive things next summer.

Earth day 2

Question of the Day ~ April 23, 2013 Earth Day Continued

What countries/continents have you physically visited?
Did our Earth seem larger or smaller than before you traveled (if you did)?

I haven’t seen a lot of the world.
I have seen most of NZ, have driven most of the roads, walked many of the tracks, cycled and motorcycled many others, flown as pilot over most of it (about 500 hrs in a mix of powered, gliders and helicopters). There isn’t much of NZ that I haven’t laid eyes on, from North cape to Stewart Island and out to the Chatham Islands. I’ve sailed and or driven fishing boats around most of the coast and harbours.

I’ve done a few trips to Aus, mostly to Sydney and Tasmania and Brisbane area.

I’ve made three trips to the USA, one for pleasure and two on business, about a month in total, Hawaii, LA, Denver, Austin TX, Washington DC, Manchester NH, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, Chicago, Oshkosh, San Fran, Seattle.

That’s about it for me. The world seems a very big place, with a great many people in it, and very highly modified.

Earth Day

Question of the Day ~ ~ April 22, 2013 Earth Day

How has climate change impacted you?
What are you doing to be part of the solution?

18 years ago we bought 35 acres of land, and planted 16,000 pine trees on it. In part to offset our carbon emissions. Since then they have been pruned and thinned, and there are now some 6,000 stems. We are now a nett benefit to the atmospheric systems, and it isn’t enough. We need much better technology.
15 years ago we moved from sea level to 300ft.
I have spoken about climate change at local, regional and national meetings for the last 20 years.
If the topic comes up, I am happy to speak to it, to lend what credence I have to the need to take effective action, though I often differ with the establishment as to what the most effective action is.
I have been involved in ecological activism for over 40 years, almost as long as I have been self employed.

To me, it is clear that we need to develop effective technologies to take us beyond our present inefficient and polluting technologies, which is happening to a degree.
What is not happening, but needs to, is a fundamental change to the incentive structures that produce our consumption driven mania (market valuation and money). That will not happen easily, and it will happen (needs must).

We seem to be developing understandings of those systems, at many different levels, and it is an “interesting” process. Few people are able to see beyond the “truths” of their culture to the underlying systems and structures.

There is certainly no incentive within the existing systems to seriously challenge their foundational assumptions.

So I’d say I’m being part of the solution, even if many others see me as an annoying problem.

[followed by]

Hi Andrew

You make quite a few claims that don’t ring true to me.
I just had a look at the numbers for Venus.
It is the hottest planetary surface by far.
It has an atmospheric pressure at the surface that is 92 times that of earth.
The adiabatic lapse rate on earth is 2Deg C per 1,000 ft. The atmospheric pressure doubles every 18,000 ft. To get from 1 bar to 92 bar is 6.5 doublings or 117,000 ft, which would give a surface temp due to adiabatic lapse rate alone of about 250 C. The actual measured temp is about 460 C, the bulk of the difference being due to greenhouse effects – which are real.
The difference between the greenhouse effects measurable in an enclosed space a few meters high compared to that delivered by an atmosphere a few 10s of kilometers high is profound.

Similarly with the other analysis, it does not factor in the positive feedback in this particular system, that could be significant.

And I agree, that it is far from a simple system.
At this point in time, perhaps the worst thing would be an economic slump, as the lack of vapour trails from high altitude jets would mean a significant increase in solar radiation reaching the surface.
It is a very complex system, and humanity has made significant changes to how the ecosystem functions at the global level. We have killed most of the big fish, cut down most of the trees, diverted most of the waterways, etc.
All these things add up.
We could do it all so much more efficiently, and we are getting better.

I am not a pessimist, and nor am I a denier of the clear science that indicates we need to do something.
I disagree with most about what the something is.
For me, it makes sense to provide everyone on the planet with a much higher standard of living, but to do so in an ecologically sustainable fashion. That seems entirely technically possible on a 20 year timescale.

So I am optimistic for the future of both humanity and the ecosystems we share this planet with; and it cannot be done with a “business as usual” approach. And denying the clear science doesn’t help either.
Most of the vocal climate sceptics have a very clear vested interest in being supported by the fossil fuel industry (who are making absolute fortunes from us at present, with profits of over 20,000% on Arabian oil production – costing 20c per barrel to produce and selling for $100 per barrel).

So in my understanding, climate change is a real issue, and it is not a world killer that many are hyping it up to be because we are perfectly capable of solving it technically, we just need to.

[followed by]

Hi Andrew

Agree with most of what you say.

The worst thing the petrochemical industry is doing is thieving most of the wealth of the western middle classes.
I don’t know that greed is necessarily an accurate description. Most people like to compete, as well as to cooperate. The biggest game in town is “making money” and some people are really good at it, and really competitive at it. It is the incentive structure of the market, and the social value that we as humanity in general have given to the market (and its measure “money”) that are at the root of the issue. Change that incentive structure, and we change everything else.

We’re being conned all right, and the con is much deeper than carbon, it goes right to the heart of the market, and money.

Removed update to Wikipedia

Updated the Other definitions section of Market Value in Wikipedia

Made a change to wikipedia, only to have it removed.

It seems that what I had written is classed as “original research”, and cannot be included in the encyclopedia, until someone else who is classed as “qualified”, has written a paper that confirms the work.

Seems a little weird, and those are the rules.

What I wrote seems entirely logical and self evident to me:

Market value can be used in a sense that defines the value that money represents, as distinct from human value.
In this sense, Market Value (or money) is a the product of two complex sets of functions ([human value].[scarcity]).
The “human value” set of functions is a judgement that we each make about how important something is to us. This will have a vast array of different value judgements for each of us, ranging from survival values, to genetically determined values (likes and dislikes) to culturally determined values, to choices we have made. This can be thought of as a personal aggregate demand function.
The “scarcity” set of functions are similar judgements we make based on our knowledge and experience about how uncommon something is or is likely to be in the future.

By multiplying the results of these two judgements together, we come to a judgement of market value (how much we are prepared to pay for something).
Thus markets are very powerful tools at distributing scarce resources, but they are powerless in dealing with abundance (the result is always zero).

Consider something extremely valuable to humans, that is also very abundant (has zero scarcity) like oxygen in the air. Oxygen is extremely valuable to us all, yet in most situations is so abundant that we are unwilling to pay anything for it – the scarcity function is essentially zero, and anything multiplied by zero equals zero.

Consider something like gold, which has very little utility to most people, but is extremely rare, and thus has a high market value (and the scarcity function is very large, and even a small number, multiplied by a very large number, gives a larger number).

This leads to a profound issue for the future of humanity, as we are exponentially increasing our technological ability to deliver abundance of goods and services to everyone, yet our market based valuation tools (money and markets) cannot do anything but value such abundance at zero (however desirable that abundance is to the majority of humanity).

It appears that the concepts of markets and money may be reaching the end of their social utility for humanity. Logic appears to demand something else, that actually incentivises and delivers abundance of essential human values to all. For the first time in human history we now rapidly approaching having the technology to deliver this.