Sustainability and War

This is where I will place a summary of the linkages between Sustainability and War processes. This will be a structured linking to my posts on this topic, as well as general discussion of this issue, with the intention of gluing the posts together with a predictive framework and links to outside resources. Right now, however this page is a simple chronological listing of the posts on this issue.

Various Readings, (or why I haven’t been posting…)

October 6th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

Just finished the excellent book Collapse by Jared Diamond. I had read portions of his earlier Guns, Germs and Steel, and really liked his approach in that book, too. One of the things that make his book so convincing is his ability to see things from many points of view (the really essential cross-disciplinary approach), to not just see things as an ecologist, but also from the point of view of an economist, a sociologist, military historian, and a even a bit from other standpoints. His work builds upon, and greatly expands works such as Clive Ponting’s A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations.

Globalization de-materialized by 176 Clicks

October 22nd, 2006 — enigma_foundry

Went up to Chicago this weekend, and saw Millennium Park and all kinds of really interesting Architecture, too.

But, what was interesting and relevant to my observations on current trends in Globalization was a small purchase I’d made at Ikea. As usual, Ikea has gotten so many things right in both their business plan and their designs, because both are integrated. Their business plan is fully integrated into the criteria they establish for designs.

Cities are from Mars, Neighborhoods are from Venus

October 28th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

John Robb over at Global Guerillas had a post on the Role of Cities in 5GW (Fifth Generation Warfare) and he does make some excellent points, but more could be said about two issues…

The New Front Line: Climate Change

November 5th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

Another data point on the relationship between Sustainability and 5GW (fifth generation warfare) is presented below. First, an article from the Financial Times:

Climate change ‘could tip states into failure’
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: October 24 2006 03:00 | Last updated: October 24 2006 03:00
Global warming could endanger the political stability of entire nations, with a failing climate leading to more failed states, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, told the Financial Times on Monday.
Disputes over access to water and food resources were exacerbated by climate change, Ms Beckett said. “There are nations in a very delicate condition and [global warming] will tip some of them over into being failed states.”

Now, let’s hold that thought, and see what John Robb has to say about State Failure and why State Failure is relevant to the growth Global Guerrilla networks:

Science Friday’s coverage of Steven Johnson’s New Book

November 9th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

Interesting Science Friday show coming up. Great Book too, BTW.

One hundred fifty-some years ago, the London cholera epidemic changed how we fight infectious disease and gave birth to the field of epidemiology. Can the lessons learned from the epidemic help us with modern bioterrorism? Join Ira Flatow in this hour of Science Friday for a look back at the epidemic with author Steven Johnson. His new book ‘The Ghost Map’ looks at the work of pioneering epidemiologist John Snow and the medical detective work that helped stop London’s cholera outbreak.

On a related note, see my post over at Freedom to Tinker “Syndromic Surveillance: 21st Century Data Harvesting.” which discusses one of the components necessary for epidemiologists in the age of 5GW. Too bad, five years after 9/11, the USA still does not have a comprehensive Syndromic Surveillance System…

Rita, educating us all

November 29th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

Well, we can learn much from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, and, as noted several times here, there exists a whole set of connexions between Sustainability and War processes, especially in the way that they will both drive Urbanism/Urban Form in the next century or so. (When I say War here, I am referring to 5GW, as described and discussed over at John Robb’s excellent website Global Guerrillas.)

So, looking at the New Orleans Principles, a set set of ten guidelines for Sustainable development formulated in response to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, I am not at all surprised to find:

The Ghost Map & 5GW: The answer is blowing in the wind

December 9th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

John Robb has an interesting post in which two astute points are made, and flowing from these, an important question is raised. The answer to his question depends on our thinking across disciplines, to see a very similar structure in a problem that was solved in Victorian London. A comparative analysis of the differences and similarities of John’s question to the problem in Victorian London provides a clear path forward, showing us how to address John’s question.

The Free Press, Famines, and Disease Outbreaks

December 23rd, 2006 — enigma_foundry

There are so many little nuggets in Amartya Sen’s book Development as Freedom that I really don’t know where to start, as there were so many little post-it notes stuck at passages that I thought were either entertaining or made excellent points, or contained interesting perspectives on points I’d thought about before that I stopped trying to keep track about halfway through the book. But certainly a key observation was that there has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy which also had a functioning free press.

Brave New War, some comments regarding (slightly expanded)

May 29th, 2007 — enigmafoundry

John Robb’s book Brave New War is out, for awhile now, and I’ve just read some excerpts and reviews. I have every expectation that it is an excellent book, but of course I do have to read it first. I had enjoyed being a frequent commentator over at Global Guerillas and I enjoyed very much discussing the links between sustainability and war processes, and the new topology of globalization. I also think the cover art is exactly right, a cloud being generated from a part of a network (pipeline). The subtitle:The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization is also dead on.

Convergence

July 11th, 2007 — enigmafoundry

Amartya Sen had observed that a Free Press is the very best weapon against hunger. There has never been, he asserts, a famine in a modern nation that has both a Free Press and multi-party democracy. I had wondered a while back (in this post: The Free Press, Famines, and Disease Outbreaks) whether a free press might also play a similar role in the prevention of disease outbreaks, especially after observing that China (not free press and and not multiparty democracy) kept SARS under wraps for quite a while, and who knows what else they might be hiding, too (Public Health Issue in China Glossed over (again)?)

It’s clear that I am not the only one thinking about the connection between a free press and disease prevention and their role in politics; both the current US and Chinese administrations have been doing quite a bit of thinking along those lines, too. Only their thinking isn’t the most constructive, they are both suppressing information about public health issues.

NOT for Hypochondriacs

August 8th, 2007 — enigmafoundryAn interesting site, Who is sick, collects data from folks who volunteer the symptoms of their sickness. It then displays this information, in a clear, graphic way, which conveys a few of the key symptoms by use of a color-coded pie chart. Seems like a site that has the potential, if it catches on, of being on the very leading edge of public health threat detection. It is exactly the kind of a decentralized, open source effort that John Robb over at Global Guerillas has been talking about as a paradigm for fighting the global guerilla. Of course, Who is Sick is fighting illness, but it could also be fighting a bio-terror attack, too.

WMD’s found–in China (of course)

August 18th, 2007 — enigmafoundry

There was so much made of the possibility that Iraq had WMD’s that it’s really amazing that no one is making anything at all of WMD’s that have been found in China. But there is one there with some particularly alarming features:

This WMD has:

1. the capability of inflicting millions of dollars of damage to the USA, (and many other countries as well)

2. a delivery system that is within the reach of any government, or any terrorist group of any size. In fact the delivery system is low-tech and low cost, and is within the reach of most U.S. citizens with a passport.

A disease monitoring system, free in each box of FREE PRESS

August 23rd, 2007 — enigmafoundry

The WHO report also urges governments to be open about disease outbreaks, saying nearly half of all outbreak alerts it receives come from the media.

Modern travel does have a silver lining though, since a disease outbreak is unlikely to stay in any given country with a tightly controlled press for very long, even when that country is as big as China. So travelers bringing SARS out of China accidently also imported some of the benefits of a free press into China.

This ties in with the previous post, because this is just one of those unexpected benefits of having a free press, getting a disease monitoring system to boot, for free. So don’t throw away that free press, just yet anyway.