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Paul Gilding: We enter the Great Disruption
Quote: “It’s time for all those focusing on sustainability to change gears and review strategy. With the ecological system groaning under the strain of an economy simply too big for the planet, we have to face the uncomfortable truth. The time to act just preventatively has past. It is time to brace for impact as we enter The Great Disruption.
The coming years won’t be pleasant, as our society and economy hits the wall and realigns around what was always an obvious reality: You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. …”
Paul Gilding is an independent writer, advisor and advocate for action on climate change and sustainability, and author of ”The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.”
http://www.sustainability.com/blog/the-great-disruption-are-you-ready
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
As I have said in the posts above there is a structural problem with our accelerated hightech civilization: We are witnessing two growing avalanches – the avalanche of technological solutions and the avalanche of secondary effects of these solutions. The manifold and shocking helplessness to deal with the nuclear accidents in Fukushima after the earthquake and tsunami are a strong example about this fatal dynamics.
Damage after an Earthquake and Tsunami at the Dai Ichi Power Plant. (credit: DigitalGlobe) www.digitalglobe.com
In this week I have an exciting contrasting program to this anachronistic technology. I am attending the Ecosummit 2011, where the smart green economy is meeting. That feels good.
Image source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Fukushima-Daiichi
Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
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Eco-Singularity – core concept, strengths and challenges
In part II a first approach has been accomplished to define the concept of “eco-singularity”:
Eco-Singularity definition (from Part II)
Eco-Singularity is the event, when our (growing) capacity to solve the totality of anthropogenic problems is superseded by the volume of the (growing) totality of anthropogenic problems. (Part II)
The definition’s strength is that it meets the intuition, that there is a race between the problem elements of the system (total biosphere) and the solution elements of the system (total biosphere). There are some challenges of the concept – find more about it in the appendix beneath.
The two avalanches: Can the "solution system" catch the expanding "problem system"?
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Scenarios and insights: Will we have the innovation avalanche we need to survive our own technology?
I will unfold the main scenarios in some future post. For the moment the most important insight is, that there is a high uncertainty concerning the “innovation race of mankind”. Some more insights in no special order:
- Industrialization 1.0: With the global spreading of technology and industrial production the consumtion of natural ressources is growing and environmental pollution is increasing – as everyone knows.
- Industrialization 2.0: We find the secondary technologies to avoid unwanted effects nearly everywhere on the globe: filter technologies to avoid emissions, sewage plants to keep the water clean, recycling infrastructure etc.
- Only deeds count: The extent of neutralization clearly is dependent on the technology, innovation generation, effectiveness and especially the actual application of the technology.
The two avalanches: Problem system and solution system interacting
- Dynamic picture: There is a race of the two avalanches – and this is a more complex picture than thinking about the “limits of growth”. “Limit thinking” is right to point to the fundamental fact, that the planet’s material ressources are … limited.
- Do not underscore the innovation factor: We are part of a naturally limited system, right. But technological innovations of all kind can shift the limits dramatically. E.g. when re-cycling valuable ressources, what is done routinely, the same atoms can be used again and again. It is a different question, whether this is done to an adequate extent and whether it is possible in a energy- and cost-efficient way.
- Disruptive innovations are needed: With China, India, Russia and Brazil (the socalled BRIC nations) increasing their metabolism with nature we find that the Industrialization 2.0 standard efforts are not capable to compensate for the “problem input” to the biosphere. The resistance to some (rather weak) CO2 treaty is a good indicator of the mismatch. Probably we need disruptive innovations to reach the goals. We then might come back to some sustainable metatboilism with our biosphere – if it is possible anyway.
The message: Think innovativeness beyond technological innovation!
If you realize the trouble we are in, you might be a bit discouraged. Everyday some 130 species are extinct for ever – this is 1.000 times more than the natural extinction rate, i.e. 100.000%. Every acre of land which is deforested, will cost us so much more to re-forest … and so on.
But there is reason for hope: The creativity of the human being and the human culture is incredibly huge! Today we see the investments of hundreds of billions in the technological sector of innovation. We have to seriously add other sectors of innovation:
Viable path: How to respond to the urgent global challenges? We have to combine technologocical ingeniousity with social, political and economical innovations.
- Social innovation: New ways of working, sustainable lifestyle, happiness driven “social layout”
- Political innovation: New ways of opinion-forming, decision making, politcal representation
- Economical innovation: New sustainable business models, new ways to create value chains
If you look around you will find a lot of signals and drivers of change.
- Social innovation examples: Crowdsourcing, Coworking places, “transition towns” …
- Political innovation examples: netbased debate, Liquid Democracy platform, civil society, (weak signal of “new civil dissent”: “Stuttgart21 protests” in Germany) …
- Economical innovation examples: (macro)wikinomics, microfinance and microwork platforms …
Together with convergent innovative technological solutions we might be witness of the birth of some new socio-economical “blueprint” leading to global sustainable society – before selfmade “eco-singularity” is winning against ourself.
Update! 2010-11-02 – Thank you very much Ralf!
There are more and more people, who understand the core problem. Yesterday somehow marginalized by the “leaders”, today they are literaly entering the stage: E.g. Leaders listening to thoughtleader Otto Scharmer at World Economic Forum, China 2010
Thank you very much Ralf (@RalfLippold: MIT Passionist, BMW Leipzig Fellow, System Dynamicst, Boundary Spanner, Visionary, Helper http://leanthinkers.blogspot.com), you gave an absolutlely great link in your comment!
Most of the readers might want to skip the beginning of the video and start with the ideas of Scharmer. Just go to minute 8:00 and enjoy the perspecitves of Otto Scharmer: the world needs macro-innovation, a 4th coordination mechanism, a new type of attitude, thinking and leadership: We have to enable awareness based collective action. And trust as the enabler!
I completely agree. Great to see that convergence in analysis and conclusions. We just need to adjust our common sense a bit and open our eyes – the cognitive ingredients have not to be invented, actually they are in the making. I really recommend to view the video! http://bit.ly/cHHiHq
Update: Great, here is the embeddable version of the video (skip to the 8th minute for Scharmer):
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Update! 2010-11-04 – Wolff Horbach (Business Blog innovativ.in) has done an interwiew
Wolff Horbach (Business Blog innovativ.in) asked me about my analyses and theses, thanks a lot!
Wolff Horbach helps people and enterprises to understand the dynamics of … happiness, Everyone wants it, nobody really knows and understands it. Isn’t it a goal and a ressource at the same time? He has writen a book too (German), find more about it here: Faktor G - Glückliche Mitarbeiter. Glückliche Kunden. Glückliche Unternehmen.
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APPENDIX
Challenges of the eco-singularity concept (in the perspective of hard science)
The definition’s weakness partly lies in the “limits of measurement”: How to measure “problem volumes” and “solution capacity”? There is a overwhelming complexity in both parameters. We have intuitions that a problem A (having cancer) is “bigger” than a problem B (having cought a cold), and that a solution A (teaching safe driving) has more capacity than a solution B (teaching to avoid traffic controls). This means that some “soft” metrics should be possible. There is a first list of complexity issues:
- (a) the vast amount of options,
- (b) causal interdependency of choices (combining two optima sometimes leads to a suboptimal global solution),
- (c) value dependency (the moral value coordinates determine the rating and ranking of problems and solutions)
- (d) self-referentiality and non-linearities
There might be some more intricacies, but we can set all this aside for the moment since the concept at first is useful to understand the “big picture” of global technological history. It will be useful as a kind of world view or cognitive tool even if the details of the defining features have to be worked out.
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Minor updates
- 2010-11-01 Some minor changes in spelling, hyperlinking some words. adding second graphics
- 2010-11-04 linking the three posts
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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
Reflections after the econsense meeting
- US, China, Europe have ambitious green tech and clean tech goals. But: Eyeing for the emerging green markets will not be enough
Green outlook of China, US, Europe (slide: Kux, Siemens)
- Speakers at econsense meeting made an appeal to bring the sustainability issue into the DNA of the company – I totally agree; as an analyst I know the difference of appeal, role, institutionalization and generalized corporate behavior; today we find a lot of big companies at awareness level 2 or 3 – that means they have established some “sustainability modules” as I would call it; there is a sustainability policy and a reporting routine, i.e. some new roles (= level 2) and institutionalization (= level 3)
- Probably we need to do a lot more! We need to rebuild the whole DNA of the company and the economy. Why? Humankind is riding spaceship earth totally over capacity – day by day. Did you know that the “ecological debt day” in 2010 was August 21? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_Debt_Day)
- Other fact: There are about 10.000 business schools around the world (FT.com) producing the leaders of tomorrow
- I am really afraid that they somehow produce the same type of manager, which brought us here
- FT.com: “Just 326 have signed up for the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education. Only 60 schools are members of the Academy for Business in Society and 40 are in the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative. Just 149 schools entered the last Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes biennial rankings.” (Business education _ Schools ignore sustainability revolution / FT.com – October 3, 2010)
From “Business Schools” to “Planet Schools”
- Is it a waste of time to target business schools for “deep change” i.e. strategic sustainability?
- Do you really think you can set the shareholder value at first place and at the same time make decisions beyond that “particular interest” of the shareholders? E.g. even respect generations in the distant future, living when you and your company will be forgotten … I am afraid there are some rules of logic you cannot discard.
- I have a radical step in mind to foster paradigmatic change: Let us close the “Business Schools” in the long run and have a new start with “Planet Schools”, a completely new framework from the roots. This new schools will not teach strange esoteric stuff or utopian economics, but have to be committed to the realism. Guidnig question: “How to have metabolism with a finite planet?”. The core belief of business schools of today have to be unmasked as utopian thinking (“Infinite growth is possible.”). This step might ensure transformation of the mindset – what do you think?
Part I: Titanic in full speed, me, you and the Trojan horse (I)
Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
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The planet issue
Part I was about getting there, the backstory of why and when I wanted to get deeper into the issue of “PSP” – planet saving politics : ) Before I start to explain that strange neologism “eco-singularity” let us have some reality check: Where are we today, about eleven months after the failed summit? A reality check is quite easy since there is a meeting in these days again.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Climate talks without adequate political will
In Tianjin, China, negotiators from 177 nations are meeting for U.N.-mandated climate talks . Guess we will see the same syndrome as in Kopenhagen. Even after this years extreme weather events (from Poland to Russia to Pakistan to bring some to mind – and: yes I know the difference of weather and climate!) we do not see “adequate response”. Diagnosis: The econo-techno-political system in it’s entirety just is not capable to process the (mostly unambigous) input of science into the output of necessary decisions.
We are over capacity! Will innovation stretch our limited ressources somehow? Image source: Wackernagel 2010
Connect the both time series. We are part of non-linear systems – surprising changes to the worse are probable. Image source: Munich re 2004
Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) – … Definition (II) – … Solutions (III)
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Eco-Singularity? Never heard of it?
About “the Singularity” you find a lot on the web, due to the wellknown notions of Vernor Vinge, I. J. Good and of course Ray Kurzweil. But before I introduce the concept of eco-singularity I will tell you the personal backstory for better understanding.
Extended fires (n=600) in Russia after high temperature anomalie in 2010 (image is processed; source: Google earth, dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
Hello, the world is burning, I am back blogging
You know the Social Web universe is still in dynamic change – and it will remain so. Did twitter kill the blogs – and my blogging drive? No. The 140 characters limit is really restrictive. It is absolutely impossible to unfold arguments, showing some new theory or an innovative point of view in this tiny space (see the post of Paul Carr, Techcrunch). And it is meant to be for status messages, aka it is the beat of the social pulse in your network somehow – at least for some. Even the (more than ambigious) ”power of Facebook” was not the reason to retreat a bit from my narrowcasting habit, which never was very ambitious.
Backstory: Fail of global politics causes crisis on the individual level, sometimes
What was the reason to become hesitant with blogging? It was something beyond social media overkill and the inevitable social media fatigue I felt since end of 2009: It was a crisis in thinking and orientation. This phase actually started same time, when the Copenhagen Climate Summit failed in December 2009. No political realist thought of a “real success”, but the summit failed to an extent I did not expect. I was not prepared to this total fail of politics. Brave men have identified eight reasons for the disaster (news.bbc.co.uk), maybe I would find eight consequences resulting from it on a personal scale.
Consequences of Russian heat record 2010. First man tamed the fire, now it might tame him. (Source: dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
For me the Kopenhagen fail meant rethinking the business of corporate foresight, being concerned with the future in general. Assume that the very framework for our global/local/personal future is about to be destroyed, why should you construct any narratives around that term, why construct scenarios the way you did the last ten years? Responsible foresight should stop the “business as usual” attitude here, it should take a break and think about the big picture, reflect the own role and draw some consequences. Fore some months now I am trying to develop insight, strategy, find a viable path for the decade ahead, a decade which might be more troublesome than e.g. the financial crisis, which apparently is lying behind (second dip not excluded).
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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
There is this political meme spreading all over the world: “Go green = rescue the economy, create jobs and save the planet!”. Politicians and CEOs alike have a high demand for simple messages like this, especially in times of economic recession. It is no surprise, that lobbyism and political gutlessness is diluting some measurements. But don’t lose faith in the green turnaround, – thanks to the new “State of Green Business” report you have reasons for optimism. There are some nice facts and forecasts in Joel Makover’s (GreenBiz.com) report. Here are just some of them.
Green design
Just have look at the steep curve with certification as an indicator ( State of Green Business, p59 ). More stuff: greenerdesign.com
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
Green investments
- Venture capital investment in green technologies soared to a record $7.6 billion
- There were about 350 “funding events” in 2008 ( State of Green Business, p28 )
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
Claudia Langer, Utopia conference (source: konsumguerilla.net)
To be green or not to be
First part of my coverage of the Utopia conference was about necessity and possibility of the coming transformation. This global transformation is politically, economically and technologically. How we shape things, connect material flows, structure systems, control communication, this is all about technology and design. Prof. Braungart reminded us about the “next industrial revolution”, he and William McDonough really did this for quite a while (The Atlantic 1998) and successfully.
Efficiency potentials and radical new mobility concepts
As I said before there is no consensus about goals and means. One good example is the seemingly polarity of Braungart’s paradigmatic radicality on he one hand and the optimization strategy of Dr. Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) on the other. Both approaches will coexist even when a holistic approach and some disruptive innovation is always more impressive than the “optimization of the old” (see also my post “Dont’ worry …“). But sometimes the sum of many tiny steps could mean revolutionary consequences, too. Take mobility based on fossil fuels. The cars of today are completely stupid in their basic design, Dr. Lovins calculated that only 0.3% of the total energy invested in driving actually moves the physical mass of the driver. Obviously there is huge potential to eco-optimize mobility systems. So maybe car driving will not be illegal in 2018, because cars have very different features then, e.g. are made of very light materials.
An other way to “save the car” was demonstrated by Rolf Schumann of Better Place, a company which could mean a new way to realize personal mobility. Think about sustainable mobility and using a smart infrastructure to cope with the problem of batteries. Better place is acting like an operator selling kilometers not cars, like a mobile carrier is selling minutes to you (Better Place how-it-works).
These are the times for visionary leadership
I want to end with another lesson. As a researcher and speaker I am frequently stressing the potential of the social web, participation, collaboration and “collective intelligence”. This “social thing” always has to be balanced with the respect of individual genius and leadership. I suppose Claudia Langer as the initiating founder of Utopia shows the decisive role of personality.
"We have no killer app, but a killer motivation"
500 changemakers meeting
Yesterday Utopia, the biggest online community for strategic consumption in Germany, celebrated the first birthday, holding a conference in Berlin. At first sight the issues were quite clear:
- sustainability, eco efficiency, green investment, new products, processes, innovative materials …
- the role/responsibility of the political system
- the role/responsibility of big economical players, last but not least
- the role/responsibility of “we, the people”, you and me, for the necessary transformation.
But transformation from here to where? What are the goals and by which means should we try to reach them? Are there different goals and means for different world regions, even countries? The speakers would not be in consent about answers to that questions. But debate and inspiration, yes irritation, is it, why we meet at conferences like this one. Take the example of Prof. Michael Braungart (Cradle to Cradle, you should know). His points sometimes sounded really polemical in a good sense, e.g. attacking (for some years) the core concepts of “efficiency” or “sustainability”, so whitespread in the green discourse. Read the rest of this entry »
Early switchers at earth2tech.com
Fears and hopes
Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.
Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.
One last look back
Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists.
Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation
This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, Read the rest of this entry »
