A survival guide to Geo Engineering.

Very interesting points by Jamais Cascio on http://www.openthefuture.com

A Survival Guide to Geoengineering, my essay for Momentum, the journal of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, is now available online and via PDF. It's an exploration of what would be necessary to reduce the risks associated with geoengineering, if (or, sadly, when) it gets deployed. This essay served as the basis of the talk I gave at the State of Green Business Forum last month.

The first part of the essay is a recap of the main issues around geoengineering -- the kinds of proposals out there, the uncertainties involved, and the political dilemmas. But the real focus is the list of five key steps that I believe to be mandatory to steer us away from the worst potential results of geoengineering:
Transparency
Ongoing international advisory group
A bottom-up "Ecoscientists without Borders"
Clear mechanisms for resolving disputes
Ban (with teeth) on non-state projects

Interestingly, when I gave the talk in February going over these ideas, the last is the one that I got the most push-back on. I suspect that, once real mechanisms for monitoring and managing global climate systems are in place, non-state projects could be useful and warranted. For now, however, it seems clear that non-state groups acting independently are more likely to lead to inter-state disputes than any persistent moderation of temperatures or carbon.

infrastructure geopolitics -> Infrastructure-less civilization

Parag Khanna maps the future of countries

Parag Khanna suggests frontiers are oppressive violent constraints. He suggests we should focus on infrastructure. I would rather suggest we focus on how to stop being dependent of infrastructure. For the simple reason is that infrastructure is what takes the most time to change, it is much slower to change infrastructure than it is to change political landscape or culture.
Most the conflicts he is giving details on are based on infrastructure and their economical consequent politcal power.
Energy is everywhere, we don't need grand infrastructures. So we either global decentralization, or design of mobile sources of renewable energies (Energy_Animal). Just as countries divided, grids should divide, that would also increase local responsabilities and less energy loss on infrastructures. This video also reveals that "new territories" correspond to tribal ancient bodies of population, that used to live there, before infrastructures and imperialists, by traditional means... Another strong argument not to re-arrange frontiers by economical means.

This century has mostly been the century of migrations, see the wonderful exhibition "Terre Natale" an incredibly powerful vizualization of world migrations (by Stewdio, framed by Paul Virilio).



People have legs and dreams. They also have problems, many don't choose to move but have to. Those who have the choice : why are they moving? And where are they moving? I believe most of them are moving because of their aspiration for a better life, an for that reason the image of the territory they are aspiring to go is crucial.

The territory, the population builds the image, and the most attractive bodies of people are the one that build rich bodies of imageries, that appeal by marketing a powerful dreampolitk (Stephen Duncombe) if not many (plurality, heterodox regimes). Enough of realpolitik. Would America as we know it even exist without the American Dream?



So instead of focusing on infrastructure and economy :

Focus on education : facilitating language learning, facilitating trade in general is a good way to create emotional bridges between populations, ensure peace and cooperation durably.

Design culture : the art, design, crafts, music are powerful identification figures for people; a nation unites under a flag, a symbol represents a common interest. I have identified earlier surculture as major force for cultural change in the cultural feedback loop.

Design mobility : human migration is one of the major factor to influence global politics for the coming century. Transports & national borders.

Design infrastructure-less civilization : In the Darwinian sense, fitness does not necessarily mean strength so much as the capacity to adapt successfully. Infrastructure is the power of ancient civilizations ; mobility, flexibility adaptability is at the advantage of the leading group of individuals and of the destitute. Who knows what happens if you generalize these capacities to the majority? World hotel (static infrastructure + nomadic people) or moving cities (nomadic infrastructures)? Ultimately why would people want to travel, especially since they can download HQ national geographic documentaries? Well, it seems that since National Geographic is doing a pretty awesome work, more and more people traveled so, communication again did encourage tourism if not migration.

I don't think Open_Sailing can propose to build a new civilization at all. Many ethnies have been living on water since errr forever, maybe we should learn from them first. But the middle of the ocean, or on really long distances and really different climates ... That's a new exciting story...

Conceptual chat - Open_Politics Lab Brasil

< Jorge Guberte >
As an effort to achieve a feasible personal concept of the Open_Politics lab, me and a friend had this chat.
I'm naturally immersed in brazilian politics, as i live in Brazil, so it was somewhat the main focus of the conversation.
Hopefully it'll open the curtains for me to further develop some concepts that i have in mind right now, and that aren't quite well formed yet.

P is Paulo - my friend - and J. is me.

P: Voting sounds like an idea, but the population needs to produce great candidates.

J.: Do you have a political view? Anarquist, Libertarian, etc?

P.: I'm Green. And Libertarian, i suppose.

J.: Cool. I like the pirate party, but i hate parties. I hate the system that's established.

P.: I think i'm deeply anarchistic, but i'm a bit too vicious to act like one openly. I want to pervert the system, and change it s-l-o-w-l-y. I hate violence and radical changes; i believe people only learn if they want, can't force it . So, it is fostering existing forces, focusing

J.: Even if voting is mandatory [it is in Brazil] , i don't go. I'd rather pay the fine than vote

P.: Hey, i'm really sorry, but I really dont know anything about politics in brasil. It would take me ages to know national politics, no ?

J: I'll explain in a nutshell

P.:Ok, go for it.

J: We pay one of the higher taxes in the world, and we get a crappy public service. Why? because the government is so pathetic and uneffective to handle public services. Why else? because the politicians that are elected steal all the money that was supposed to go back to the population, as services.

The Economit published a good article about it too: http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13998624

P.: I don't mind if they have a good time with your money, if in return they give you a good service.

J: exactly, i wouldn't mind either

P.:: But as you said, public service is crap, so their life should resemble or depend on this same public service. What solution do you think of ? Better public services OR worst lifestyle for them ?

J: good question

P: better public services right ? If they are fat, it is their problem. I believe people can coordinate the state from more local initiatives, bottom up. So i rather feed ground up initiative, rather than fighting the fat politic bastards.

J: Horizontally in some decades. Or modularly, organically.

P: They live in a different world, they don't understand what we are talking about, so I wouldn't involve them, unless they decide to support.

J.: If we put effort on them, we lose the focus. Why put effort in something not benefical?

P: That's my point of view. Fighting against politics is loss of time; finding solutions that short circuit their authority is more productive, like inventing our own economies and technologies.

J.: Then theirs become obsolete.

P.: we dont fight them, we make them redundant. That's my opinion on the political context you describe. Activist becomes avery undirect activity. It is not activist against the politics, it is activist towards a vision, that can bring in something better than what politic scene offers, as a lifestyle.

J: Do you think the activists become leaders - not government leaders, but local leaders - as the subsystem evolves?

P.: I hope not...i hope there is a position of leadership that people are able not to be attached to, not be called by your function, be called by your name, as you are a human. Maybe the leadership can be circulated depending on the issue that needs solving. So I'm talking about atomising leadership to the specialist function. As far as I know this is called Adhocracy. I like the model of Object Oriented Politics  (Bruno Latour 2006) too.

Human ecologies

Adam Weymouth is joining the project, covering the human ecology aspect "field" sociology.

He's explainign even more in the freshly opened LAB 9. OPEN_POLITICS

Adam proposes to :

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- Documenting the journey - exploring how communtiy builds along the journey, and how people's awareness of each other and of their environment alters. This could be used to emphasise the importance of open sailing in not just sustainable living through good applications of science and resources, but by building a strong community, which is, i believe, at the base of holistic practice.

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- I wrote my Masters dissertation on looking at the links between protest walks and pilgrimage. Looking at the importance of the journey for people, at nomadic lifestyles, and of the spiritual importance of undertaking journeys. This project seems like a great way to extend my research.

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- Developing some sort of outreach programme for the communities that we're passing through - not just in the cities but the villages also. Presumably you'll be passing a huge array of diverse communites - have you thought about how to talk to people about what you're up to/ get them involved and interested? I did an 80 mile walk across London last summer as part of the Climate Caravan - I found it was the best thing I've done to engage with people about issues we wanted to discuss, because we are coming to them, and getting involved in their communites. This seems to be the same, on an even bigger and more visual scale.

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- Exploring ways for us to work as a community on board - modalities of socialising.