Justice and Sustainability

Feeling stressed about the coming breakdown of society and consequences of climate change on your family?  I'm not a doomsday preparation obsessed survivalist. Surprising that many just regular people are feeling a change in the direction of society. Accepting our feelings and taking action in the present to deal with our own thoughts and our relationships has the best benefit.

I have a deep grief over what we are losing, what we have already lost and feeling anxious about how much we are going to losing in the near future. Life as we have known it is coming to an end.

The primary illusion that needs to be debunked is the multi-national industrial corporation's extractive economy based on privatizing property and making environmental and social costs a public responsibility.

"Apocalypse" from Greek means a lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something hidden, a coming to clarity. Just as we all know that someday we will die and yet still we get out of bed every day, an honest account of planetary reality need not paralyze us.

Justice and sustainability are worth the effort of attempting projects that may fail.

Technological fundamentalism - the quasi-religious belief that the use of advanced technology will save the world - is an empty promise just like other fundamentalist beliefs.

Yes! Magazine, Summer 2013, "Why Radical is the New Normal: Get Apocalyptic" by Robert Jensen, page 25-27.
"Mainstream politicians will continue to protect existing systems of power, corporate executives will continue to maximize profit without concern, and the majority of people will continue to avoid these questions."

I am a husband, father and grandfather with neighbors and family that do not share my values or analysis, yet I continue to fulfill my roles. I am a nerd or geek, or weirdo, or techie person that others confess they don't understand what I am talking about. They especially don't like me talking about the apocalypse in the near future.

What is a clear strategy for promoting justice and sustainability?  Given my lack of access to other people willing to discuss the future in a meaningful way, I am reaching out online to others.

Market Failure

The key assumption to define Market Failure is Pareto Efficiency: the allocation of resources where it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off. Pareto efficiency is a minimal notion of efficiency and does not necessarily result in a socially desirable distribution of resources: it makes no statement about equality, or the overall well-being of a society. Pareto Optimal is the state where the total available resource is allocated efficiently.

Market failure is a concept within economic theory describing when the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient. That is, there exists another conceivable outcome where a market participant may be made better-off without making someone else worse-off. (The outcome is not Pareto optimal.)

Economists, especially micro-economists, are often concerned with the causes of market failure and possible means of correction. Such analysis plays an important role in many types of public policy decisions and studies. However, some types of government policy interventions, such as taxes, subsidies, bailouts, wage and price controls, and regulations, including attempts to correct market failure, may also lead to an inefficient allocation of resources, sometimes called government failure. (Wikipedia).

Consider Possible Historic Market Failures and Consequences

The US Constitution was the consequence of a market failure. The capitalism practiced by England was exploiting the colonies. The Declaration of Independence stated the dilemma of whether to remain loyal to England and recognize the authority of the King or to fight for a broader vision of civilization that included the moral principles that were written into the US Constitution. The Revolutionary War resolved the dilemma and the market failure.

Slavery was a market failure. The capitalism practiced by the slave owners was exploiting people and creating inequities between North and South. The conflict between the industrial North and the agricultural South resolved the dilemma and the market failure when the Civil War was won by the North.

After World War I, the major economic powers in Europe caused a market failure in Germany because of the conditions in the peace treaty. This lead to Germany starting World War II that resolved the dilemma created by the market failure of the economic powers in Europe.

Considering Possible Current Market Failure

In each of the three market failures there is a pattern. The evidence in 2013, shows that we are beginning to experience the consequences of another market failure. Each time in the past there was a major migration of people, significant chaos and destruction, and the death of many people. In 2013, we can envision that climate change will result in a significant migration of people, the collapse of governments, civil chaos, destruction and death for many people starting within 10 years.

For decades, vehicles, coal plants and the burning of natural gas by humans have allowed our common atmosphere to become transformed into a threat to civilization.  Energy companies have been allowed to keep costs down by externalizing the waste discharge cost. They have privatized profits and shifted costs for waste and pollutants to society. The failure of the market to account for pollution of our common atmosphere has resulted in a threat to civilization.

The consequences include property damage, loss of property, mass migrations north in Asia and North America, drought causing food shortages, and weak governments collapsing. These will result in wildfires, the spread of disease and death to a billion people across the globe. Just like the three American historic crises listed above, this dilemma will be resolved by a global coalition of civil institutions that create a new set of standards for civilization. Just like the three prior resolutions listed above, by 2030, the world will be organized very differently than it is in 2013.

The Transition to 2030

From about 2020, +/- 2 years, America will become engaged in a global ending of an era and the beginning of a new era. Shutting down the fossil fuel industry, and the mass migration of people because of the consequences of climate change will be a great disruption across the world.

In 2013, we are like the people on Easter Island, when they did not have a regeneration rate high enough to sustain the forest resource necessary for survival on the island. We are not regenerating a sustainable global atmosphere sufficient for survival on the earth. We are allowing the concentration of greenhouse gases to rise too high to sustain civilization as presently structured.

Transcendence

Transcendence happens when practicing inquiry and introspection of dualistic concepts epitomized in Zen Koans that act like an obstacle or wall to insight. Practicing with insight transcends limits, obstacles and denial, and leaps ahead of goals, objectives and strategy. Meditating while focusing on a Zen Koan practices gaining insight into alternatives and goes beyond duality.

The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan

Andrew J. Coulson directs the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and published a book review of “The One World Schoolhouse” by Salman Khan in the Washington Times on December 11, 2012. In his conclusion he wrote: “The only way for teaching and learning to keep pace with the progress happening all around us is to invite education back into the free-enterprise system that has driven that progress.”

Coulson’s conclusion was built on a series of fallacies and misinformation too numerous to repeat. Coulson makes his living by writing about the blessings of the free-enterprise system. However, he devalues the system of governance that is in a symbiotic relationship with the commercial system he supports. Privatizing the commons is the answer to everything for those who publish articles in support of corporations. After all they have been successful, since John Locke justified private property rights, in claiming land, water and air as commodities and then returning their wastes that pollute the commons for the rest of us and our future generations.

Coulson wants to privatize the common K12 education, that is offered free to anyone at a school. This is something protected by federal, state and local governments for over a century. The only way private enterprise can make a profit in education for K12 is to not serve the neediest of students, the disabled, the students from low income families and others that would drive up the costs and drive down the test scores. Now that Khan Academy has delivered on a free education for anyone, anywhere, Coulson criticizes the change as the worst thing for America, as if it were unpatriotic.

Coulson ignores the rising trend of non-profits and for-profit enterprises with social purposes that have ethical and moral standards unknown to the free-enterprise system where the only measurement is profit and wealth. 

The Consequences of Climate Change

As we continue in 2013 to postpone, like we have for decades, the policies that could bring about a sustainable world, the population grows too large, pollution builds too high, resources are drained too much, and a collapse is no longer avoidable.

Purpose

People need something bigger than themselves, some grand, collective goal worth striving toward. I want to transform from being busy as a single ego on the chaotic surface of flatland, to join a multi-generational team with a social mission aligned to a strategy and tactics.

Market Failure and Foresight

Cascade Systems Society Monthly Meeting
Time: 4:00 to 6:00 (informal conversation at the start, main discussion starts at 4:30)
Place: Harder House, Room 104 (HH is at 10th and Market)
Portland State University

Discussion Leader:  Richard Turnock

Topic: Market Failure and Foresight:  Why systems of survival resolve dilemmas created by market failure and how we can use foresight to anticipate the future.

Problem Statement: The Lockean Proviso is true when there are enough resources left in common for others and the quality of the resources is good enough so that others are not deprived of the use of the common resources. An unsustainable world is when the quality of the commons is depleted so that others are deprived of resources. The goal of a Sustainable World is for the Lockean Proviso to always remain true in the symbiotic relationship between the Guardian and Commercial systems. The RBP [reference behavior pattern] of a Sustainable World would show decreasing depletion of resources from the Commons and decreasing pollution of the Commons. The whole earth is inside the boundaries of the Sustainable World including all the land, water and air. However, our system model is going to focus on the interaction between human organizations and the Commons.

Richard retired not too many years ago after 32 years working for Portland General Electric as nuclear engineer, budget analyst, internal consultant for IT, internal auditor, PR education outreach, and teaching teachers system dynamics.

Education: BS in Engineering Physics from OSU and MBA from PSU; Took SysSc 514 System Dynamics by Dr. Wayne Wakeland. 

Current projects: Assisting author with eBook - “Beyond Connecting the Dots.” 

Blog - http://turnock.blogspot.com MyOpinion.

Wiki with Systems and Sustainability information, http://sd4ed.wikispaces.com

YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/igranderojo

Writing a Memoir

Creating Systems Academy

Articles:

“Why System Dynamics?” Published by Creative Learning Exchange and listed on my blog

http://www.clexchange.org

http://turnock.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-system-dynamics.html

“A New Mental Model of Teaching and Learning”

http://www.clexchange.org/ftp/newsletter/CLEx18.1.pdf

Global Climate Change Model Development for SysSc 514

http://home.comcast.net/~rturnock/Exercise3/exercise3.htm