Secondary Generalist

Tipping Toward Sustainability: Emerging Pathways of Transformation

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:07:19 -0500

Tipping Toward Sustainability: Emerging Pathways of Transformation:

For the list:

This article explores the links between agency, institutions, and innovation in navigating shifts and large-scale transformations toward global sustainability. Our central question is whether social and technical innovations can reverse the trends that are challenging critical thresholds and creating tipping points in the earth system, and if not, what conditions are necessary to escape the current lock-in. Large-scale transformations in information technology, nano- and biotechnology, and new energy systems have the potential to significantly improve our lives; but if, in framing them, our globalized society fails to consider the capacity of the biosphere, there is a risk that unsustainable development pathways may be reinforced. Current institutional arrangements, including the lack of incentives for the private sector to innovate for sustainability, and the lags inherent in the path dependent nature of innovation, contribute to lock-in, as does our incapacity to easily grasp the interactions implicit in complex problems, referred to here as the ingenuity gap. Nonetheless, promising social and technical innovations with potential to change unsustainable trajectories need to be nurtured and connected to broad institutional resources and responses. In parallel, institutional entrepreneurs can work to reduce the resilience of dominant institutional systems and position viable shadow alternatives and niche regimes.

Felix: philk: “OK, the idea that kids these days are “digital natives” is a...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:21:10 -0500

Felix: philk: “OK, the idea that kids these days are “digital natives” is a...:

philk:

“OK, the idea that kids these days are “digital natives” is a nice, self-serving fairy tale. It makes tech-lovers feel good, because they feel like they are at the front of a curve. It makes educators feel good, because then they don’t have to teach a complicated and multi-level sets…

This is what I’m on about. David Cameron says Britain is practicing austerity, cutting the...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:53:38 -0500

This is what I’m on about.

David Cameron says Britain is practicing austerity, cutting the budget left and right.

Economists and hackey op-ed writers write about how Cameron’s austerity is hurting the the British economy.

But meanwhile the Brits are running the third highest deficit in the world. ~8.8% of GDP, smaller than only Egypt and Greece. If that is our working definition of austerity, then words have lost all meaning.

Scott Sumner on the matter:

I suppose some Keynesians work backward, if there is a demand problem it must, ipso facto, be due to lack of fiscal stimulus. If the deficit is third largest in the world, it should have been second largest, or first largest.

A slightly more respectable argument is that the current deficit is slightly smaller than in 2010 (when it was 10.1% of GDP.) But that shouldn’t cause a recession. Think about the Keynesian model you studied in school. If you are three years into a recession, and you slightly reduce the deficit to still astronomical levels, is that supposed to cause another recession? That’s not the model I studied. Deficits were supposed to provide a temporary boost to get you out of a recession. At worst, you’d expect a slowdown in growth.

To get a sense of just how expansionary UK fiscal policy really is, compare it to France (5.8% of GDP), Germany (1.0% of GDP), or Italy (4.0% of GDP). Lots of people blame ECB policies for the recession, but Britain is not in the eurozone. Outside the eurozone you have Denmark (3.9% of GDP), Sweden (zero), Switzerland (1% surplus).

The world can no longer afford to ignore the environmental cost of economic growth and must...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:32:14 -0500

The world can no longer afford to ignore the environmental cost of economic growth and must redefine the very concept of national wealth, a UN panel of heads of state and environment ministers said Monday.

Duh.

source

For four years now I have read articles and books that attribute much of the world’s suffering...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:35:00 -0500

For four years now I have read articles and books that attribute much of the world’s suffering to the so-called neo-liberal project. According to these authors a process or marketization took place on a global scale, starting roughly in 1980 (The elections of Thatcher and Reagan are key). These reforms, away from the statism and industrial policy that was common in the 1970s, have lead to high levels of structural violence that have targeted the poorest people on earth.

I remain unconvinced.

I know, I know, that is an incredibly arrogant thing to say, but I will remain unconvinced until someone points me to a paper, book, study, or report that shows that developing nations did indeed shift to market-based economies over the past 30 years.

For example, I have a difficult time classifying Brazil as “free market.” Remember, the accusation is that the world has shifted to laissez-faire system. That is not a straw man, that’s what the book I read yesterday said. And if an author is going to posit that the poverty in the favelas is due to lassiez-faire policies shouldn’t they first define lassiez-faire and then prove that Brazil has realigned itself along these lines?

I say that - among other issues - property rights are not protected in Brazil, especially for the poor¹. And any economic/political system with weak and/or non-functioning property rights cannot accurately be called free-market or capitalist.

Maybe it is better to say Brazil has gone from statism to statism lite.

Or maybe it is better to say that Brazil has adopted the language of the market without truly reforming. Politicians often use the rhetoric of markets and capital to defend policies that are anything by market-oriented². I really wonder, are the policies themselves so different from when politicians used the language of industrial policy to defend their actions?

I admit I should read more or find funding to do some fieldwork to better understand what is happening on the ground. However, I am not the one making accusations so the burden of proof does not lie with me. And evidence, rather than invective, is in short supply.

One final note, I am not in any way denying the existence of structural violence that continues the oppression of the world’s poor. It has become far to popular in some circles to say that things are not that bad in nations where incomes have doubled from $1 / day to $2 / day, because - hey! - incomes doubled. Nonsense. What I am questioning is existence of a global shift to neo-liberalism.

This is of course true here in the United States, where the poor have the least ability to defend their property rights from eminent domain. ↩
For example, in his 2012 State of the Union President Obama used free market language to defend corporate subsides, import restrictions, and wage controls. ↩

Susan Cain in the NYT SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:21:21 -0500

Susan Cain in the NYT

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

…

Our schools have also been transformed by the New Groupthink. Today, elementary school classrooms are commonly arranged in pods of desks, the better to foster group learning. Even subjects like math and creative writing are often taught as committee projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question.

via PhD I spent at least one semester using using a restroom on...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:30:13 -0500

via PhD

I spent at least one semester using using a restroom on a different floor from my TA office just so I wouldn’t have to walk past my advisor’s door.

"This line of thinking swiftly stumbles into self-contradiction. After lambasting companies that..."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:34:44 -0500

“This line of thinking swiftly stumbles into self-contradiction. After lambasting companies that “ship jobs overseas,” Obama launched into a feel-good anecdote about how “Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College.” Is a politician in Germany giving a speech lambasting Siemens for shipping jobs to the U.S. and complaining, as Obama did, that it’s “not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized,” perhaps through partnerships with community colleges.”

- Matt Yglesias, Slate

(via xkcd: Sustainable)

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:58:54 -0500

(via xkcd: Sustainable)

ilovecharts: How A Dog’s Brain Works

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:57:52 -0500

ilovecharts:

How A Dog’s Brain Works

Wait. What? Berkes has published on social-ecological resilience in Cambodia? More than...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:46:47 -0500

Wait. What?

Berkes has published on social-ecological resilience in Cambodia? More than once?

Berkes of Berkes et al. 2003? Berks from the linking book? This guy?

Good grief, I really really should have known that already. And have read those articles already.

Most days I’m only pretending to know what I’m talking about.

At least now I have a plan for this week, right?

If sustainable development should be defined differently in PA and Cambodia, who should do the...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:22:11 -0500

If sustainable development should be defined differently in PA and Cambodia, who should do the defining? Is that a proper role for me, as a white guy living in New Jersey? How has UNESCO played the role of development expert in defining education for sustainable development?

In the developed world sustainable development is centered around sustaining current levels of consumption and capital (human, social, manmade, natural). In the developing world should the focus be on development? A sustainability curriculum in Cambodia should address pressing material needs, such as malnutrition. A sustainability curriculum would be concerned with increasing material well being, increasing consumption.

Hartwick argued that a nation would remain sustainable if the total capital stock remained steady. In this way a nation could trade natural capital for human capital or manmade capital.

K = K[H] + K[N] + K[M]

However, sustainability education in Cambodia aimed at improving farming practices increases both human capital (skills and knowledge) and natural capital (environmental services). It might also allow money spent on manmade capital like tractors and fertilizer to be spent on more productive uses. The total capital stock of the nation would increase.

Is this so different from the American example? A recycling education program would increase human capital and slow the reduction of natural capital, leading to an increase in total capital stock at time t+n.

So maybe I’m saying the most base logic of sustainability education is universal: increase the total capital stock by increasing human and natural capital. But the curricular objectives are wildly different between a program designed to introduce low/no fertilizer farming and one that focuses on recycling. Again conservation vs. development. Maintaining a level of material wealth vs. increasing wealth.

Questions:

Why bring Hartwick / Natural Resource Econ into an already complicated question?
How to not lose sight of the curricular questions: What is happening in schools and how can that be improved?
But - Is a normative study appropriate?

A Karl Pilkington classic from the archives.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:13:46 -0500

A Karl Pilkington classic from the archives.

Although there has been some recent scholarship looking at sustainability and social studies,...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:26:10 -0500

Although there has been some recent scholarship looking at sustainability and social studies, education for sustainable development seems focused on science education.

But UNESCO, among others recommends a more holistic approach to sustainability education. They say:

The overall goal of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) is to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. This educational effort will encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society for present and future generations.

And their teacher education curriculum appears to follow these guidelines.¹

But the former social studies teacher in me is curious. What does it look like on the ground? What attitudes to social studies teachers have towards sustainability education? What about those currently studying to become SS teachers? Are they being trained in how to incorporate ESD into history lessons? In my senior year of high school, I was lucky enough to be taught by a guy that pulled environmental concepts into the social studies classroom.² I know that was rare 16 years ago, is it now more common?

Today’s idea: Survey and interview SS teachers and college of education students here and in Cambodia about sustainability education. Do their attitudes differ? What about their textbooks?

And does it relate to my previous ramblings about different reasons for sustainability education in the US and Cambodia? Do US SS teachers view ESD differently from teachers in Cambodia?

I need to spend more time with this resource before I can speak intelligently about it. ↩
I was such a loudmouth jerk in those classes. No idea what I was talking about. ↩

Trent MacNamara’s series on Newt as a professor reads like a cautionary tale: never published...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:26:53 -0500

Trent MacNamara’s series on Newt as a professor reads like a cautionary tale: never published in a peer reviewed journal, had too many disjointed ideas, talked a good game but didn’t back it up with research, told by his bosses not to bother seeking tenure, performed no committee work, was good in the classroom but otherwise weak, overly optimistic about his own abilities.

But it is interesting that he started the environmental science program.

In the US: COMMUNITY GARDENS AND URBAN AGRICULTURE The South Side Community Gardens and Urban...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:21:00 -0500

In the US: COMMUNITY GARDENS AND URBAN AGRICULTURE

The South Side Community Gardens and Urban Agriculture Working Group has several related aims. We enable residents of South Bethlehem and members of the Lehigh community to gain access to convenient, inexpensive plots of land for gardening. By fostering community gardens, we aim to increase access to high quality, affordable fruit and vegetables on the South Side. Through the cultivation of these gardens, we promote forms of community that will encourage new patterns of social interaction and integration, and enable all of us to learn more about our neighbors. Through the expansion of the gardens – and through related educational programming in South Side public schools and at Lehigh – the gardens project fosters several kinds of knowledge: about environmental sustainability, about healthy eating, about the many challenges facing local and global systems of food production, and about the rich and varied food ways of our diverse community. Finally, as the gardens project expands, we hope that urban agriculture may ultimately provide employment opportunities and new sources of income for people living and working on the South Side.

In Cambodia: A gift of a garden grows health

Gardens are a major key to improving nutrition and eliminating hunger for rural Cambodian families. Many families traditionally subsisted on rice, without the knowledge, seed or irrigation needed to grow alternative crops. The addition of vegetables gives the children and families much-needed vitamins and minerals to improve and sustain health.

Notice that when describing school garden projects in the United States the goals are to increase nutrition, build community, and reconnect students with nature. When discussing a seemingly similar project in Cambodia the purpose changes; now the focus is on eliminating hunger and malnutrition.

Both mention nutrition, so it could be argued that there is not a significant difference between the two programs. I think this misses the point. I think there is a significant difference between saying “we want kids to eat better” and “we want kids not to starve.”

So why the difference? The two sites do not have the same goal, one describes an academic research project and the other is soliciting for a gift. Did Sustainable Cambodia “make the case” for a donation by increasing the stakes?

Or maybe the difference in language represents the different realities facing students in Bethlehem, PA and Siem Reap, Cambodia. Gardening is seen as a way to restore lost bonds with neighbors and nature in the US. In Cambodia it’s a way to provide materially for the family.

Questions I’m thinking about today:

What role does teacher training take?
How do teachers describe sustainability projects, like community gardens?
How do teachers and administrators describe the need for these programs?
Does the following make sense? Cambodian gardening programs are designed to increase farm yields (development), US programs are designed to increase local sourcing of high nutrition food (sustainability).
If there is a difference in reasons for sustainability ed, does this challenge the notion that education for sustainable development is a worldwide global trend?
Does any of this relate to Douglass North’s distinction between open-access and closed-access social orders?

Dubey and Rajaram at Information Management: In this approach, business understanding is used to...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:19:46 -0500

Dubey and Rajaram at Information Management:

In this approach, business understanding is used to validate the outcome of analytics — not necessarily the analytics process. A common symptom of this problem is the prevalence of esoteric modeling and data mining techniques without enough inquiry in to their appropriateness and applicability for the problem at hand. Unfortunately, it is model accuracy that often becomes the final arbiter. This results in a classic trap of choosing the technique that gives maximum accuracy over the one that makes most business sense. This can be best avoided by striking a balance between algorithmic and heuristic approaches, which is essentially a balance between a highly accurate model and a model that makes business sense. Tilting to either extreme is dangerous.

This understanding extends to all things, especially ed. stats and models. Whole article is good.

How to be a political reporter: Take candidate’s quote and strip all context. Discuss how...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:05:07 -0500

How to be a political reporter:

Take candidate’s quote and strip all context.
Discuss how quote shows candidate is out of touch with the average American.
Repeat Step 2 for the entire show or article.

Kakaes at Slate: Obama and the Republicans might disagree on the answers, but they agree on the...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:40:04 -0500

Kakaes at Slate:

Obama and the Republicans might disagree on the answers, but they agree on the question: “How can America compete with the rest of the world, especially China?” But this is the wrong question to be asking. We are not actually engaged in economic or technological competition with China or with anyone else. Absent a state of open war, our economic growth helps that of other countries, and vice versa. New technology developed in the United States will benefit the rest of the world, and vice versa.

Required reading for anyone that demands we shape education to compete with the Chinese.

In the 80s and the 90s “reality distortion field” was used to explain why people clung...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:06:00 -0500

In the 80s and the 90s “reality distortion field” was used to explain why people clung to Apple’s products against overwhelming Microsoft dominance. Now it is used as an explanation of Apple’s overwhelming domination of the handheld and tablet markets.

So which is it? Are Apple’s customers dumb fanboys who just have to be different and go against the majority? Or are they dumb fanboys who just buy whatever is popular?

Isn’t it more true that anyone who equates a Samsung Galaxy Tab to an iPad is the one living in a distorted reality?