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.