TheLaughingDog's Blog
I really enjoyed watching this video from Barry Schwartz about having too many choices.
It ties in neatly with the idea I previously mentioned in connection with Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs and how modern consumerism actually makes us more and more unhappy.
Good IDA Ireland advert.
http://www.idaireland.com/news-media/videos/index.xml?bclid=66038357001&bctid=819825751001
What is true happiness and what does it have to do with sustainability? While I don’t expect everybody, or even anybody, to subscribe to my particular understanding of happiness I think a basic appreciation of one of the mainstays of college psychology, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, can’t hurt. I remember when I first encountered this theory I felt it was pie in the sky. This, along with the theory that money wasn’t important to a person and didn’t motivate them only meant for me that psychology had gotten it all wrong. However as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to believe more in the fundamental message contained within this theory. Basically the theory goes that once we take care of our basic needs we can move higher up the pyramid and seek to satisfy other, higher or nobler, psychological requirements. The higher up the pyramid we go, the happier we are. Simples.
So once I have food and a roof over my head, I can start to worry about forming friendships & relationships and once I have ticked that box I can continue developing until I reach a self actualized state where I’m interested in things like creativity etc. Very good in theory.
What happens however when you add in capitalism and marketing? Our society is driven by consumption. Marketing tries to sell us products by basically telling us that the product will make our lives easier or safer or happier. So now in to this pyramid of needs you have to insert a layer of consumption of goods and services which don’t lead to a self actualized state. In fact, the constant bombardment of consumers by adverts and other forms of marketing driven by the relentless, short, product cycles which require large sales volumes in order to recoup the investment in R&D in them by the companies before the next product refresh is released mean that we are, in my opinion, never happy with our consumption of goods and services. How can we be if as soon as we buy something we are told about the next new must have item or worse still simply an update to the item we have just purchased, which renders the item we have just purchased obsolete. So we only end up wanting the next big thing, we’re actually unhappy on some level at having bought the item we did buy because it is no longer the best of it’s kind out there. In thinking about our next purchase we forget about the higher levels of happiness and their pursuit, thereby never having any hope of reaching a self actualized state. Balls. So far from making us happy, our relentless, marketing driven, consumption of goods and services make us miserable. Most of us wouldn’t see it that way obviously, much to the relief of the marketing people out their. They need an unsatisfied customer base in order to constantly sell their products to. This sustains the beast that is manufacturing and consumption. And consumes the planet’s natural resources at an alarming rate.
If we were truly happy and could pursue a self actualized state do you think that we would have the level of greed and consumption that we currently have which is threatening the ability of the earth to sustain it’s every growing population of inhabitants. Of course that would mean the collapse of our growth based model of business. No bad thing in my opinion but the practicalities of a steady state economy need to be worked out before we pull the plug on constant, unrelenting economic growth.
It must be noted at this point that I’m a sucker for anything from Apple, gadgets, cars and bicycles. But for once I’m not eagerly waiting with baited breath for the next iPhone update.
Ah, the time honoured tradition of the shooting brake. My most recent favourite of that particular genre of cars was the BMW Z3 “Breadvan”. I love these yokes:
Now there’s a new kid in town, and it’s not from one of the traditional haven of shooting brakes, England, but instead it comes to us from Italy. Ferrari’s newest is a four wheel drive, four seater shooting brake. Loving it.
Turn up your speakers:
I’m only putting this up as an example of unsustainable transport you understand. 4 x 4 Ferrari anyone? Wonder when we’ll see the first one of these on the school run?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkYzxSW5hn4?rel=0&w=480&h=300]
Turn up your speakers to hear what CO2 sounds like.
So, thanks to the global economy and modern refrigeration and transportation methods we can enjoy all sorts of different foods here in Ireland which we previously barely knew existed. Take this for example:
Consider if you will the following facts:
Surface area of the Earth: 510,072,000 km2 of which 148,940,000 km2 is land. But how far does Santa have to travel each year to deliver all his presents to all children on earth? The best reported figure was found by by Keld Helsgaun using a variant of his LKH heuristic algorithm. His tour of length 7,515,947,511 meters was found on November 27, 2008. This equates to 7,515,948 km’s.
Male Reindeer can live to over 10 years, but let’s assume 10 years for the purpose of the exercise.
Let’s assume that Rudolf was at least 3 years old when he took up his position at the head of Santa’s sleigh and continued in that role until he expired, so a total of 7 years. That means that he has traveled approx. 52,611,633 km’s in the employ of Santa.
Furthermore, let’s assume for arguments sake that a Reindeer covers 500 km in it’s migration from winter to summer lands and a further 500 km back again. As Rudolf only flies for Santa on one night a year, it is reasonable to assume that for the other 364 days of the year he would follow the normal pattern of Reindeer. That’s an annual distance of 1,000 km’s for 10 years, so that’s 10,000 km’s
These are just the big ticket items in the typical life of a Reindeer. Now add the distance of his migratory journeys to the distance he covers on Christmas every year and then also add in the distance from Lapland to Ireland (Dublin to be precise), approx. 3000 km’s, and you come up with a grand total of 52,624,633 km travelled by that meat before it ended up in the shop in which I bought it. Now that’s serious food miles.
But let’s be serious for a moment. I make an effort to look out for and where possible to buy Irish sourced meat and vegetables when we go to the supermarket. But most of the fruit that I buy has come from afar, as has some of the meat, and has covered a not insignificant amount of mileage in order to get here. By supporting local farmers and markets we can get top quality produce here in Ireland but we may possibly have to sacrifice some variety. Some of the variety penalty we would have to suffer could be subsequently made up if Irish farmers and food producers see that there is a market and demand for Irish produced goods. We’re also supporting a local industry which has been in decline for a number of reasons (some of which we need to look to the EU as a reason for). There is much talk in the media about a new breed of educated Irish farmer which I think we need to give a chance to and who can help us to utilize our country’s land better and more sustainably.
As you study for exams, remember its not the quantity it’s the quality. And remember there is no substitute for pure unadulterated bull
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, “why do airplanes fly?” on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
“First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
- If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
- If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, “that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true…Thus, hell is exothermic.”
The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.
Having spent a bit of time over the last number of years trying to increase my previous employer’s already vast profits through leading and mentoring Six Sigma projects, I know that one of the avenues where a huge amount of costs can be eliminated is in complexity reduction. That may sound easy enough and indeed in some cases it is – why offer three flavours of Vanilla when one will suffice? You do need to gain a fundamental understanding the topic which you want to simplify which can be accomplished using several different tools. It helps if you can also limit the scope of what you’re looking at. We always tried to ensure that once we had managed to define a reasonably narrow scope for a project, that we stuck to that scope and didn’t try to be all things to everyone and fix everybody’s problems – which we likened to trying to cure world hunger. There are an uncountable number of variables, problems, issues, bureaucracy etc. etc. to be overcome in order to cure world hunger, so much so that it would be virtually impossible to do.
Taking just one aspect of Sustainable Development, in this case Climate Change, we broke into groups and brainstormed ideas under seven headings -
The topic tackled by my group was Conflict.
Whilst obviously not an exhaustive review, bottom line – there’s an awful lot of potential for conflict when speaking only in relation to Climate Change.
The most interesting exercise came once we had all completed our brainstorms and we were asked to physically link our topic to the other topics if we thought a connection existed. Upon completion of this exercise the classroom looked like spaghetti junction with links criss-crossing the room and clearly demonstrating the complexity of just this one aspect of sustainable development. Once again I stress that this was in no way an exhaustive review of climate change or the seven headings we reviewed. I think the biggest stumbling block to this exercise was simply where to start and also the limited amount of time we had to conduct the exercise in. Ironically one of the areas we touched on was food production which of course would lead one to look at world hunger.
Another topic other than transport which is near and dear to my heart (or should that be stomach) – Food!!!
From their website – “Sustain advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, promote equity and enrich society and culture.”
I came across this crowd through Hugh’s Fish Fight site. There appears to be a huge number of real world project and campaigns that they are working on. And they have some interesting, and in some cases downright challenging, recipes and publications. How does “Bake Your Lawn: Grow it, mill it, bake it, eat it” sound? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that one. I need to read the site a bit more to get a handle on what exactly they’re involved in, but I do fully support Hugh’s Fish Fight. It’s not bad enough that we, the Irish, practically gave away our fishing rights in our own waters so that foreign factory ships can come in and plunder the fish stocks here, we also have the fish quotas and practice of discards affecting the fish stocks.
Returning to a system of landing what you catch as opposed to dumping everything that you catch but don’t have a quota for and broadening the range of fish which we consume is extremely important to the balanced survival of all fish species, not just the 5 or so species which we regularly consume. Try some Pollock, with a little Thai fish sauce and dill herbs, wrapped in tin foil and popped in the oven. It’s beautiful and best of all really cheap as Pollock is regarded by many as a fish you can’t eat or with no taste, which is just a stupid old wives tale.
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