Here’s a little thought experiment.

Let’s say there is an island, say 12km by 12km, in a pleasant tropical environment with lush growth and plenty of edible and nutritious plants, a few animals, together with a water lens supplying a good supply of water. I think you would agree this would be a good place to live for a small tribe of people or perhaps even two separate tribes.

Let’s further imagine that this island is totally cut off from all outside contact.

The tribes spend their days gathering and hunting food, some fish from the immediate sea and perhaps even indulge in a little simple farming, yams and cassava maybe. Life’s pretty good but still hard at times.

As time goes on, the tribes develop some simple technologies, bows, simple axes, tanning techniques, etc. They start using more of the resources, to make themselves more comfortable, the quality of life improves and, at the same time, the population increases due to various factors like improved health.

This slow, but steady, population increase continues for some time and, at some point, they start to notice changes on the island. There are fewer animals because of the increase in hunting, parts of the forest have disappeared as many trees have been chopped down and have not had a chance to regrow. The good quality trees are getting harder to find. There have been arguments with the other tribe over access to some of the best trees and hunting areas. Some of the local streams near the tribe have become polluted by the toilet areas and people get sick if they drink the water there so they have to go to the streams further away. But generally, life is very good.

Now, at this point, an outside observer might note that, even though most of the people in the tribes may be enjoying a very good quality of life, the environment on the island is changing significantly. It might be apparent to these outside observers that the Island is at, or has exceeded, it’s carrying capacity for these people given their current lifestyles.

Furthermore, an outside observer may also note that, if there is not a change in behaviour or a reduction in numbers then the people on this island are at serious risk of famine, disease, war or some other calamity, including the catastrophic collapse of their supporting environment and with it, their collapse as well. There is no margin, no room to move, no buffer.

If some other event occurred at this point, then that could easily push this system past the point of equilibrium. This could be an earthquake which significantly reduces the water supply, or perhaps a volcanic eruption which covers half the island destroying the vegetation and animals. Or even a Tsunami which wipes out the beaches and access to fish and seafood.

The point is, that we can work out the carrying capacity for this island, we can make estimates, based on lifestyle and resource consumption, on the likely impacts of any particular number of people. We can analyse, quite easily, the rate of environmental degradation vs. the lifestyle of the tribes. We can do these things because it is a closed system, because we can measure the impacts, we can measure the consumption of resources, because we can model the impacts of changes to lifestyle and to numbers of people. It’s relatively straightforward. We can even model the impact of environmental changes, like the volcano, or earthquake or any number of other scenarios.

But, of course, we don’t live on a small island, isolated, cutoff from outside contact, with limited resources and an environment susceptible to pollution and degradation or at risk from significant environmental change.

No, we live on a very large island floating in space, with an effective land area of approximately 12,000km by 12,000km, lush growth and plenty of edible and nutritious plants, a few animals, together with a good supply of water…

Interesting that people can’t seem to work out the carrying capacity of that island.

Next week, on the 7th June, I’m attending a talk by Bill McKibben co-founder of 350.org called “Do the Math” and it promises to be a very interesting event.

“Do the Math” has been published in many places and is featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Read the intro here: But what does it all mean?

 We have 5 times more fossil fuels than it is safe to burn!

In a nutshell, it boils down to Three simple numbers

2 degrees — In Copenhagen, almost every country agreed to a 2 degree C (3.6F) target for temperature rise. We have already raised the temperature 0.8 degrees C, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.

565 gigatons — Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by mid-century and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. But since we’ve increased the Earth’s temperature by 0.8 degrees so far, we’re currently less than halfway to the target. But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we’re already 3/4 of the way to the 2 degree target.

2,795 gigatons– The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a team of London financial analysts and environmentalists estimate that proven coal, oil, and gas reserves of the fossil- fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies, equals about 2795 gigatons, or five times the amount we can burn to avoid 2 degrees.

The problem

• Known reserves of oil, coal and gas companies exceed 2,795 gigatons of CO2, or 5 times what we can burn if we want a decent shot at avoiding runaway climate change.
• The fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. They have no economic incentive to stop business as usual.
• Our political system is broken and has not yet grasped the seriousness of the problem.

The solution

• Only a global movement can gain enough strength to change our politics.
• A price on carbon is necessary to make renewable energy price competitive with fossil fuels, and to convince the biggest polluters to become clean energy producers
• We need to understand as a society that fossil fuel companies and their business plans are the problem.

So come and join other people equally committed to taking positive action at the “Do the Math” tour in Australia and be a part of this event. Clink on the link below for details

http://maths.350.org/australia/

Our washing machine broke last week. Oh no! What do we do? Repair or replace?

This is the third time there has been a major failure, not counting the warranty repairs. Now you might think that three times (plus warranty work) is a bit much for a modern appliance. And you would be right except…the last time there was a major failure was close to 6 years ago and the time before that was one year earlier, for a different part! The first failure didn’t occur until the machine was 8 years old!

We did have a an ongoing problem after the first repair that was finally sorted out after replacing a few components (it turned out that there was a faulty sensor) but, in reality, in 15 years we have only had to replace two controllers, two pumps and that mischievous sensor. I reckon that’s pretty good!

However, last week we had to decide what to do. Repair or replace?

The machine is getting on a bit and modern appliances have a reputation for having short lifetimes due to building down to a price and “planned obsolescence” (a particularly irritating euphemism). We finally got the repair company to give us an indicative, non-binding, “we will not be responsible for any number we give you over the phone” estimate of the possible range of prices that could be in the region of the actual price given that they had not sighted the machine and could not possibly know in advance what the actual problem might be (you know the drill), but they suggested that if we budgeted for between $300 to $400 we would be in the right ballpark.

Now a new machine of a similar size, in fact, the same basic model is still being made, would be not much more than $400 anyway so, we were faced with that, oh so, familiar dilemma. Repair or Replace? Especially when you consider that there would be a minimum call-out fee of $150.

That meant that we could:

1. spend up to $400 to get the old machine fixed and take the risk that there could be enough wrong with it (eg bearing damage) to make it effectively non-repairable or that it could fail very quickly, or
2. simply purchase a new machine for a little more than $400 and be done with it.

Of course, if we picked option 1 and it turned out that the machine could not be repaired we would be out of pocket $150 on top of the purchase price for a new one!

Aaaaarrrrghh! What do we do? Repair or Replace?

We talked about it for a while, gnashed our teeth, paced the floor, stared silently into space and then I said, “I really have a problem with throwing out, what seems to be, an otherwise perfectly good machine, I mean the motor is a direct drive and super reliable, the actual body looks in really good condition, the control panel is getting very worn but the buttons all seem to be working okay and it wasn’t making any strange grinding noises or anything before it broke down, was it?”

“No”, she said, “it has been running fine until last night when it slowed right down and then wouldn’t start and just started making that humming noise”.

“Hmmm”, I replied, “I reckon, we take risk of blowing the $150 and get them in to fix it”.

“I agree”, she said, “I don’t like to idea of throwing it away either!”

So we arranged for the repairer to come in and fix it and, that was that!

Or was it…?

The repairer came in and had a quick look, turned to me and said, “This looks like it might be a expensive repair and this is a very old machine, you know you could get new machine for around the same price. If there are other problems like the bearings for instance, it won’t be worth fixing. Are you sure you want to go ahead?”

Oh no! Again? Really? Repair or Replace?

I pointed out that we had already spent $150 when he walked through the door and he agreed that apart from the fault(s) or the bearings, which he couldn’t test until it was running, the machine was in very good condition. So we agreed to have him repair it.

So, one controller and a pump plus about 25 minutes of his time and $388 later, we had a working washing machine! Yay!

He said that, apart from the worn control panel, the machine appeared to be as good as new, so that is good news. This time, at least, we made the right call and the machine should give us many years of service.

In any case, I’m happy that we had it repaired, even if it had cost us the same or maybe even a bit more I would still prefer to have had it fixed. Eventually, however, it will, like most things, be non-repairable and we will have to replace it. But how will we know? Is there a foolproof way of deciding that without spending time and money on the decision? I don’t think so.

So next time it breaks down, what will we do?

Repair or Replace?

When talking about sustainability, one of the things that pops up frequently is the ability to repair things rather throwing them out. One of the three “R’s”. Where we can, we will repair things rather then replacing them. We are going through this process with the washing machine at the moment. We not sure if we will save much money by repairing but the thought of throwing away a machine that can be repaired just doesn’t sit well with us.

Often, the problem when trying to repair an item, especially an appliance, is not so much the lack of skill but trying the source the part needed. Sometimes it is just ridiculously expensive but, more likely, it is simply not available. Maybe it is out of production or maybe it was never made as a spare part in the first place. Then there’s the problem of having to buy a pack of 20 widgets when you only need one or two. This applies to lots of little items, not just spare parts.

Wouldn’t it be nice, and potentially more sustainable, if you could just specify or design the part you wanted and then “print” it out just like a picture. Well you can, using 3D printer technology!

3D printer technology has been around for a few years now but it is getting cheap enough that you can by an easy to use printer that can print out all sorts of plastic parts on an 3D Printer costing less that $1500.

Even amongst those who know, 3D printers are a lot better than many people may realise. The little $1400 off the shelf printer can do a very good job at simple plastic parts, gears, toys, retaining clips, ornaments, custom jewelry, odd shaped spare parts for all manner or things. In fact there are websites that contains a plethora of things that you can buy or download fro free and just print directly on the printer. A good starting point is http://www.thingiverse.com/.

If you want to spend $10,000 – $30,000, there are printers that can print very high definition, full colour, high impact, high performance plastic parts. These can be used for some serious engineering and prototyping or to make that hard to get replacement part for heavy duty use.

Spend some more and you can print multiple materials, including metals, and the price of all these printers are coming down while the capabilities are going up.

There are even some printers that work with organic material that can print arteries and other surgical implants that are being used now without having to do grafts or wait for donors.

The other side of the coin is that high quality, 3d design open-source software and, more importantly, 3D scanning software and hardware is readily available and dead easy to use. So it is, literally, child’s play to scan real parts and make and/or modify replicas.

With the advent of nano technology, and the advances they’re making in lab’s around the world building things atom by atom, in not too many years the complexity of products that can be printed will truly astound you (and possibly scare the hell out of you as well)

I wrote article for a sustainability magazine (ReNew Magazine) that looked future technologies including 3D printing and, after I wrote the article, I started to talk to people about some of the possibilities. How’s this for a sample scenario that I often use as an example.

It will be possible, using nano technology, to develop a printer that can print, say, a laptop. Now that’s pretty impressive, the case, the screen and the electronics including the computer chip, circuit board, everything! Wow! But how about the batteries? Yep! fully charged! Double Wow!

It would come out of the printer complete and with a fully charged battery! But wait! There’s more…

The software on the hard disk is nothing more than magnetised regions on a metallic platter or charges in solid state memory. So the printer can print them, and hence the software at the same time. Not only that, but it could print the laptop in hibernation.

That means you could take the laptop from the 3d printer, open it up and it would resume from the suspended state, with all the required software installed and a program (probably advertising) up and running and presenting information on the screen!

Once you’ve got your head around concepts like that, the thought of what a few, shall we say, unpleasant characters, could do with that kind of technology is frightening

But equally, the thought of how we could simplify and democratise manufacturing, reduce transport needs, and reduce waste through only “printing” what we needed is truly liberating.

Imagine being able to simply print what you needed, when you needed without worrying about all the processes, overheads and consumer pressure that we face today.

Suddenly, those replicators in Star Trek don’t look so far fetched after all!

Image from howstuffworks.com who also have a good article on nanotechnology

What do think, a better world? Maybe! It will certainly be a different world!