Climate Cartoons 2009

The best climate cartoons according to ClimateProgress.org here.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Enjoyed a great tour around NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center facilities in Greenbelt, Maryland, this morning. Many thanks to dr. Neil Gehrels (the husband of professor Ellen Williams with whom Merijn is doing her post-doc at the University of Maryland) and Nina Harris for this. Somewhat hidden in the woods there's 454 hectares where 9000 scientists and engineers and others are continuously making history and looking for the next piece of the existential puzzle.

At the visitors center we were given a demonstration of 'science on a sphere'. Totally captivating. They could plot a satellite image of the complete globe on a sphere dangling form the ceiling in the center of the dark room and show the weather and clouds up to as recent as 5 hours ago. Playing back the records for the past 2-3 years we could see how chains of hurricanes were born over the Sahara and mature while crossing the Atlantic into the Caribbean. I particularly liked the daily tropical rain showers that showed like an array of daily puffs of clouds, like a pulsating heart. And never before had I seen such clear a presentation of the yearly freeze and melt of arctic sea ice.

The data gathered by the satellites combined with state-of-the-art visualization techniques are definitely invaluable boosters of our understanding of the world's (and the universe's) ways and indispensable enablers of timely and effective responses to such things as global warming and deforestation.

We also got to look into the massive clean room where pieces of the James Webb Space Telescope - the one to replace the Hubble - are constructed and tested.

Hubble brought us images like this one

Then we visited a spectacular 'piece of junk': a mega-centrifuge - a ~30 m horizontal truss with a van-size thermal vacuum chamber on one end, which was swung around the room at speeds up to 150 miles/hour. It was used to test space equipment for g-loads, but not anymore. Here's some of the cruel tests spacecraft are submitted to:

At the end we were shown the balloon lab, where high-altitude balloon missions are prepared. These fly to an altitude of up to 40 km. It's somewhere between aeronautics and space, a cheap and effective alternative to satellites for measurements that don't care about a little bit of atmospheric molecules still being around. They probably have some GPS-sensor on board to monitor the location, but there's a pretty robust secondary system: people calling that they've seen a UFO. No kidding.

balloon at high altitude seen through telescope (source: NASA)

Noah's comeback

While crossing the National Mall a strange sight required my attention. Just stranded in the middle of the muddy winter meadow, or anticipating on a coup by the waters of the Potomac?

The Ark with the Capitol in the background

On the waves of anticipation of the rising sea, Noah seems to be making a strong comeback, in this case as a warning sign from the internet action group AVAAZ. The people of AVAAZ call on the delegates who are negotiating in Copenhagen and on Obama in particular to bring home a "real deal" this week. For a deal to qualify as "real" it should meet three requirements: (1) it should guarantee that global emissions peak by 2015 and decline thereafter, (2) it should incorporate a record-high (but maybe justified) $200 billion per annum commitment to help developing countries cope with climate change and (3) it should be a legally binding, enforceable deal.

Close-up of Ark's hull with the AVAAZ message to Obama amidst calls from passers-by

If the deal won't be real enough, I won't comfortably go with this Plan B. I guess the AVAAZ people are optimistic in nature and anticipate on their Ark to be obsolete in the end.

New office

Found an office more beautiful than I had ever imagined possible.

Main reading room from my position

It's the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. I discovered it last weekend, as it was listed as the third (of 26) reasons to love living in Washington DC in the Washingtonian magazine that I read last weekend in the 'man's corner' of a women's boutique on Connecticut Avenue. The magazine was right. When my inspiration runs dry, I look up to Shakespeare's statue. When I tend to dream away, the serious look of Beethoven forces me to refocus. And on the left there's Newton to help stay grounded in science. When I get hungry, I can walk to a cafeteria through the marble floored corridors and the concrete catacombs underneath the building, where blue and white collar workers and tourists pass each other, neither of them paying particular attention the other. Around me, in the reading room, in the cone of the light from the small desk lamp that is closest, people pear through reading glasses to the yellow pages of old books that were brought to them from the dark wooden stacks in the alcoves. Many alternate reading and hastily typing on their laptops. I wonder what works of art or Pulitzer prize winning master pieces are being conceived in this serenity. Or would most of them be, like me, officeless freelancers who fled the demon of restlessness residing in their appartments? Sssshhh...can't ask.

Here-to-stay travel mug

May I proudly introduce my new acquisition. Here she is:

...my new companion. She's a mug, that's right, a Maryland Terrapins travel mug. Look at that chic deep metallic red finish. She can hold almost 16 oz., coffee of course (she hates tea), and keep it nice and warm for me thanks to her insulating double wall. I bought her to be able to enjoy my coffees without the bitter side taste that disposing of the paper cup coffee is inevitably served in gives me every time I frequent a coffee shop, which has become much like a daily habit. It feels bad to throw away so many cups. Considering a-coffee-a-day routine, on a yearly basis that would equal to sending some 360 cups to the landfill, me alone. That feels like a lot. Accounting for all consumers the numbers are staggering: it is estimated that in America 23 billion paper cups will be used in 2010. Nearly all of them go to the landfill. They can't be recycled, because regulations are strict when it comes to allowing recycled paper to be in direct contact with the beverage. Besides, the cups are lined with polyethylene to waterproof them, making it more difficult to recycle them.
Drinking coffee from a reusable cup must be better, right? Intuitively that's what I thought, and since many coffee shops would fill-up your cup if you bring one, It made sense to buy one. But is it really better? A reusable cup must be manufactured, and in the case of my metal baby that requires non-renewable resources and likely more energy. It needs to be washed, too. Googling a little bit didn't yield a clear answer: it's a close call and depends on (and is sensitive to) factors that vary geographically. Apparently, it's not an issue that has wide academic attention. Many sources lead back to this 1991 study by Hocking, who compared disposable cups to reusable ones for energy consumption only. This 'sustainability is sexy' website judges in favor of the reusable cup.
One conclusion that I think I can draw is that if there could be an environmental advantage to my mug, the mug is to stay with me for quite a while to harvest its potential, forcing me to overcome that little awkward feeling when digging up that thing from my backpack and handing it over to the cashier, with the remnant smell of my last coffee experience filling the local air space. Not using a reusable cup makes things only worse. I'm locked-in to this thing now. In the end, it makes me feel better.
And what's more: how wide should the boundaries of the comparison between reusable and disposable be chosen? I wonder what the co-benefits would be of all coffee houses switching to reusable cups; would it have mental side-effects and affect the throw-away culture to one of more durable goods and less packaging?

Precious

Merijn and I went to see the much debated movie 'Precious' yesterday. It's about obese, emotionally and sexually abused, HIV-infected, illiterate teenage mother Claireece 'Precious' Jones, living in New York's Harlem in the late 80s. It's shocking, ugly, touching, telling and important. Go see it. (In the Netherlands from December 3rd.)

Margriet Oostveen wrote about it in the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad (Nov. 20th, 2009). The movie generates controversy. Some think it is stigmatizing and casts a shadow on the emancipation of the black community. Others say, which I think makes more sense, that stories like Claireece's are nothing like unique; they are everywhere and need to be told - read what the comments on this NY Times article say. Now with an Afro-American in The White House there may be new resilience for less pretty stories to be addressed. Besides, blacks do not hold the patent on problems like AIDS, illiteracy, incest and obesity.

Paralyzed America

The political system in the USA is paralyzed. In fact, it has been since the early 1970s, due to an immovable taboo on higher taxes. There is just no money for the "change". That's what Jeffrey Sachs told his audience in this year's Student Lecture at Columbia University in New York City yesterday. I had come over from DC by bus to listen to Sachs.

The approach to New York through the desperate ugliness of the industrial swamp surrounding the New Jersey Turnpike was shocking. The coal-fired power plants in front of Manhattan's skyline, the harbor cranes, the container trains and the endless oil storage tanks remind the commuter and visitor that the energy to power the screens on Times Square, the clothes in the fancy shops and the fuel to keep the yellow rivers of cabs flowing must come from somewhere. The swampy areas filling up the spaces in between the facilities suggest that New York is facing an adaptation challenge as sea levels rise. I was dropped off on 7th avenue in bustling Manhattan. What a city, so much alive. Sidewalks crowded with fashionable people, short blocks of towering building resting on lines of tiny and mega shops at street level. Compared to this, Washington, DC is a sleepy village. I took the subway to Columbia University's Morningside campus. Not so big a campus, I thought. Apparently I had assumed that the more big names the university has, the more space it requires.

Sachs showed that US federal taxes have been steady at 17-18% for the past 60 years. In the fifties and sixties budgets for initiatives like the highway system (fifties) and social security and medicare/medicaid (sixties) could be freed by reducing spending on the military. But when military spending bottomed out at 5% of GDP, non-military had to top-out, as raising taxes was just not an option: Joe the Plumber would not buy it. And that attitude toward taxes has never gone away since. The result: no significant government initiatives have been made for the past four decades. Today, all federal tax revenues are consumed by social security, medicare/medicaid, the military, veteran benefits and interest on debth. Everyhting else - from roads to child care, from sustainable energy to development assistance - has to be done on borrowed money. That's the paralysis. Paralysis is not the same as stability: it shows up in the poverty statistics as a steady increase in child poverty since the early seventies up to the point where nowadays 1 in every 5 children in the US live in poverty. The poverty rate in the US is 17.1% compared to 5.6% in those "socialist states" of Scandinavia. The trajectories of Europe and the US started to diverge when Europe introduced the value added tax (VAT) and America didn't. Since then, in Europe government revenues as share of GDP have risen to 10% points above the US level, allowing European governments to continue expanding and improving services, like education and health care.

Sachs doesn't see Obama breaking out of this lock-in. Obama ran is campaign on 'not raising taxes'. "Not raising taxes? How are they gonna fund the "change we want to see"?" cried out Sachs. The proposed budget cuts would only affect "the third decimal". Besides, Sachs is disappointed in how Obama does not put an end to the influence of special interests. He may define the topics, but leaves the policy making to Congress, and hence, to the powers of the uncountable lobbyists defending the interests of incumbent corporations. The paralysis blocks structural change and leaves not much more than tweaking some numbers here and there, like the FED's interest rate. But according to Donella Meadows' list of "places to intervene in a system", adjusting numbers is the least effective measure one can take change behavior of a system, yielding the least leverage. "I'm a big fan of the market," said Sachs,"but I don't want to see them in Washington. They should do business, innovate, not make the rules." Today, at the University of Maryland, Undersecretary of Energy Steven Koonin touched upon this lock-in by quoting what he was once told: "A price on carbon is never going to be high enough to make a difference, because when it does, the political system will oppose." Sachs's conclusion: "This is a very weird country, and I mean that scientifically by the way."

Although reasonable perhaps, I think it would be irresponsible to accept fatalistic arguments as a working theory. And I think Sachs does too. He presented a plan to get American economy back on track, requiring an extra federal revenue of 6% of GDP, meaning a 1/4-1/3 growth in government spending. Would a good plan be enough to break the paralysis? It sure is a good step, but how do we get people to be open to more taxes? Sachs recalled how he once was asked this: "You say Washington is doing it all wrong, and then you still want me to give 'em more money?" Would it help to 'reframe' the issue, like one woman in the audience suggested, focussing on the benefits, what we can and need to do for our children? Sachs agreed that that's part of the strategy. One thing to reframe could be the word 'tax' itself. At last weeks' Bioscience Day at the University of Maryland, Matthias Ruth had referred to the not very helpful ethymology of the word 'tax'. It means something like 'to drain', sucking the money out of you. The same for the Dutch word 'belasting', emphasizing the burden, which is only one side of the story. The german word is 'Steuer', meaning 'to steer', redirecting and allocating the money. That's a big difference. We need an organization, Sachs said, to tell the people what is going on. He then looked at demographics. Especially hispanics are quickly becoming a larger share of the population, and other ethnic groups are gaining share as well. As these groups have different cultural legacies, the receptivity to a dialog on taxing is likely to increase as well. But do we have time for waiting that long?

On the subway back to Penn station, I looked at the people around me, conversing vividly, listening to their iPods or scrolling their blackberries. Is this what a country in denial of its becoming an underdeveloped nation looks like? Poor boiling frogs. In the bus back to DC, in the front of its upper deck, with the ugliness hidden by darkness, I enjoyed the magnificent sight of all the little lights on the industrial facilities lining the Turnpike.

PS: Much of what he said, Sachs had written in this op-ed piece for the Financial Times.

Research: between (Love)joy and depression

Hold on: the tipping point for Amazon collapse is at 20% deforestation. Guess where we are now: at 19%! Oh my God. That is maybe the most, but not the only worrying fact presented at the Bioscience Day held yesterday at the University of Maryland. The Amazon data were a sneak preview of a World Bank study to be published one of these days, given by keynote Dr. Thomas Lovejoy. He also mentioned a study by the UK Hadley Center, concluding that 20-40% of the Amazon will be lost at 2 degrees. But besides climate, the Amazon is also under stress from deforestation (which contributes to global warming) and forest fires (aggravated by global warming). To curb a spiral of depression in the audience's mind, Lovejoy presented a bright green solution: planetary engineering using ecosystems - a "re-greening of the emerald planet", meaning carbon sequestration through restoration of ecosystems to bring CO2 concentrations back to 350 ppm (we're now at 390), a level considered safe according to up-to-date climate science. (See a short version of his slide show in this video.) The idea was attractive. But where is the energy in the equation? Mr. Lovejoy didn't talk about efficiency or renewables. I can't believe he would advocate unabated use of fossil fuels. The key thing is that there is a huge potential for mitigation of disruptive climate change in restoring ecosystems, which means: protection, reforestation, restoring grassland and agricultural practices that restore soil carbon.

During the day, in the presentations of many research projects, endless graphs with down-sloping trends were shown, painting a rather depressing picture of the state of nature. Eric Post titles his talk "the vanishing arctic". He showed how population, individual weight, size, fertility and first year survival of polar bears were all going down steadily. Caribous? Some up, the vast majority down. The arctic in particular is teaching a lot about the impacts of climate change. It is a relatively simple ecosystem, with little functional redundancy and clear species interactions. Besides, warming is faster in the Arctic than elsewhere. It is a real-life laboratory for climate research. Eric Post also showed that current warming is not unique. It happened before, in the Pleistocene, but today's warming is even faster. And the rate of warming is what matters for species and ecosystems having to adapt. Studying Pleistocene extinctions teach us that climate change has likely been the driver of the demise of icons like the mammoth and the steppe bison. Their decline had started long before humans came into play, although humans might have played a role in the final extermination of the species. This underscores that climate change is a major driver and risk of loss of species.

To balance the depressing results there was the joy I could feel about the research itself, about the quest for data and understanding what is going on out there and how the world works. It must be wonderful to let yourself be surprised by nature, but also to find your theory or model confirmed in real-life experiments and put an end to falls debate, myths and unproductive opinions with real data. That is not so easy, unfortunately. While the scientific consensus about the existence and causes of climate change is so great that talking about 'likeliness' and 'uncertainty' has become a marginal discussion for purists, the debate is naggingly persistent in the media. Inexplicably popular right-wing talkshow hosts like Rush Limbaugh keep polluting the ether and infesting people's minds with nonsense. And to hear Eric Post say that he regularly receives anonymous emails asking him "where he bought his PhD," putting him under pressure not to talk about climate change anymore. Shocking, criminal.

Chasing Molecules

Attended a brown bag conversation (referring to the brown paper bag in which you bring your own lunch) with Elizabeth Grossman at Worldwatch Institute this afternoon, where she talked about her new book "Chasing Molecules." The book is on the issue of persisting chemical pollutants. Although the issue is not new - in fact, in 1962 it was Rachel Carson who by addressing this issue in "Silent Spring" (o, o, I still haven't read it) ignited environmentalism - it hasn't been on my radar screen clearly. It's said that, despite these first strong warnings almost five decades ago, the issues isn't tackled yet. Let me highlight one of the many intriguing aspects. Grossman explained how pollutants are pretty much in everything and are found in the environment literally everywhere, but most of them travel northward to the Arctic. As they are soluble in fat and not in water, they end up in fatty tissue of animals and plants and travel up the food chain, accumulating in top predators like the polar bear, the killer whale and humans. The arctic is also experiencing far more than average warming of the climate, affecting the ability of polar bears to hunt. They become more skinny, which increases the concentration of toxics in the fat. Like climate change, the pollutants issue also has its origin in fossil fuels and the petroleum industry. So through multiple mechanisms our use of fossil fuels turns polar bears (and with some delay ourselves, too) into living toxic waste. And like said, there are many more facets to it. I should read the book and dig into this a little deeper.

Wizards

We're going to the Washington Wizards! I got tickets for the important game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a top team with super stars Lebron James and Shaquille O'Neal. Last Sunday, the Wizards got their asses kicked by the Phoenix Suns (102-90), and together with New Jersey they are the absolute losers in the Eastern Conference. Thy need our support. We will need to shout out loud to be heard from our seats close to the ceiling of the stadium, but we will.
Go Wizards!
I'm determined to prepare well, so I became a fan at Facebook. I will study the bios and stats of all players. I'll make sure I'm on top of the latest news, through newsletter, blog and twitter. And of course, a good sense of his team's history is indispensable for the real fan.
I'm convinced that the not too fortunate start of the season tells the true story about the capacity of the Wizards. They know how to play. Look at this:
But, to be honest, isn't the sport just a masquerade for what's written 'between the lines'? One would be hard pressed to argue otherwise considering this.

Post-match update: Boy, that was cool! Two and a half hours non-stop top-class entertainment. Not a masquerade at all (where were those cheerleaders anyway?), it was about the game, and what a game. The Wizards beat Cleveland 108-91! Great battle and magnificent plays.

Interview

This morning I was interviewed for a job I very much want. Now, several hours after the telephone conversation I'm still left with an unsatisfactory feeling. What happened? It began with the first question I got asked, which was to mention recent work I was proud of. Hearing the question I automatically assumed that I should be proud, that that is a good thing. I was conditioned by the question right away! But what was the purpose of the question? And should I be proud? Ís pride a good thing? I'm not sure. If you're not proud of your own work, does it mean that you're failing? I don't think so. I feel one should be careful of feeling proud. It may be quite an unproductive emotion. If you're proud, would it not mean that you're satisfied with your performance and take away the incentive to do strive for improvement? On the other hand, pride might feel good and make you want to experience it again (like a drug), creating a productive loop, too. Which structure is the more beneficial one?

When I feel pride, I doubt if I feel it for my own achievements. Several reasons: first, achievements are never perfect; there are always mistakes or things that could have been better. Those may not be visible from the outside or be significant, but the 'achiever' is likely very well aware of them. Second, achievements are hardly ever fully ascribable to oneself fully; they most of the time rely on external factors, like contributions from others and specific favorable (or adverse) circumstances. I think that's why pride is being felt not so much for one's own work, but for what others who one has a bond with achieve. Like a coach who is proud of his team, a mother who is proud of her child, or a citizen who is proud of his country or city - the facilitator or mentor for his/her disciples. I think I do feel proud of my own actions when I live up to virtues I consider important (of which perseverance seems to stand out), going beyond compliance with expectations and minimal levels of acceptability.

My view might be a cultural one, stemming from the deep-rooted mental model that underlining one's own accomplishments is regarded as bragging in the milieu I'm coming from and it is not appreciated if one sticks out one's head. But it could be possible that in the US not doing so is regarded as plain stupid, or intransparent and hence arrogant and impolite, or cowardice. This I haven't figured out yet and maybe interesting to test with some natives here. So, in hindsight, I think the question I was asked is a complicated one, which I might have answered more comfortably had I taken some distance from the literal phrasing. I hope this tension was sensed at the other side of the hampering telephone connection. I'll know in a weeks time. In the mean time I have some practicing to do to be better prepared next time. And please, tell me if you think the foregoing makes no sense.

Update Nov. 11th: Application not successful. Bummerrrr! Big time. Got useful feedback, though.

Club of Rome Global Assembly

Last Monday and Tuesday, I was at the Club of Rome Global Assembly in Amsterdam. It was organized by IMSA. An impressive programme was composed and organised very well. The Club of Rome appears to be a very strong brand still. We all hope that it can be a decisive factor in addressing the limits to growth where business and politics seem to fail. Why couldn't it? Much hope on the stage, like Bill McDonough and Christine Loh. The Assembly produced the Amsterdam Declaration, as a message to Copenhagen. Find it here. And you might want to keep an eye on the Assembly website for the presentation files: http://www.clubofrome.at/2009/amsterdam/

Mocha mourning

Washingron-Dulles airport. Cooling down from the horrible security checks over a gold-priced comfort mocha in the terminal’s coffee bar. Sipping down the college money of my yet to be born kids and my grandma’s sweat. Well, once in college, my kids would probably spend the money on beer anyway, the price of which will likely have doubled by then. And the quality of the beer will of course have eroded by the same process that has made flying the humiliating experience and climate disaster it is now. So better spend it now on this lovingly prepared indulgence. And wasn’t the purpose of my grandma’s sweating precisely that: to give her children lives of mocha’s instead of mud? In eight hours I’ll be in on the other side of the ocean in Amsterdam. Amazing. It’s a crossing that in the times of Leif Erikson took months, maybe even years, or forever for too many. On the other hand, I doubt if the cultural differences between origin and destination of an eight-hour trip were any less in the Europe of a millennium ago than they are for my flight of today. I’d better go get another mocha for as long as it lasts.

Brave Nobel Comité

The World seemed flabbergasted when it heard who was awarded with this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Barack Obama? Hasn't he just started? Aren't his achievements limited to rhetoric? How can he be compared to laureates like Mandela and Martin Luther King, who were honored only after having fought for the sake of peace their whole lives? Etc.
In his acceptance speech this morning, Obama looked a bit discomforted to me. He was quick and clever to put the honor in perspective and drew attention to the peace challenges the world is facing: nuclear disarmament, climate change, interreligious dialogue.
I think the Nobel comité took a brave decision. By linking it to a President who still can fail, it took the chance to use its standing to make difference for the common good at the risk of losing that standing. In fact, it did so too in 2007, when the IPCC and Al Gore got the honor, helping bringing the debate on climate change one step further, bringing the final blow to the climate skeptics and making clear that climate change is more than an ecological issue. Isn't an institution like the Nobel Peace Prize far more worthwhile when it has a real role to play?
The decision of the 5 man Nobel Comité may not be democratic, the value we assign to the prize is.

Energy Sprawl - Forum with Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander.

Attended a forum with Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander at Resources For the Future (RFF) today. The subject was "energy sprawl" (nice concise term), or how the growth of renewable energy is a risk to the Great American Outdoors. The senator, a good speaker, addressed (read the speech here) some 50 to 100 audience, warning those who used to fight for conservation of America's natural beauty for the perils of their advocating solar, wind and biomass to that same beauty. He might have a point there, but I guess that NGOs are very well aware of that dilemma. The senator's call on the NGOs to work on a common, constructive voice in the debate is a good advise. But my impression is that for the senator the energy sprawl - put on the agenda by a recent scientific paper of the Nature Conservancy - is a new foothold to champion nuclear power, which he mentioned as hist "last point," but on which he spent most of his talking time, clearly being his major point.

The senator had four recommendations: energy conservation is first, second is generating electricity on already developed sites (e.g. solar panels on rooftops as opposed to large scale CSP plants in nature), sufficiently flexible carbon regulation is third, allowing for coal plants that recapture carbon, nuclear plants of international offsets, and fourth is careful site selection. Energy conservation means "fuel efficiency standards," no word about life style and dietary changes. I didn't came to ask if "hands off of the American way of life" is the paradigm here. Wind power is 50 stories high bird shredders along the Appalachian Trail and too little scale to make a difference. Nuclear, however, to the senator is area-efficient, clean, affordable and secure power for the American people. America is lagging the rest of the World. Everywhere nuclear power plants are being built, except in the United States. Senator Alexanders calls for 100 new nuclear plants, and quotes energy secretary Chu, who has said he wouldn't mind living near a nuclear plant, leaning on his reputation, to say that the technology is safe. Senator Alexander concludes to suggest that nuclear is the inconvenient solution to his fellow Tennessean Al Gore's inconvenient truth.

In the question round someone form the audience mentioned that the support for new nuclear power plants is increasing in the United States. It seems like the debate about nuclear power in the US has many similarities to the debate in The Netherlands. The Netherlands, too, hasn't built any new power plants for decades and plans to build new ones are highly controversial, triggering fierce reactions from those who fought against it in the early eighties. However, support for nuclear energy seems to be growing slowly in The Netherlands, too. The next parliamentary elections in 2011 could well be the tipping point. To me nuclear is not a good choice at first sight, requiring storing the waste over unimaginably long times and endlessly controlling an ever-present risk. It doesn't feel fit in a free, sustainable world. However, when nuclear can help to fight climate change, what trade-off would I make? As there are many studies suggesting that global warming can be limited without nuclear, there must be more fundamental trade-offs, like for example do we prefer to make changes to our lifestyles or to accept the risks of nuclear power? I think that the fact that nuclear is on the agenda again could indicate that NGOs are struggling with the dilemma, too, and have trouble finding the arguments now climate change, energy security and - the new one - energy sprawl, together with improvements in reactor design, are weakening conclusions drawn over two decades ago. It also shows again that the single issue approach to environmental protection is not effective anymore and more complex, integrated thinking is required from both environmental and nuclear advocates.

Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0

I was lucky to be invited for the launch of Lester Brown's new book: Plan B 4.0. Lester Brown is a world famous environmentalist, the man behind the State of the World reports, still published yearly by the WorldWatch Institute. "If the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had been extended to third recipient (next to the IPCC and Al Gore, red.), the logical candidate would have been Lester Brown," is a quote in praise of the author on the back cover of the book. In the building of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace friends and colleagues of the author and his Earth Policy Institute team gathered to celebrate the result of an intense research and writing effort. I had the impression that the audience at this reception was either young or old. Where are the middle-aged? Keeping the economy going, not wasting time on environmental preaching, or busy working on the changes we're talking about here?

As you might have guessed, Plan B 4.0 is the fourth edition of the book originally published as Plan B in 2003, in which Brown tours around the trends of the vital services nature provides our civilization with and sketches how the worsening ones can be reversed. Previous editions have been published in almost any language, except in Dutch. But guess what: chances are serious that with 4.0 this is going to change.

In his address at the party Brown stressed the differences in this new edition. He said he is now convinced that food is the weak link. Past collapses of civilization have all been caused by failing food supplies, caused by various underlying trends, like soil erosion or salinization. Brown observes that the surges in food prices in 2007 and 2008 and the sustained higher-than-usual level since, are not event-driven, like the price peaks we've seen in the past, but trend-driven. Rising population, melting glaciers, falling water tables, rising sea levels, oil prices, they are all impacting food security. That's not a comforting observation. The second major revision in 4.0 offers some compensation: the growth in installed capacity of renewable energies is amazing, much faster than imaginable only two years ago. Brown referred to China's plan to develop four mega wind farms with a combined capacity of 105,000 MW (equal to 100 coal-fired power plants) and the recent launch of consortium Desertec, in which several of the most powerful German technology companies and investors will cooperate to harness the sun in Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to supply 15% of Europe's electricity demand in 2050. So "Mobilizing to Save Civilization" - the book's subtitle - seems to be happening indeed. And what is great about it, too, is that bottom-up and private initiatives are passing by the political process of depressing negotiations for a post-Kyoto climate deal, saying: "We can't wait any longer". Is it proof that the awareness or sense of urgency is reaching middle-aged people on key positions?

Brown explained the deeply serious topics with a calm appearance, soft voice and good humor. Authoritative, making the doom and gloom digestible, also if it wouldn't have been a home game. From what I've seen so far here in the States, his work and this book are still much needed. With a copy signed by the author we walked out into the nightlife around Dupont Circle. It rained lightly, so the crops would be safe, no worries here tonight.

Boxed

Sitting among several piles of boxes containing what used to be on our shelves and in our closets. Merijn is at the other end of the room, focused, typing to finalize her thesis. She came over from DC last Monday to discuss her work with her professor. She's been typing day and night, no time to play, packing things in the short breaks in between. One more week to get it all done, compiled and printed. She will manage. Tomorrow she flies back to the US again. In only nine days I will follow. I'm looking forward to being there, to having stabilized the circumstance and being able to pick up the work again. It's been less than 10 days since I left my job (with a fabulous farewell quiz by my colleagues), but I already feel uncomfortably disconnected. And now with this mess around me, I wish I had a magic wand, that with one flick I could move all my stuff to the other side of the ocean into a nice home, style it, get rid of the rubbish I don't know what to do with and get me a cool job. My mood has a fever, flipping from despair to excitement. Although it started with a headache (which as well could have been due the decaf, as I ran out of the regular blend and don't want to open a new package), I close this day on a positive wave. It's almost all set. And when I visited Washington DC on reconnaissance mission a month ago, I had a great time and many interesting conversations. I'm thinking of the systems diagram I made at the end of the ISIS Master Class in August: there are far more positive feedback loops.

Sustainability change agentry with Alan AtKisson

Silently we walked up the stairs, back to the lobby, leaving the orange, wool thread star in the grass overlooking the Baltic Sea bay. Who would dare to break the serene silence, put us all back on earth and stress that the party is over? We’ve now got a party to organize in the real world and we just reinforced our team.

From August 17 to 23 I participated in the first ISIS Academy master class in Sustainability Change Agentry in Stockholm, Sweden, run by Alan AtKisson and his associates.

Just 20 kilometers East of Stockholm’s city center, a group of 14 people + 7 faculty from four continents, between 27 and 65 years old, gathered to be taught the ins and outs of the ISIS method for doing sustainable development and the associated tools to guide the four steps in the process. And there was the “inner school of change,” by Axel Klimek, to reflect on your own paradigms and behavior, recognize behavior types in others and putting these insights to good use to be more effective throughout an ISIS process.

During the weeklong master class we ran through indicator definition, pyramid building, systems dynamics and strategizing for change. We played games to experience hands-on what the theory means in practice, what natural resistance to change we’re likely to encounter. We had group discussions, systems modeling sessions and even optional meditation. At the end, all had to be converged in a personal strategic plan. No, we couldn’t just stay there and talk about sustainability, which would have been no punishment with these people on that location. Now go and do it. How are you going to realize the change you envision, that’s the leading question in the plan? Making the plan proved the effectiveness of the structure of ISIS and its associated Accelerator tools.

Now, almost two weeks later, the time in Sweden still remains in the front of my head. I can feel it, dispersed right under my shell, but there’s some twinkling close to the thalamus is, too. What stands out to me was the confrontation with the process going on in my head, autonomously organizing and interpreting the dense input flow. Several evenings we had group discussions, in which everyone was given the chance to reflect on the day: what does it mean for you to be a change agent? What’s on your mind? What do you take with you from what we did today? That kind of questions. Repeatedly, I was surprised by the variety of what other classmates and faculty brought to the table. How could I be comforted by the fact that we as a group just let the stock of fish in the see collapse in a simulation game? Why do I need to lick a raisin, while out there the megatonnes of carbon dioxide are flowing into the atmosphere unabatedly and the starving continues? I didn’t always understand or agree with what was said immediately, but it happened to me multiple times that, while lying in my bed awake in the early morning Swedish summer light, the things that have been said started to make sense to me more and more. I could link them, see the commonalities and the differences, clarifying and enlarging the picture. Had we not had this diverse a group and had we not had this atmosphere stimulating the open sharing of feelings and insights, much valuable learning would have passed me by. But we had and so I could suck in the extensive experience embodied by my classmates. I felt lucky, and young.

Session with Axel. Photo: Alan AtKisson

View from Graninge, the master class location. Photo: Alan AtKisson

Piotr Magnuszewski teaching systems dynamics. Photo: Alan AtKisson

Tall boy

Yesterday morning, walking to the train station, like almost every day, I passed the tall boy walking in the opposite direction. A civil servant, I guess, on his way to his desk in one of those tall ministry buildings in my neighborhood. My eyes shortly met his, but I hesitated a moment too long. A few steps further, I felt regret coming up that I hadn't stopped and talked to him, like: "Hey, can I say goodbye to you? This is my last day at work, so I think you won't see me anymore in the mornings. For several years you've been a stable element in my days, that's over now. Every day I wondered what your name was, whereto you were headed, where you worked, what your passion was and why you never carried a bag." That could have been funny. After work, on the way back, I closely watched out for him; maybe there would be a second chance. But no. He's later usually.

Money is of no consequence

Walked through the art and antique fair on "Lange Voorhout" in The Hague today. To my own surprise I was quite touched by the beauty of many of the little (and larger) pieces of art, which artists were selling from little booths. The timid, balanced colors, the natural shapes, it all conveyed a message of love and craftsmanship. Where the two aisles between the rows of stands crossed, there was this amazing open air used book shop. The books were horizontally and vertically put in old citrus crates, piled up to make meandering bookcases. It looked great. Wondered what they would do if it started raining.

I scanned the titles while slowly walking along the books, until in the humor section I found a title that's been on my "to read" list since a couple of months. It's said to be a must-read if you have anything to do with economics. The book, by Marten Toonder, is called "Money is of no consequence," after a catch phrase of the main character, the legendary Oliver B. Bumble, a man of honor. It's a hybrid of comic and proza. Although written in 1968, in the few pages I've read so far, I've come across multiple ridiculous yet very truthful observations.

Club of Rome Global Assembly 2009

Please, check out the open Club of Rome Global Conference on climate, energy and economic recovery in Amsterdam, October 26-27. Keynotes and master class sessions with the world's top influentials on sustainability. Work together with them to produce the Amsterdam Declaration as a last message to the UN global climate deal negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Go to: http://www.clubofrome.at/2009/amsterdam

All is one

This youtube clip was brought to my attention today. I think it's cool. Check it out.

Energy for integration

Every day, I'm working on sustainability issues, hoping to somehow make some contribution to change for a better planet. It sometimes feels the green tipping point is near, like it's hitting main street. But then I do walk through Main Street and hear tuned cars noisily racing passed, and people throwing candy bar wraps carelessly to the ground. And I think about the change I'm working on and wonder: would these people care about sustainability at all? Have they heard of climate change? Would they climb on a chair to exchange their light bulbs for LEDs? Would they care to switch to green electricity? I can hardly imagine. And what about all those people who are having a hard time to make ends meet every day, working hard to make a living for their families. If I were in their shoes, would I be interested in organic vegetables? Do they know about it at all? I don't know. At first sight these worlds seem hard to unite, or am I too prejudiced and is subsurface engagement much more widespread than it seems? For example: on page x of the book ISIS agreement, Alan AtKisson tells an anecdote about how he once sat on a bus on his way back home from work facing two kids aged 14 or 15. AtKisson linked the two guys to the increasing destructive behavior in his neighborhood. Suspect at first sight. However surprisingly, the guys suddenly asked AtKisson whether he knew about climate change, because, they said, it's important. And this morning (3-8-2009) 'De Volkskrant' newspaper front page had an article (in Dutch only) on an organization teaching immigrant families on environmental matters and saving energy. The trick is to engage the people who enjoy respect in their community and address their short-term interests. And it works. The people do mind. These examples teach me that asking and talking to people is the better alternative to hopelessly shaking my head. Another exemplary green deal project is from a foundation called 'Stichting Aarde-Werk', educating people who re-enter society to be energy coaches. All those kind of initiatives, that bring down sustainability from the elite levels to the city streets deserve ample attention; they probably require a lot of endurance, creativity and confrontation. In the same time, they could be important catalysts to help spurring the dialogue between different societal groups. Now our soccer team offers little hope on winning the world championships in the foreseeable future, why couldn't climate change and energy be the nuclei around which common future can emerge that presents a counter movement against the nationalist reflex to the declining security about our economic future? I think we need some content to get the pressure off the fight over values and norms.

Farewell

In my life I haven't seen many very sick people in their last days, weeks or months. Most people who died and who had been close to me died suddenly. But yesterday I learned a little more about what terminal sickness looks like. After months of fighting the cancer in his lungs, a friend's father was forced to surrender. The war force objective was changed from "freeing the patient from captivity" to "making his life as comfortable as possible within the circumstances". Checkmate.
People walk in and out, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, friends, nurses. They bring flowers, look him in the eyes with pressed lips, frowning their eyebrows, watery eyes. He sees, he hears and he knows. I'm dead. I tried to imagine how I would feel, lying in a bed with three months to go, or one week, or maybe one year. Would I feel a sense of relief, of relaxation, no responsibilities any more? Or would it make me cry when I see love in the eyes of the people visiting me, wanting badly to apologize for failing them, but missing the breath to say the words? Would there be love at all, or would it surface that love has been less than I thought? How would I look back on life? Would it be the disappointment in all the things I hadn't achieved that would dominate or would I feel grateful for having had so many chances and nice and caring family and friends? Or would I be tortured by fear for the decline and the pain ahead? When running a marathon, I know where it ends, when the pain will be over and well-deserved rest awaits me, when I will be able to thank my supporters. How would I run a race in which the only certainty is that it will hurt, a race of which the distance is unknown, that I would want to last as long as possible, but in which the finish line could be around the next corner? I don't know. Most likely the many questions and confusion would leave me thoughtless, clinging to small easy things, like sipping my glass and zapping the channels, letting time go by.

Smaller teams in the Tour de France?

Now that the Tour de France is over I have to refine the observation made in my previous post, in which I said that the Tour was dull and that riders should take responsibility to act in the interest of the viewers, who enable them to do what they like and become heroes. Now that the Tour is over, I have completely forgotten the disappointing stages in the second week. I hindsight, I enjoyed this edition very much. What the designers had intended - to keep the battle undecided until the last day - came out quite well. Until the time trial on the last Thursday, multiple candidates were in the race for the yellow jersey. Contador, however, surprised with a magnificent performance and secured his leading position in both the general classification and in his own team. The strongly denied, but evidently rotten relationship between Contador and Armstrong was entertaining drama. The always relaxed and smiling Schleck brothers balanced the tension in the Astana team. What if the Contador-Armstrong story had been one of peace and unity? Had the Tour been as enjoyable? I don't think so. The power of the Astana block would probably have killed the race, despite the design of the design of the trajectory. I still think the balance between the individual attacker and the defending team is skewed too much. It has been suggested to reduce the size to the teams to 5 or 6 riders, instead of 9. I think that would be worth a try. It would be kind of an anti-trust law for cycling. It might help safeguarding the charm and human proportions in professional cycling. With less commercial value at stake, maybe their would be an automatic limit to ever more sophisticated doping, too.

What executives and cyclists have in common

These days I'm trying to follow the Tour de France. Every day I stay up late to see what's happened in the race. It's been a chain of disappointments. Would Andy Schleck have attacked the Astana team of Contador and Armstrong today? False hope each day. It's been boring. Don't the GC (general classification) riders have a responsibility to entertain the public? I asked myself. Shouldn't they at least try to make a real race out of it, even if the profile of the stage isn't suited for attacking? Who are the riding for? Who are the stakeholders? Probably, their family and friends prefer them winning the GC in the end, at the cost of dull stages. Maybe the sponsor, too. The general public, however, doesn't really care who wins, they want to see an interesting race. Cycling as a sport probably benefits from brave riders attacking each other every day. Here's the dilemma: for the individual rider taking his responsibility and attacking, serves the cycling community, but at the cost of reduced chances to win in the end and, hence, reduced market value (assuming that sponsors prefer an end win, which I think likely). With million euro contracts, there's a lot at stake, a lot to lose. Cyclists, like businesses and economies, become risk averse. There's little incentive to experiment, to break out and take risks.

In yesterday's NRC newspaper Johan Schaberg observes the same dilemma in business and politics. He quotes a friend of his saying that a business executive speaking out loud for a cause bigger than his company, taking action on which comes at a cost for his shareholders, is very vulnerable. Such a cause can be a change toward low-carbon production, taking a more sustainable course. Schaberg replies that there's a risk in keeping silence, too. A risk for society as a whole, to which the executive himself belongs. On a personal level, the latter risk is likely a lot smaller. Schaberg says that people in high positions, who have been trusted the power to change things for many people, should use that responsibility. Otherwise, they would be little children at the controls of machines way too big.

I agree. And I would like to direct the same call to the top cyclists in the Tour: entertain me and my fellow fans. Attack! Show us a real, daily battle. One can argue that the daily entertainment is made by the many more non-GC riders in the peloton, that it's the design of the stages that has caused the lack of battle for the yellow jersey. I think that's all secondary. I think tour stage wins are highly overrated. It's the yellow jersey that counts. I recognise that my call is hard to answer. Attacking might be nothing more than suicide. As an individual in a flat stage, there's no chance escaping a team of 9 riders chasing you. Like in business: breaking the power of the incumbents requires something extra, something innovative or special circumstances.

Maybe the last week of the Tour will bring the spectacular theatre I've been waiting for. Today's stage, with a man-to-man fight on the last climb, was promising. Maybe, the boring first two weeks will be forgotten, and because of the delay the satisfaction will be even more intense. How would that translate to the world of business executives and politicians? I don't know, yet.

Club of Rome Assembly in Amsterdam

October 26 and 27, the Club of Rome convenes in Amsterdam for its Global Assembly 2009. These two days the conference is open, so come to debate many top sustainability thinkers and achievers from around the world on climate, energy and economic recovery.

Visit the Assembly website for the details.

Solutions

Panic! Friday night I couldn't connect to the internet. Damn, how can that be? Was it the because of the electricity blackout that had put 50,000 households in The Hague back in the Middle Ages for an hour that morning, which immediately refueled the debate on liberalization of the energy market? No chatting with my girl overseas; instead as second best: wine and cheese. Experiment: could enough wine improve one's sleep? Conclusion: hard to say. Surprising data, however: bizarre dreams featuring people I had met recently. Next morning another finding: wine and dreams don't bring back broadband connections. A sense of total isolation, it made me nervous. So I went to the big market (Haagse Markt), for some contacts, and for heaps of fruits and vegetables. I got kind of a holiday feeling there. Really, I couldn't help it, with so many cultures crowding around. Sweet summer fruits piled up everywhere. Why do they get ripe all at once? Strawberries and cherries, plums and peaches, melons and apricots, for a penny I could fill up a truck. I don't have a truck, and I only have one stomach, I just can't process it all. First, I'd be looking at a full basket, squeezing the plums every day, caressing the peaches, checking the progress of the ripening. Then, when the time is right, it's like with blossom trees: an explosion of ripe fruits, most of which risks a quick return into the cycle. The strawberries were nice and sweet, though, ready to eat. However, vitamin shortage was not the problem: still no internet. Close inspection of the modem revealed that it had to be somewhere downstream. Lights in the hub looked irresolute. Reshuffling some of the cables and voilà, it worked! On Friday I had received a letter from the States. "We selected someone else for the position of Solutions Fellow." Had they just known how I solved this connectivity thing....

From quantity to quality

Two tags for this weekend: the late city archive of Cologne and brownie cookies. Two things that do not exactly pop up in my life frequently, but last two days they did.

Yesterday night, I had dinner with two friends of mine, one of whom resides in Cologne. His apartment is just a block away from the ditch where the archive building held the city's written heritage, until some mistakes in construction works for the new subway made the earth swallow it. My friend told that the shattered remains of the building and what it contained have been removed. The other friend's father is involved in trying to save what can be saved of the history records. It's a story about deep freezing, transporting, unfreezing and identifying. Most of the pieces are probably lost forever.

On the train back to The Hague, my friend and me got in conversation with a girl on the bench facing ours. She enjoyed the attention and offered us cookies. She didn't have to, it was clear enough she wasn't annoyed. She did it anyway. In her pouch she had one bag of brownie cookies and one reading chocolate chip cookies. Bought only minutes ago, because she wanted to try them both. The bags were still sealed, because "she wasn't hungry after all," she said while taking a bite from here apple. "You're not hungry, but you're eating an apple? Why?" "Because I'm not hungry." "Huh?" "It's healthy." We didn't quite get it yet. The cookie bags were on the little table in front of us. Allegedly, the brownie cookies were the best. I didn't know, but based on empirical research it can now be confirmed.

A few hours later I was in the train again, to Utrecht, for an open meeting of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) on economic reform for sustainability. Famous economist Arnold Heertje (he kind of is the national teacher in economics) kicked off and remained at bat all morning. Mrs. De Jonge of the national statistics bureau and leader of the parliamentary group, Mariëtte Hamer, didn't get a chance. A passionate plea for an extended scope of the term 'welfare'. The Financial newspaper this morning wrote about the government's intention to temporarily loosen environmental regulations to fight the recession. This very much aroused mr. Heertje. They really didn't understand, our politicians. They want to build for the sake of building, create work for the sake of work itself. Whether we are building the right thing or do the right work no one seems to care about. Fourty-five minutes of passionate discourse on what welfare is about and how it should be dealt with in decision making. Welfare is about many things that have value but cannot be monetized. Good decision making cannot be done based on cost-benefit analyses alone, but requires using your brains to weigh these non-quantifiable elements. That's what politicians are for. If you keep these off the table, they'll return through the back door, via the "informal democracy" of protest groups, etc. And here comes the archive again: what is the point in quantifying the losses of the collapsed archive in Cologne? What was destroyed there will never be recovered.

An uninspired mrs. Hamer came to tell how sustainability is integrated in the recovery measures taken by the government to fight the recession, but according to professor Heertje, the government failed the exam. Heertje concluded that sustainability is regarded as one of many themes to make policy for. But sustainability should be the umbrella that is leading for policy making in every theme. The Netherlands is hopelessly lagging in the restructuring efforts towards "sustainable economic development (instead of growth)", which elsewhere are in fast-forward mode.

On consumer trust: financial specialists bite their nails when the consumer trust indicator has gone down again. Consumption decreases, how bad! Heertje funnily illustrates: "My wife used to buy a new pair of shoes every day. Now, in recessions time, she only buys one pair every two days. O my god, a disastrous decrease in consumption! For me, however, it's a huge improvement. I suddenly have much more time available, because I had to go shopping with her every time, which requires three hours at least, per session. Now, I can come here and lecture you, because I don't have to buy shoes today."

In the break: coffee, and brownie cookies. It's a hype.

P.S. All participants in the event were hande a copy of Heertje's book "Echte Economie" (in English, my translation: "the real economy"). Having read a few pages, I can say it's nice. Heertje goes back to his childhood and takes you on a tour along his teachers and how they influenced his thinking. At the end the teacher stresses the importance of education and discourse, which he says are eroding before his eyes. It was written in 2006, but reprinted this spring in the midst of the economic recovery plan crafting that is going on.

EnergieCafé

Yesterday night, in café in Arnhem, the air conditioning had a hard time to keep it cool as the heat of the discussion filled the crowded space. Shell had been so brave to invite Greenpeace hard liner Meike Baretta to debate their respective visions on our energy system in 2040. Baretta referred to Greenpeace' Energy [R]evolution scenario, calculated by the German aerospace institute DLR, showing that 50% less CO2 emissions is possible by mid-century without new coal fired power plants and nuclear. Shell's most optimistic scenario 'blueprints' doesn't come anywhere near such reductions. Shell's Hans Peter Calis found himself in defense from scratch, taking the role of a father providing his children with a reality check of their high rising plans. Calis never managed to change the roles that night. Most people in the diverse audience didn't seem to accept the perceived resilience of Shell, not showing any willingness to take responsibility for CO2 emissions reduction. They may have the numbers on their side, but they lost their audience. Me too, I feel disappointed. Why do they always seem to emphasize external factors? In their scenarios Shell points towards "hard truths": rising energy demand that has to be met, and that supply will struggle to keep up. They conclude that fossil energy will remain the dominant source to do so. "There are no easy solutions." Maybe true, and what Shell can do may be limited by shareholders' interests and regulatory regimes, but it is unsatisfactory. The necessity of 80% reduction of CO2 emissions in 2050 should be a "hard truth", too. Why don't I hear: yes, this year we invest € 30+ billion investments in fossil energy compared to 1,7 billion in renewables. In 2050 these respective numbers shall be inversed. Shell can do this, this and this, if you, politicians/consumers, do this and this. A joint letter of business leaders to the Dutch parties in parliament, and a letter by CEO Jeroen van der Veer in Financial Times in January 2007 were hopeful signs. But where is the follow up? Did they lobby for the required regulations with the European politicians? Do they lobby for an ambitious post-Kyoto deal in Copenhagen at the end of this year? With a yearly turnover exceeding the GDP of many nations, Shell is just too big and powerful to define its mission as "surviving as a company, generating profit", like Mr. Calis did yesterday.

Solar Impulses

Today, Bertrand Piccard and his team present the "HB-SIA prototype of Solar Impulse, the first aircraft designed to fly day and night on solar energy, without fossil fuel," to the press.

Just one day after the 5th generation of the Delft solar race car Nuna, Nuna 5 (www.nuonsolarteam.com), was revealed to the public by the Nuon Solar Team.

Solar Impulse and Nuna are two fascinating symbols of sustainable blingbling. In 2004 I had the chance to initiate a meet-up of the two: Nuna visits Bertrand Piccard.

I was in the Nuon Solar Team in 2003: building, designing and racing Nuna 2. After we had conquered the title in the World Solar Challenge in Australia, me and my teammates put Nuna 2 on the road in Europe, for a crazy tour from Greece to Portugal. 16 cities in 15 countries in 14 days, visiting school children to inspire them by showcasing this slick little vehicle. We met excited youngsters in every place and had many great moments on the highways in between. On the 10th day our goal was Lausanne, in Switzerland, the home base of Bertrand Piccard and the Solar Impulse project. We had arranged to meet at a BBQ. I was lucky to shake Piccard's hand and have a chat. (Unfortunately the solar car itself was delayed on its way from Paris and couldn't make it in time, despite a sunny day.)
From left to right: Luiggino Torrigiani, Henk-Jan Kinds, Bertrand Piccard, me

The Solar Impulse project is kind of the bigger brother of the Nuna project, although the latter was born first. The crucial elements are exactly the same. They both share the audacity of the dream, the technology, the focus, the team commitment and the drawing of an element of the future (which is not necessarily technological).

In november Nuna 5 will try to defend the title in Australia. The competition, however, will be determined to end the dominance of the dutchies. It's going to be exciting. Follow them on: www.nuonsolarteam.com As for the Solar Impulse: "depending on test results, the prototype could make a 36-hour flight - the equivalent of a complete day-night-day cycle - in 2010 without any fuel." Keep track of their progress: www.solarimpulse.com

Michael Jackson is dead. OK.

When I heared about the sad end of Jackson's life this morning, I noticed that I felt some relief. Maybe it's good this way? May he rest in peace. It was the same on the radio; the commentaries didn't really express much sadness or regret. Relief was dominant. Michael Jackson, pop music and the world were saved from a fiasco that was imminent. Fifty farewell concerts in London? Who conceptualized this crazy idea? No one believed it was going to be feasible, including probably Michael Jackson himself. The commentaries seemed to agree that this unbearable prospect is likely the main cause for his sudden death. He could have lived on as a legend, peacefully for many years to come, had he had the peace and character to do so. His era was long over; there just wasn't going to be one next great album worthy to his legacy, which I think justifies his title of King of Pop. A a self-proclaimed King, but does that matter? There was a vacancy, he applied, the public accepted. Of course, it is sad that a young man's life ends at fifty. However, I am thankful that Wacko Jacko died before the King of Pop did.

Watch "You Rock My World"

Convergence

Last Sunday, my aunt Maria, the younger sister to my father, visited us in our home in The Hague. She’s been roaming all over the globe, pursueing a spiritual path, that brought her to gurus and kibutz and finally, after many years at Findhorn, to Abingdon, Oxforshire, driven by her love for Trish. she’s running her own spiritual practice now. We rarely meet, but I love her story. Nevertheless, her journey is one I’d always thought was light years from the one I would undertake, being very skeptical about all this spiritual blabla about karma and shakras. I’m a scientific hardliner. Some would probably say that “show me the data” is my motto. However, our lines seem to be much less far apart than I'd long thought.

The connection surfaced through a book I read recently, called “The Earth has a Fever”, (my translation) by Erik van Praag, Judy McAllister and Jan Paul van Soest.
It’s about how to consciously live with climate change; how do you deal with the scale of the phenomenon, which as an individual you can do very little about? It was written by three authors, one of whom is a colleague I work with. I know him as a man of science. The other two are from the spiritual scene. One of them my aunt knows very well, as they had been together on the management team of the Findhorn Foundation for a while. So that’s three handshakes from me to Maria, ignoring the family short cut.

Why do science and spirituality meet here, where in my dominant perception they’d always been like water and fire to each other? Why has spirituality intrigued me lately?

I think it’s because they’re forced into the same space by reality, by the evidence accumulated by science that shows that the limits of what our planet can bear are materialising, that our global society is on an unsustainable trajectory. In sustainability spirituality and science find common ground.

These days, science provides the evidence of limits, of problems. Climate change, pollution, over fishing, greed and abundance...evidence is accumulating and the solution is in living within the limits. There are two ways to do that: through development of clean technology, and through change of behavior. The increasing urgency provided by recent scientific findings suggests that we do both. Hence, science is promoting a more modest way of life like spiritual practitioners have done since long. Science needs spirituality. And science generates the evidence that makes spiritual living more and more attractive: that economic growth and happiness do not correlate beyond a certain threshold. Things that drive happiness are weakly dependent on the things that cause the problems. Spiritual principles can be the best way to live sustainably, within the planet’s limits, or in harmony with Gaia, good stewardship, without compromising on your good life.

That’s the perspective the book I was talking about takes. Dominant part of climate literature is about physical and technical alternatives, regulation and pricing. They all conclude: it can be done, yes, we can mitigate dangerous climate change. Yet, it doesn’t work. Despite the persisting efforts of Gore, the IPCC and organisations like Greenpeace in raising awareness, a recent survey revealed that climate change is not high on the list of what concerncs Dutch people (see results here; in Dutch). With the slow process in international climate negotiations and the bargaining that’s going on, politics isn’t really adding to the climate case. The image that sustainability is costly and requires that people give in on their budget, their comfort or other assets of lives is maintained. It will all get worse and my solitary efforts won’t make a difference anyway.

This book, though, is the first I read that tries to go beyond technology and regulation and tries to seduce first movers, the cultural creatives, by offering direct personal gain. By structuring your way of life according to principles that really matter to your happiness, you are likely to simultaneously – as as side effect - live a carbon extensive life.

That’s how science meets spirituality and religion. That’s where I hook up to the latter. If I look around I see that spiritual practice (tools, values and ethics) just seems to work for many people. They look happier, more relaxed and manage to control their emotions. It’s not only perception: by measuring brain activity, it can be proven that buddhist monks can control their mind and concentration much better than others (e.g. R. Davidson & A. Lutz, 2008). These facts trigger my attention. I can recognise the emotions and I value the tools, virtues and ethics.

Probably science and spirituality used to drift apart: to the business and science world spiritual and religious people were retards, denying the evidence that science generated and the progress we all benefitted from. Now this very progress asks to revamp old virtues that have lived on in religion and spirituality and in the process rechampion the practitioners as forerunners.

We reached some convergence. Let’s shake hands here and agree to disagree on the theoretical explanations to justify the practice and principles of either part. The quarreling over darwinism and creationism, shakra’s or just chemical processes, etc. continues.

Maybe I'll look into this some more later. I noticed that wikipedia has several articles relating to the theme, which, apparently, has been subject of many academic studies. See for example the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_ecology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_ecology

Smart smartbikes

My girl gone and immediately I mess up: spent until 2AM yesterday night looking for air ticket deals to get to Washington D.C. and back via Stockholm in August. At the end no flight ticket, only one conclusion: there's a market for multi-parameter optimal flight search. It's all there, but you have to modify your search over and over again to find your optimal solution, ruining much needed dream time.

Fortunately, Merijn arrived at her new home safely. All luggage, too, including the bicycle in the box. We put the machine in the megacarton yesterday morning at the airport, taking the pedals off, deflating the tyres and so on. Was it useless? Look at this: http://thecityfix.com/video-smartbike-dc-succeeds-and-expands/

Apart from the smartbikes: looks like a pretty nice city, doesn't it?

New journey

A reader (apparently I have one!) of my blog expressed that she (it was a she!) was disappointed that in the past several months every time she would check this blog it’d be in vain. No new posts. I was so nicely surprised that there actually were people who read my phrases, that I silently promised to try and revive this little corner of the blogosphere. I intend to write regularly, but about what? Well, I thought I might keep you posted on my attempts to find a job in Washington D.C.. The situation is that this morning I kissed Merijn goodbye. She flew off to Washington to start her post-doc fellowship at the University of Maryland tomorrow morning. So, I’m home alone in The Hague now, trying to figure out a way to make this split as short as possible and get my ass over the ocean very soon. I can just buy a ticket, of course, but they wouldn’t let me stay more than three months, unless I have a job and a visa. So, that’s what I’m trying to get now. The good thing is that Washington D.C. hosts many green think tanks, NGO’s, institutes, etc. that do things I want to do, too: research, analysis and advocacy in climate and energy, working towards a society that thrives within the boundaries of what our one planet can bear. I’m convinced there will be a win-win: joining Merijn ánd making the next step foward in my professional and personal life. New horizons are looming silhouetted. Would that be a good theme? My job search is not starting here. It’s been going on for a few months already. I’m not going to wrap up the history here, but I will just let it unravel over time. From now on, to practice, I will write in English. It serves a second purpose, though: by writing in English I widen my potential audience, thereby increasing the chances for valuable feedback from your part. Can you feel the responsibility on shoulders? Good. Because I warmly invite you to comment on my posts, hoping to improve the quality of the pieces and to get a lot of tips and connections. Dear readers, thank you all for having been with me, and thanks upfront for any of your contributions.

Inspirerend perspectief

Voor wie het gemist heeft, hier een stuk Pauw & Witteman waarin Annemarie Rakhorst vertelt over duurzame oplossingen in gebouwen, omdat het zo inspirerend is. Kijk, dit wil je toch? Dit is toch een positief verhaal, waarna je denkt: waar wachten we nog op? Als je je eigen energie kan opwekken, dat is toch gewoon mooi! Heb je dan nog een schuldgevoel, klimaatprobleem of energiecrisis nodig als stimulans? En zo helder als Annemarie Rakhorst hier doet krijg je het niet vaak uitgelegd. Kijk naar die grote ogen van Egbert-Jan Weeber aan de overkant van de tafel.

Plasterk antwoordt

Minister Plasterk heeft mij dit weekend onverwacht postief verrast. Enige tijd geleden had ik via de website van het ministerie van OCW laten weten dat ik het jammer vond dat de berichtgeving rond de reis naar Antarctica die de minister samen met Prins Willem-Alexander en Prinses Maxima maakte weinig diepgang kende. Ik vond het jammer dat ik weinig zag of las over wat voor onderzoek daar gedaan wordt, hoe het in zijn werk gaat en waar het voor dient. Mijn schrijven was ingegeven door een heel boeiende en complete documentaire op de Belgische televisie over de bouw van en het onderzoek op het nieuwe, duurzame Belgische onderzoeksstation, dat vorige maand werd geopend. Mijn vraag verandert niets, maar ik vind het fantastisch dat de minister of zijn ministerie de moeite heeft genomen dit uitgebreide en specifieke antwoord te schrijven: Een beetje gelijk heeft de minister wel. Er is inderdaad behoorlijk wat informatie te vinden. Toch blijf ik erbij dat de Belgische documentaire erg mooi was en navolging in Nederland niet zou misstaan, maar daarvoor moet ik dus bij de omroepen zijn.

Word lid van Llink

Omdat ik de omroep niet graag zie verdwijnen, bij deze een oproep aan iedereen die dit leest om gewoon even lid te worden: https://llink.nl/wordlid/lidmaatschap.php

Generaliseren

Hedenmorgen, station Schiphol. Vrouw stapt trein in, handen vol met kind en koffer. Conducteur fluit, maar kinderwagen nog op perron. “Is een kinderwagen niet ook handig?” Vrouw geïrriteerd: “Ik heb maar één paar handen en niemand helpt mij!.” Trein vertrekt, met kinderwagen en wrokkende vrouw. (Kind in opperbest humeur.) Vrouw belt moeder en doet nogmaals luidkeels beklag over Nederland, goed hoorbaar vijf banken verderop. Vrouw zelf woont in buitenland. “Nederlanders zijn niet behulpzaam, ze zijn ‘beschoft’.” Toon verraadt diepe overtuiging en gebrek aan hoop op verbetering. Ze heeft Nederland al opgegeven. Ik voel verwontwaardiging opkomen. Weet ze wel wat ze doet? Nu maakt ze het hele treinstel uit voor onbeschoft en onbehulpzaam, terwijl de meesten niet eens in de buurt waren toen ze instapte. Schaamde ik me aanvankelijk dat ik haar niet had opgemerkt bij het instappen, nu zoekt ze het zelf maar uit. Ze moet tot Almelo, ik slechts tot Amsterdam Zuid, dus die ethische test ontloop ik. Maar is dit nou hoe het voelt om over een kam geschoren te worden? En dan is dit nog betrekkelijk onschuldig.