Mile
Zero

Shorter Bruce Sterling: Tyler Durden was right about the things you own.

A pro-environment, climate science editorial in the Wall Street Journal? It's probably a shock to them as well, but Jamais Cascio writes this week about the case for geoengineering. He argues that geoengineering--the process of intentionally altering the planet's climate to counteract global warming--is necessary to buy time for long-term adjustment plans, even though it will have unpredictable environmental and political side effects.

Of course, being the Wall Street Journal, the comments are a roiling hotbed of climate denialism. Reactions to Cascio's article include the implication that the WSJ is playing a prank on its readers by making up a San Francisco-based environmental futurist with a French first name, possibly at the behest of (I kid you not) George Soros. There are also gems like "I've spent most of my life on Planet Earth and venture out into the 'environment' almost every day. I have yet to notice any sort of crisis out there." Indeed: such compelling evidence will no doubt be collected in the IPCC's newest report, tentatively titled "My Back Yard: I Ain't Seen Nothin', Ya Crazy Hippies."

The irony of these comments is that they're the reason that geoengineering is even being considered in the first place. As Cascio writes, it has moved from the fringes to the semi-mainstream simply because policy-makers have failed to respond strongly to global warming, even as the problem has worsened (most recently, a study at MIT found that warming could reach double the levels previously thought over the next century). And a significant cause of the sluggishness on the part of governments is the hue and cry from denialists who have fought tooth and nail against climate action.

But perhaps, if nothing else, this is the reason to get geoengineering out into the public debate: it moves the conversation forward. Compared to, say, dumping millions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere as a cooling mechanism, a carbon cap and trade scheme looks a lot more moderate--and hopefully, a lot more achievable.

There are really few USB devices that are more fun to plug in and start pounding on than the Korg PadKontrol. It's a big square grid of rubber pads that light up when you hit them, providing both tactile and visual sensations. Even if it weren't also a versatile MIDI controller, the PadKontrol would still be good for a few moments of pointless glee. It's enough to make a person wonder why using a computer can't always be that enjoyable.

Synth makers, particularly the high-end ones, know that the physical feel and feedback of an interface is important. That's why most of them come with lots of knobs and buttons. Even on my Micron, which is mostly metal and has only four knobs and a pitch wheel, those elements are made out of easily-grabbable materials that are fun to play with. Companies like Nord and Moog have made their reputations with lots of responsive controls and classy wooden cases. They do this because they know that musicians incorporate the physical feel of an instrument into the experience--those sensations and limitations are part of what makes us love the act of playing music, even when it's on a keyboard.

It's less common, I think, to find a computer or consumer electronics manufacturer doing the same kind of thing. Apple's current designs, which tend to set the trends, are almost all smooth metal or plastic lozenges--some like them, I find them chilly. I love my Thinkpad's carbon-fiber finish and excellent keyboard, but its design alternates between Japanese bento box (lid closed) and Soviet tank (lid open). Cell phones have trended toward increasingly less tactile response, with slick metal/plastic cases and shallow buttons or flat touchscreens. Everything seems to be headed away from softer, natural materials and real physical character.

I think clearly there's a desire for that kind of character--the fashion of steampunk gadgetry indicates as much. I'm sympathethic to this quote from steampunk designer Alan Rorie at Make:

I would spend weeks and months working on my thesis and the result would be some bit of data that only existed on the computer and in the mind of my peers. I realized that I needed to create real objects, things and stuff that existed in the world.

I've felt the same way for a long time, which is why I didn't aim to become a programmer out of college--my experiences with it seemed unsatisfyingly intangible. But the more I look at these homemade victoriana, with its focus on brass and steel, the more I think it's a shame, frankly, that this particular fad has seized the imaginations of crafty techies. I'm not a back-to-nature kind of guy, but it seems like a more interesting set of challenges and materials would be to create sustainable electronics from renewable resources: wood, bamboo, glass, and light metals. Call it "greenpunk," if you will.

Some manufacturers have started putting these kinds of techniques to work. Fujitsu recently showed a concept for a wood-shelled laptop that incorporates its own carrying case into the frame. Nokia, meanwhile, has continued its green agenda with its own concept: a phone called the Remade constructed almost entirely from recycled materials. These are a start, and they are hopefully part of a trend toward more environmentally-friendly engineering, but they are focused primarily on making the same designs from new materials.

More interesting things--things which are identifiably "greenpunk" just as valves and rods are signifiers of steampunk--will happen when those materials begin serve as inspiration, and manufacturers begin to build with these kinds of aesthetics in mind, creating devices that are enjoyable to touch and use as much as they are currently fun to watch and interact with. Perhaps the best illustration of this goal is an excerpt from Idoru, by the always prescient William Gibson:

"I like your computer," she said. "It looks like it was made by Indians or something."

Chia looked down at her Sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. "Coral," she said. "These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable."

"The rest is silver?"

"Aluminum," Chia said. "They melt old cans they dig up on the beach, cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That's linen with this resin in it."

[...]

"It started with a woman who was an interface designer," Chia said, glad to change the subject. "Her husband was a jeweller, and he'd died of that nerve-attenuation thing, before they saw how to fix it. But he'd been a big green, too, and he hated the way consumer electronics were made, a couple of little chips and boards inside these plastic shells. The shells were just point-of-purchase eye-candy, he said, made to wind up in the landfill if nobody recycled it, and usually nobody did. So, before he got sick, he used to tear up her hardware, the designer's, and put the real parts into cases he'd make in his shop. Say he'd make a solid bronze case for a minidisk unit, ebony inlays, carve the control surfaces out of fossil ivory, turquoise, rock crystal. It weighed more, sure, but it turned out a lot of people liked that, like they had their music or their memory, whatever, in something that felt like it was there... And people liked touching all that stuff: metal, a smooth stone..."

Via a discussion by Ezra Klein, Cogitamus figures out the comparison in cost between Netflix by mail and by broadband. Hint: It's still cheaper to send DVDs by mail than it is to download them. It's not that Netflix's Watch Instantly service is a bad idea (when Comcast lets it through, I quite like it), but it's not obviously less expensive than the physical alternative.

Nor is it necessarily that much more environmentally friendly, which is another counterintuitive result. I got curious about this recently--after getting the Kindle, I was surprised to see that I was still often ordering physical boxes from Amazon, either for books that aren't available digitally or other items like games and music. But from what I've been able to find googling around*, the carbon impact from shopping online (or shipping products a la Netflix) may be less severe than traditional shopping models. And the reason is simply that those deliveries are often folded in with mail trucks that will run anyway, or UPS trucks that take trips along planned routes.

The packaging, on the other hand, is not nearly so harmless. Online shopping obviously leaves behind a trail of cardboard boxes and plastic wrapping. Amazon at least uses relatively little packaging, probably in an attempt to save weight. But this can always get better, and those materials can often be recycled.

* Google is, as always, not a substitute for someone who actually knows what they are talking about. But hopefully I'm smart enough to filter out the wackos.

For my own reference: One Approach to Sustainability: Work Less.

You don't have to reduce working hours to convince me to recycle and embrace sustainable buying practices. But it certainly doesn't hurt.

The US Postal Service is launching a pilot "recycle by mail" program for electronics. It's good to see this kind of thing get more play, and it's hard to get more ubiquitous than the post office, so I'd really like to see it succeed. I've found that in my own life, the greatest barrier to recycling is not the expense but the availability: I'll gladly pay to do it, or allow someone else to profit, but if it requires a lot of effort or travel, I'm likely to put it off or eventually give up on it.

How much material, every year, gets wasted or manufactured for no good reason except to fill gift bags at conferences? Including the bags themselves? The bag for this conference is not even particularly generous, but I'm still looking at a pair of branded flip-flops, a set of laptop screen cleaners, a mousepad, some kind of IP phone gadget, two magazines, and assorted promotional cards. When I think about the sheer number of CDs, USB Keys, rubber toys, and assorted office junk that gets thrown at conference attendees each year--not to mention millions of branded nylon tote bags--almost all of which will probably be thrown away or forgotten within a week, it makes me shudder.

The tech industry is not particularly good at being sustainable in the first place. There's potential there, don't get me wrong--just by digitally delivering movies and music, we could theoretically save a tremendous amount of plastic and industrial pollutants that go into CDs and DVDs. But as it is right now, hi-tech doesn't usually mean good for the environment. It would probably not make much of a dent in the overall impact if conference sponsors went green with their swag, but it would be a nice symbol.

One of the dilemmas for environmentally-conscious Americans is using compact flourescent lightbulbs, or CFLs. They use less power, but contain hazardous mercury. This leads to the fear that CFLs may save energy, but end up poisoning the environment when they finally wear out.

Luckily, it looks like the risk from this mercury source is far smaller than you may have heard. PZ Myers has a post with more information, as well as the details of how conservative pro-industry groups are using this line as part of a wider campaign of global warming denialism.

What's the price on raising your consciousness? Worldchanging thinks it's about $40, including renewable energy credits for the impact of printing the book. If that sounds like a deal, then they've got the product for you--what they call a "User's Guide for the 21st Century." Pretty heavy rhetoric to fulfill, but for the most part it does succeed.

The first thing that you notice about Worldchanging is the cover. A big (600 or so pages) hardcover book in green and grey, it comes with a beautifully-designed cardboard slipcover. It's bright and attention-grabbing, if not terribly convenient. I assume they had a good reason for it. Inside, the book is divided into sections similar to the website, such as "Stuff," "Cities," and "Politics." Each section discusses the problems that we will face in the future, current solutions being attempted, and often attempts to create tie-in for personal action. The chapters are broken up into short, snappy entries, many less than three paragraphs long. It's not in-depth information so much as a jumping-off place, complete with URLs and book recommendations.

The basic idea is that even if you can't do anything about the problems facing mega-cities like Lagos, being aware of them (and being pointed toward reliable resources with short reviews, if you want to find out more) will help you live a more sustainable lifestyle. Solutions start with awareness, the thinking goes, and even a small amount of change in each person's life could make a big impact. In this way, Worldchanging has been compared to an information-age Whole Earth Catalog, which doesn't mean much to someone my age. I had to look it up.

I'd have to say it works, at least on some level. Reading Worldchanging, particularly the chapters on Stuff, Politics, and Business, got me thinking about what I throw away, what I buy, and how I live, if only in the most cursory fashion. Much the same as An Inconvenient Truth, the relentlessly upbeat tone of the book does make these problems seem approachable, even as they're sounding a drumbeat of doom.

A lot of people who pick up Worldchanging will already be attentive to these ideas, since it's not cheap enough for an impulse buy. They'll probably try to loan it out to others, something I'm sure the authors would appreciate. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure whether (or even how) to review this book for purchasing--but I'll definitely recommend it for borrowing, and those short on cash but long on IT should consider browsing Worldchanging.org, where much of the book's material originated. If you can afford to pay $40 for wider awareness, then that's great. If not, give it a shot for free, especially if you don't normally think of yourself as an environmentalist or a philanthropist.