The evidence grows clearer and clearer: we, in other words the ever growing human population of the planet earth, are too numerous, too careless, too productive, too ambitious, too destructive for our planet. We are living the lives of three planets at one go, exhausting natural resources, energy, food and fresh water, and destroying biotopes at an ever growing speed. It is clear: we are heading for disaster. Some of us do seem to care and consider solutions: biofuels, renewable energy, living a monks life, slow food and deconsumption, but theirs is an invain struggle against the billions that are still trying to live a decent life. The obvious solution is often overlooked, as Sherlock Holmes taught us long ago. Size does matter after all. Not only are we too numerous, we are also too big. Particularly the Dutch are proud to be amongst the longest people in the world, but with their length they are likely to overlook the trivial solution to our overexhaustive existence: we have got to shrink! Just imagine us being only half the size we are today; then we would really have another planet earth at our disposal. After all, we would only need half the food, half the space, half the floor height in our appartments, and as we would have half the mass, we would probably need half the energy to move. Our highways would suddenly have double the number of lanes, putting a definitve end to congestion.
With gen technology developing, we are now able to control our size, and work on the next generations of human beings with only half or a quarter of our current size. Obviously, we would have to leave our brain size as it is ( we are struggling with underdeveloped brains already), but all the rest should shrink. And don't let yourself discourage by your pictures like "Honey, I shrunk the kids". If well prepared, we as human beings should be able to cope with spiders and flies, housecats and dogs being twice the current size.
EU is in the unique position to take the lead in the Shrinking Humanity research program. Let's keep it a secret for the Chinese for as long as possible. With some courage toady, a smaller Europe will soon be at the head of an enlarged, truely sustainable planet.
maandag 8 november 2010
vrijdag 8 oktober 2010
A sustainable society?
A sustainable society,
That is what we strive for, whether it is sustainable transport of a sustainable city. But what does sustainable actually stand for? Is “sustainable” the polish that makes our leafs shine, to be applied to every activity in order to make the products more attractive? Is the concept of sustainability as worn as the concept of “environment” became in the nineteen-eighties? When the first criminal dirt- and waste management companies came up and painted “environment” on their trucks, I understood that “environment”was no longer a recommendation. So how is that with sustainability? Do we still understand what it represents and what it was intended for?
I would not be surprised (I did not google or wikipedia the word) if sustainability finds its origins in the alarming reports of the Club or Rome in the nineteen-seventies. In those reports it was emphasized that we were exhausting the natural resources of the earth, and – even worse – at an ever higher speed. We treated the planet earth, as a then popular environmentalist group stated it , as if we had a second earth in store. For the moment when the first earth would be totally exhausted. These old-fashioned considerations come close to what sustainability originally was supposed to represent: a way of life that leads to a situation, where the generations that come after us have equal chances as the current generation. Mind you: not exactly the same planet, because then sustainability would lead to a laming sort of inertia and conservatism. Sustainability points at a different planet, carrying the traces of our current generation and all the generations before us, but offering equal opportunities to create prosperity, well-being, health and happiness as the ones given to us by the planet earth.
I think that is one of the finest definitions of sustainability, but at the same time it has very limited validity. It seems to be fit particularly for our “western” society. How will the average resident of the Sahel zone think about “equal opportunities for future generations”, if he realizes the unequal distribution of opportunities on our current planet? At the same time it is the way of life of nature people that can offer us a mirror picture, because those people often practice a sustainable way of life. The North-American Indians lived in a symbiosis with the bison for ages. The Western immigrants with their firearms and economic drive managed to decimate the carefully kept hurds in a few decades. However, it were the people of the Easter Islands themselves that, as far as we know, cut their islands free of trees at a fast pace, only to find out that the islands were inhabitable without trees.
Sustainability seems easy at small scale, where it may even have its roots. When man became cattle-keeper instead of hunter, which was probably due to his laziness, he developed a way of living together with nature that did not exhaust natural resources; the cow ate the grass and produced the manure, that kept the grass growing for ages. Man looked after the cow and the land, took care that the cow would have a calf, and once the calf had grown up, man would eat the cow. A cycle that could have lasted for ages, and where the sort of sustainability as defined in the first section was obvious.
But we are no longer keeping the cattle or even working the land, we are now caretakers for the elderly, accountants, doorkeepers or process managers. We live in comfortably heated and lighted dwellings, drive to work using fossile fuels, and eat the meat of the low cost butcher. And to add to that we fly to Costa Rica for a last minute weekend.
We exhaust the fossile fuel stock at a tremendous speed and leave to our next-of-kins a heated world. So, in this respect, what would be a sustainable caretaker for the elderly, a sustainable consultant, a sustainable doorkeeper or a sustainable process manager? Is that someone who transfers 20 Euro to buy off his guilt by planting a CO2 compensation tree? How, in this respect, should we look at the extinction, in The Netherlands, of the lark, once a common bird, now seldom heard? Is it not so, that our children’s children have a lesser chance to happiness now that they will probably never hear or see this remarkable singer over the over-fertilized meadows?
Apparently it is very hard to fully understand this complicated concept of sustainabiliity, let alone to allo wit to take possession of our daily life. So we choose the scaled-down version of sustainability. The version where the bus is more sustainable than the private car, as if the bus did not use gasoil to run on. The version where we put the heating one degree lower, as if we then do not use up natural gas. The version where we only eat eal from the ealfarm, as if we were not emptying the seas of all their glass-eals.
Sustainability is a state of maind of people who live consciously but can not help it. Sustainability of the leaf polish of the polished advertisement boys. Sustainability is fashionable and the ticket into the world of the ‘purpously better-situated”. Sustainability does not exist.
That is what we strive for, whether it is sustainable transport of a sustainable city. But what does sustainable actually stand for? Is “sustainable” the polish that makes our leafs shine, to be applied to every activity in order to make the products more attractive? Is the concept of sustainability as worn as the concept of “environment” became in the nineteen-eighties? When the first criminal dirt- and waste management companies came up and painted “environment” on their trucks, I understood that “environment”was no longer a recommendation. So how is that with sustainability? Do we still understand what it represents and what it was intended for?
I would not be surprised (I did not google or wikipedia the word) if sustainability finds its origins in the alarming reports of the Club or Rome in the nineteen-seventies. In those reports it was emphasized that we were exhausting the natural resources of the earth, and – even worse – at an ever higher speed. We treated the planet earth, as a then popular environmentalist group stated it , as if we had a second earth in store. For the moment when the first earth would be totally exhausted. These old-fashioned considerations come close to what sustainability originally was supposed to represent: a way of life that leads to a situation, where the generations that come after us have equal chances as the current generation. Mind you: not exactly the same planet, because then sustainability would lead to a laming sort of inertia and conservatism. Sustainability points at a different planet, carrying the traces of our current generation and all the generations before us, but offering equal opportunities to create prosperity, well-being, health and happiness as the ones given to us by the planet earth.
I think that is one of the finest definitions of sustainability, but at the same time it has very limited validity. It seems to be fit particularly for our “western” society. How will the average resident of the Sahel zone think about “equal opportunities for future generations”, if he realizes the unequal distribution of opportunities on our current planet? At the same time it is the way of life of nature people that can offer us a mirror picture, because those people often practice a sustainable way of life. The North-American Indians lived in a symbiosis with the bison for ages. The Western immigrants with their firearms and economic drive managed to decimate the carefully kept hurds in a few decades. However, it were the people of the Easter Islands themselves that, as far as we know, cut their islands free of trees at a fast pace, only to find out that the islands were inhabitable without trees.
Sustainability seems easy at small scale, where it may even have its roots. When man became cattle-keeper instead of hunter, which was probably due to his laziness, he developed a way of living together with nature that did not exhaust natural resources; the cow ate the grass and produced the manure, that kept the grass growing for ages. Man looked after the cow and the land, took care that the cow would have a calf, and once the calf had grown up, man would eat the cow. A cycle that could have lasted for ages, and where the sort of sustainability as defined in the first section was obvious.
But we are no longer keeping the cattle or even working the land, we are now caretakers for the elderly, accountants, doorkeepers or process managers. We live in comfortably heated and lighted dwellings, drive to work using fossile fuels, and eat the meat of the low cost butcher. And to add to that we fly to Costa Rica for a last minute weekend.
We exhaust the fossile fuel stock at a tremendous speed and leave to our next-of-kins a heated world. So, in this respect, what would be a sustainable caretaker for the elderly, a sustainable consultant, a sustainable doorkeeper or a sustainable process manager? Is that someone who transfers 20 Euro to buy off his guilt by planting a CO2 compensation tree? How, in this respect, should we look at the extinction, in The Netherlands, of the lark, once a common bird, now seldom heard? Is it not so, that our children’s children have a lesser chance to happiness now that they will probably never hear or see this remarkable singer over the over-fertilized meadows?
Apparently it is very hard to fully understand this complicated concept of sustainabiliity, let alone to allo wit to take possession of our daily life. So we choose the scaled-down version of sustainability. The version where the bus is more sustainable than the private car, as if the bus did not use gasoil to run on. The version where we put the heating one degree lower, as if we then do not use up natural gas. The version where we only eat eal from the ealfarm, as if we were not emptying the seas of all their glass-eals.
Sustainability is a state of maind of people who live consciously but can not help it. Sustainability of the leaf polish of the polished advertisement boys. Sustainability is fashionable and the ticket into the world of the ‘purpously better-situated”. Sustainability does not exist.
donderdag 8 april 2010
Threshold shift
The threshold of hearing is defined as a sound pressure level of 0 deciBel on the ear of a healthy, young human being. The tiniest increase in sound intensity exceeding this threshold of hearing can be observed as sound. The sound pressure, corresponding to this threshold, is about 20 microPascal, a miniscule fraction of the static, atmospheric pressure resting on us (1 Pascal is a pressure of 1 Newton per square meter).
The noise levels around us, the levels we are used to, are related to this threshold. The average conversation between two people standing next to each other corresponds to sound pressures that are about a thousand times the threshold pressure, so approximately 20 milliPascal. However, in modern day life, this correspondence is shifting. There is evidence that people living or working in noisy environments talk louder to each other. And there is even more evidence that children, who have to been talked to in a loud voice for a long period of time, will in the end become loud talkers.
Strong evidence, emerging from classical music recordings, shows that the Concertgebouworchestra Amsterdam plays significantly louder today than it did 50 years ago. This is not because the background noise in the Concertgebouw has increased.
Apparently there is a shift in what we define as the threshold of hearing. The human race in noisy cities has become deafer, and adapts to that situation by producing more sound. A redefinition of the threshold of hearing is due.
The noise levels around us, the levels we are used to, are related to this threshold. The average conversation between two people standing next to each other corresponds to sound pressures that are about a thousand times the threshold pressure, so approximately 20 milliPascal. However, in modern day life, this correspondence is shifting. There is evidence that people living or working in noisy environments talk louder to each other. And there is even more evidence that children, who have to been talked to in a loud voice for a long period of time, will in the end become loud talkers.
Strong evidence, emerging from classical music recordings, shows that the Concertgebouworchestra Amsterdam plays significantly louder today than it did 50 years ago. This is not because the background noise in the Concertgebouw has increased.
Apparently there is a shift in what we define as the threshold of hearing. The human race in noisy cities has become deafer, and adapts to that situation by producing more sound. A redefinition of the threshold of hearing is due.
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