Tired Road Warrior

According to Time Magazine, the 17th best invention of 2009 is:  “The Planetary Skin.”

“What happens to Earth when a forest is razed or energy use soars?  We don’t know because environmental data are collected by isolated sources, making it impossible to see the whole picture.  With the theory that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, NASA and Cisco have teamed up to develop Planetary Skin, a global “nervous system” that will integrate land-, sea-, air-, and space-based sensors, helping the public and private sectors make decisions to prevent and adapt to climate change.  The pilot project–a prototype is due by 2010–will track how much carbon is held by rain forests and where.”

This is the type of effort I would like to see on a river-basin scale.

After flying from Utah to New Mexico, we headed north out of Albuquerque and then turned left at Taos.  After crossing the volcanic Rio Grande Canyon, we arrived at Earthship, a troglodyte community located in the New Mexico desert.  While waiting for our host, we walked around the visitors center . . . and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into?

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Time Magazine (Sept 28, 2009) has an interesting short article on Wikepedia:

“. . . early in 2007, something strange happened:  Wikipedia’s growth line flattened.  People suddenly became reluctant to create new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages.”

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It is estimated that 8,000 homes in the Navajo Nation are without reliable water.  And many are without commercial power.  The Indian Health Service (IHS) and Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) will not be able to provide services to many of these homes anytime in the foreseeable future because of geographic isolation and cost constraints.  At stake is the traditional culture of the Navajos.  As they move into subdivision to get “modern” conveniences, they are increasingly separated from their pastoral heritage.

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I feel strongly that members of the human race are co-creators of the Earth with God.  That we will be held accountable for the impact we have on this planet.  The creation was not a static event, but very much a dynamic event.  The earth is evolving even as I write.

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The following article appeared as a side bar in Government Executive (July 2009).  It illustrates some of the collaboration potential of the new electronic media options:

“When the U.S. Coast Guard’s Boutwell made a recent port call in Djibouti, Commandant Adm. Thad Allen boarded the high-endurance cutter for an all-hands meeting with the crew.  The Boutwell is circling the globe, so Allen figured it would be nice to shoot some video “shout outs” with the crew and post them on the Web, so families could see and hear their loved ones during the deployment.  It was a typical gesture for Allen.  Rarely does a day pass when he or his aides aren’t posting photos, video or a blog item for anyone who wants to know what he’s up to.

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At one of the 2009 SLC Sunstone workshops, a Weber State Professor — Michael J. Stevens — taught a short course in management.  He described 4 types of managers ranging from disrespectful to respectful, and dominant to submissive:

Q1:  Imposer — makes authoritarian decisions

Q2:  Ignorer — avoids or postpones decisions

Q3:  Ingratiator — wants everyone to be “one happy family”

Q4:  Integrator — promotes self-direction in others

With the ideal being Q4. 

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I’ve always been impressed with real-time monitoring and control technologies and their ability to improve conditions on the earth.  But I had never fully thought through where these technologies might be headed long-term.  One possibility is:  they are paving the way for sophistricated forms of geoengineering.  The whole idea of geoengineering is starting to get buzz in the popular press.

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I just gave my employer 40 hours (5 working days) that I can never get back.  My sentence:  Manditory supervisory training.  The upside:  It gave me a lot of time to contemplate my “philosophy” of management . . . and occasionally discuss it with the class. 

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After 400 years, the Vatican is rethinking its image of Galileo Galilei.  Instead of being a heretic, he is being recast as a man of faith.  Top Vatican officials are now saying that Galileo should be named the “patron” of the dialogue between science and religion.  But this embrace only goes so far.  There were plans in 2008 to place a statue of Galileo in the Vatican gardens, in honor of his invention of the telescope.  These plans were scrapped, no explanation given.

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