Courtesy of xkcd.com

Nada.  Niente.  Nought.  Nil.  Nothing.

There’s astounding power in Zero, these days.  The latest mystifying aspiration on the post-industrial development path.  An aspiration towards… Nothing.

“Zero tolerance“
“Zero carbon“
“Zero fat“
“Size zero“
“Zero interest“

The list goes on. 

When did “zero” become the hallmark of innovation, progress and success? 

At what point did our pursuit of “something” become so monotonous that we shifted our goal to “nothing”?  And indeed, can “nothing” ever be reached?

Major global brands are now marketing themselves on the premise of Zero.  There must be money in nothing. 

But what kind of modernity is Zero? 

Maybe we’ve come full circle.  0.

Image courtesy of www.coastalcare.org

The islands of the Pacific Ocean, including the low-lying atolls of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati among others, have begun to witness first-hand the signs of climate change-induced sea level rise.  All three island groups have experienced severe flooding by storms and high tides, and saltwater intrusion into wells and soils is threatening livelihoods and health.  Encroaching seas are eroding the atolls at faster rates than predicted.  In the state of Kiribati, two islands – Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea - have already disappeared beneath rising seas.  The South Pacific Regional Environment Programme confirms that others are at risk.  In the Indian Ocean, the beaches of the Maldives are also being swept away.

Sea level rise occurred at an average rate of 1.8mm per year during the past century.  Predictions for the current century anticipate a total rise between 90 and 880mm, the upper limits of which would overwhelm a large proportion of the coral atolls.  What will happen if entire populations are forced to abandon their homelands?  Where would they go, and who would they become?  Would they still be ‘nations’, albeit disenfranchised?  Would they still have a unified voice in international politics, and rights to their natural resources?

We’re facing a set of issues unique in the history of the system of nation-states.  We’re confronting existential issues associated with climate impacts that are not adequately addressed in the international legal framework.”   Dean Bialek, Adviser to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (in interview with The Associated Press)

While nations have declined through secession, conquest, or by ceding their territory to other countries, never in history has a country physically disappeared, and the law is not prepared to deal with such a scenario.  The 1951 United Nations’ Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which asserts that nations must shelter those fleeing from persecution, does not cover the situation of those whose homeland is lost to the sea.  Likewise, the continued recognition of a displaced state as a legal entity seems open to the interpretation and tolerance of the international community; most significantly, whether the United Nations General Assembly would opt to relinquish their seat at the table.

Economic rights are likewise in question.  Take, for example, the Marshall Islands’ 29 atolls, which give them an economic zone of 800,000 square miles of ocean, from which natural resources may be gathered exclusively by the Marshallese community or others to whom licenses are sold.  If the islands are submerged, what becomes of their rights to resources and fishing – the foundations of their national economy?

Small island states contribute only 0.6 per cent of all global warming pollution, but they are already suffering disproportionately the impacts of a changing climate.  In Cancun, representatives from the Marshall Islands sought international aid for climate change adaptation, to re-plant protective shoreline vegetation; construct a 3-mile sea wall to protect the capital city, Majuro; and to guard the causeway linking Jaluit island to its airport from continued inundation by the sea.  Without such measures, the islands may become uninhabitable long before they are submerged.  If financial and diplomatic tools are unsuccessful, there is speculation that some countries will move for legal measures, including appeals to the International Court of Justice for compensation from the world’s leading polluters.  But how to put a price on a lost homeland, devastated livelihoods, a diluted cultural identity, and an uncertain future?

These are questions somewhat removed from the international negotiations on mitigation and emissions reductions, but equally as fundamental.  Even if the world were to curb its emissions of greenhouse gases overnight, the impacts of past excesses could not be entirely avoided and the fate of the small island nations would continue to hang in the balance.  This realisation must be the most real and urgent call to action on climate change adaptation yet?

Speed as consequence of slowness

In one of Speed Limits’ talks, Guy Nordensen, a professor of architecture and structural engineering at Princeton University and the founder of engineering giant Arup’s New York City arm, linked speed with its slower kin:  resoluteness, deliberation, tenacity, and premeditation.  Emphasizing the importance of thoroughness and thoughtfulness in the development and experiencing of new methodologies, Nordensen draws parallels between the advancement of technology with the unlikeliest of subjects:  poetry and samurai sword making.

>> Read on at The Owl’s Post.

Slowness as consequence of speed

Professor Jeff Meikle of University of Texas – Austin analyzes speed from a different perspective in Speeding Towards Statis, another Speed Limits talk.  Centered on what he calls the “central paradox of modernity”, Meikle focuses on the beginnings of streamlined architecture in the United States during the 1930s, which pulled away from ostentatiousness and ornamentation in its architectures and industrial structures (it was the Great Depression, after all) and began to more increasingly focus on simplicity, austerity, and speed.

>> More, at The Owl’s Post.

Meikle makes an excellent point:  what is all of this speed for if it gets us nowhere and seems to hold nothing dear or sacred?  Therein lies what he calls the “central paradox of modernity”:

No matter how impressive is technology in our daily life or in social relationships, no matter how tenacious our attempts to enjoy the results of  our modernization…everything we rely on will be swept away in accelerating process of continuous transformation.  Speed, sometimes a literal multiplier of the process, sometimes a metaphor through which to represent it, is of the essence.”

In other words, Meikle asks:  should the means also be the end?  Upon continuing his talk, we discover not only the answer (no, speed is not an end), but also his elegant solution to this paradox of modernity, which he summarized, most appropriately, in four simple words:  “hurry up and stop”.  The increasingly faster machines, modes of transportation, and technologies are not only meant to get us from Point A to B in minimal time, but are also meant to allow us to take more time in enjoying the results, the destination.  Meikle also adds that the increasingly streamlined stylings of transportation, mass products, and commercial environments not only celebrate modernity, but also interestingly reflect and even mimic the more organic, unornamented forms found in nature…the very thing that lamentors of modernity initially feared losing.

Hurry up and stop, then, shall we?  Life awaits.

I – am – in – the – slow - read – ers’ - group – my – broth – er – is – in – the – foot – ball – team – my – sis – ter – is – a – ser – ver – my – lit – tle – broth – er – was – a – wise – man – in – the – in -fants’ - Christ – mas – play – I – am – in – the – slow – read – ers’ – group – that – is – all – I – am – in – I – hate – it.”     Slow Reader from Please Mrs. Butler, Allan Ahlberg (Penguin, 1983)

Please Mrs. Butler - a favourite from my childhood, recalled via Jill’s opening contribution to this third diablogue.  I can remember being amused by the poem Slow Reader, as I was by all of Ahlberg’s poems, which cast a comedic light over school tales at a time when school itself was an obstacle to Fun.  What I didn’t appreciate, however, was the darker side of this poem.  Looking back on it as an adult, it seems a poignant reflection on a child’s upbringing in modern society, where speed is the essence from Day One.

Image courtesy of www.singletracks.com

The question I want to ask is this: How, and why, has speed become a metric for success?

In the classroom, those slow to grasp words and numbers are deemed less fortunate than their speedier classmates and are quickly placed ‘bottom of the class’.  On the sports field, the children who lag behind in a race or struggle to keep pace in a game are considered unworthy of making the team, and instead stand at the sidelines awaiting the tiredness of a faster player.  When it comes to exams, if you can’t think fast enough or scrawl with sufficient haste to finish in the allotted time, you’re penalised in the grading system such that your prospects of success may be damaged for years to come.  Irrelevant is the fact that you can think, write, run, read, add, subtract (and may do so more accurately than others); if it can’t be done quickly, well, better luck next time.  Whatever the proverb might suggest, slow and steady does not win the race.

This is The Pace of Life.  Jump on the treadmill at the age of three, and scramble.  Keep scrambling.  Because the pace only quickens with time.  Pass through university, which - granted – carries us at varying speeds of ‘dead slow’, ‘stop’, and ‘scramble like fury’, and enter… The Rat Race.  If you’re a glutton for speed, you’ll choose The Urban Rat Race.  The City, where speed brings new anonymity, even hostility, to fellow mortals.  Take New York, “the city that never sleeps”, where people hurry through life often oblivious to their surroundings, rarely acknowledging others even when jostled unceremoniously against each other on the subway.  How did it come to be that “every second counts” so much that people are willing to squeeze uncomfortably into a crowded train each morning, face pressed against the window and inhaling the bodily odour of a co-traveller’s armpit, simply to save the two-minute wait for the next, emptier train?  How did we reach the stage where people will brazenly grumble, groan and nip the heels of pedestrians dawdling unhurriedly along a city street?  Can’t take The Pace?  Get out of the city!

But in the urgency of modern life, there are refreshing moments of stillness.  Travelling home this evening, I stumbled across a heart-warming scene.  Typically, as the train stopped, passengers spilled from the opening doors and darted across one another in conflicting directions, in their anxiety to reach ‘Destination Next’.  A busker was playing what I think was a bouzouki, in a lilting melody of highs and lows to which (again, typically) most passers-by turned a blind eye.  Until one little girl, young enough still to be untouched by the demon of speed, stopped to watch.  And as she watched, she began to dance.  Freely, in the subway station, without a care in the world, she danced.  And as she danced, the frantic dashers-by stopped to watch.  And not only did they watch, they smiled.

The scene lasted for just a few moments, like a piece of slow motion film in a Hollywood blockbuster, before the onlookers gathered themselves up and remembered where they had to be.  But it was a moment that reminded me how much we miss as we speed through life.  There’s pleasure in slowness, which shouldn’t be forgotten.  There’s quality of life and of living.  Are we really such important stakeholders in the world these days, that catastrophe might strike if we pause awhile?

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”   

Image courtesy of www.treehugger.com

I remember learning to read at the age of four.  My first word?  Business, from the top of the Business section of my grandfather’s Manila Times.  I read it phonetically:  “bi-zee-ness”, over and over, rolling it around like a gumball (or a Lemon Warhead.  Oh, man.  Where do they sell those around here?).  Ever since then, I’ve had quite the obsession with reading, writing, words in general.  I’m even dorky enough to admit that the two things I’m proudest of having done with words are, in order:  sounding out “business” at the age of four, and having the ability to read—and memorize—fast.

Really, really fast.

>> More at The Owl’s Post.

There is apparently even a movement for leisurely page-turning:  Slow Reading, a trend that, like Slow Food or Slow Travel, encourages participants to revel more in the experience, in the medium, rather than mere results.  It encourages pauses, thinking, feeling, maybe even extrapolating what one has just read into other thoughts, past experiences, ideas and sources.  It also defends the idea of taking one’s time while reading, and justifiably so—as I’ve just written, speed doesn’t necessarily translate into superior ability, comprehension, or analysis.

Why, I think I’ll like this Slow Reading business so much, I might even start Slow Writing.

GDP measures a country’s annual economic output; the value of all goods and services made within national borders during a year.  This economic measure has long been adopted as an indicator of a nation’s quality of life, on the assumption that the benefits of high national output are shared equally among citizens, leading to increased personal incomes and improved standards of living.  But the flaws in this theory are increasingly recognised.  Not only does it overlook the fact that national economic activity and personal income can be completely decoupled (see individual earnings in the United States between 1990 and 2006, compared with GDP), it also fails to consider the negative externalities that arise alongside economic growth.  Externalities may include, among other things, environmental degradation, erosion of natural resources, social inequities and poor human development, which can threaten the quality of life within any context of economic growth.  By neglecting the ‘bads’ associated with higher production, GDP overstates the true economic wellbeing of a country and its citizens.  Indeed, Simon Kuznets, the architect of GDP, noted in his first report to Congress (1934) that

the welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.”

Image courtesy of http://web.worldbank.org/

Theorists and critics the world over have put forward alternative indicators thought to better reflect a country’s prosperity.  Challenges have emanated from international organisations (the United Nations gave us the Human Development Index as a combined measure of GDP, life expectancy and education); the non-profit sector (see the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Index, and the New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index); as well as from national governments.  In 2008, the government of Bhutan adopted Gross National Happiness (GNH) as its mechanism for monitoring national progress in terms of human wellbeing.  In a more high profile attack on GDP prior to the 2009 G-20 Summit, President Sarkozy of France called for a “revolution” against financial statistics, to acknowledge the wider influences on a nation’s wellbeing.  Sarkozy’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress is mandated to explore a more appropriate metric for ‘progress’, under the leadership of eminent economists Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi.

It is against this commotion that the latest proposition emerged in Japan last week, as the World Bank stood up in agreement that “our failure to properly value ecosystems” has led to the alarming decline of global biodiversity.  Picking up the conclusions of a United Nations’ study on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), the Bank announced a new global partnership to integrate the economic benefits of ecosystems into national accounts.  “The natural wealth of nations should be a capital asset valued in combination with its financial capital, manufactured capital, and human capital”, said the Bank’s President, Robert Zoellick.  By factoring the cost of environmental degradation into economic calculations, it is anticipated that the development trajectory of nations would be set on a more sustainable course.

This is tantalising talk, and with the World Bank at its roots, perhaps this sapling initiative has the potential to bear fruit across a broader geography than others have achieved.  But how will governments really take to the notion of a new metric, which rebalances the books to revise the sum of national accounts downwards?  Call me a pessimist, but it seems to me that GDP is so engrained into the modern economic psyche, that no more holistic metric could possibly take precedence.  To do so would need a radical overhaul of accepted wisdom, and a whole host of more enlightened political leaders.  And what is more, even if the World Bank’s initiative does win political appeal, will we ever achieve a metric that accounts for all things and all people?  What place for the social indicators that others have espoused?  Is there any metric comprehensive enough to provide the full picture of truly sustainable development?

Image courtesy of Bloomberg Businessweek

SKS Microfinance, India’s largest microlender, went public this past July, reaping over $350 million in its IPO.  This groundbreaking move has generated both record profits and a heated pro/con debate.  With recent turbulence at its helm—CEO Suresh Gurumani departed earlier this fall after apparent incompatibilities with founder Vikram Akula and SKS’s board—followed by accompanying turbulence in the Bombay Stock Exchange (due to investors nervous about the CEO’s firing), SKS’s IPO glow is fast fading, replaced by tough questions and, most prominently, the ever-nagging conflict presented by the opposing goals of an MFI (altruism) and its stockholders (profits).

Before SKS went public, Grameen Bank founder (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Muhammad Yunus openly criticised the much-anticipated IPO,  emphasizing the main objective of microlending, which is to help eradicate poverty, versus the main objective of stockholders, which is to make profits.  Though this contrast is indisputably true, proponents of the IPO fairly underscored the difficulties faced by MFIs when it comes to fundraising.

>> Read on at The Owl’s Post