Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00012649
TPB / TVM CONNECTIONS
SOME DIALOG FROM 2017
Includes Peter Burgess ... Tim Foresman ... Mark Roest ... Claudia Freed
SOME DIALOG FROM 2017
Includes Peter Burgess ... Tim Foresman ... Mark Roest ... Claudia Freed
Original article:
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Hot stuff!
10 messages
Mark Roest
To: Peter Burgess
Dear Peter,
I just thought of you while reading something really great:
http://unstats.un.org/UNSD/envaccounting/eea_project/default.asp
It would probably be both cool and strategic to examine the way ecosystem accounting was incorporated into the economic measures, and craft a strongly parallel translation (porting in computerese) of your societal benefit measures. The point made on the page from which I found this (#12650)
You might check in with Timothy Foresman, Ph.D., a pioneer in Geographic Information Systems, about how to use GIS to do it spatially. He may be in D.C. now.
Mark Roest
To: Peter Burgess
And then the update!
http://biodiversity.europa.eu/maes
Regards,
Mark [Quoted text hidden] foresman@earthparty.org
To: Mark Roest
Thanks Mark: Yes, back in the US of A, just in time for the Coronation.
Robert Costanza (currently in Australia) was pioneer in ecosystems services and economics. The UN Stats Division is lead on Sustainable Development Goals and Indicators with ongoing work on how to measure and map the SDGS and Indicators. Some of the indicators are derived from the ecosystem measures. Not rapid action should be expected but it puts more people in harmony on this topic. ESRI is keen to show leadership with their green infrastructure mapping, which has them partnering with National Geographic and others.
The score cards have been ongoing with the Global Environmental Outlook series (GEO).
Cheers, Tim
Dr Tim Foresman, President International Center for Remote Sensing Education 6219 Rockburn Hill Road Elkridge, Maryland 21075 USA +1 410-707-7352 foresman@earthparty.org www.icrsed.org [Quoted text hidden]
Mark Roest
Hello Tim and Peter,
Around 2000 to 2001, 1200 scientists, mostly ecologists, in an 18-month project, delineated the boundaries of 823 eco-regions, funded by World Wildlife Fund and National Geographic. WWF did short monographs on many of the eco-regions (consistent patterns of ecosystems), and NG did lay-language intros in their trademarked style.
'Something happened,' and NG dropped out of the picture, and the number of eco-regions went to 867. All unexplained.
The shape files (at 867) remained on the WWF website under Terrestrial Eco-regions.
WWF extended the eco-regions to freshwater and saltwater eco-regions.
WWF developed a hydrology package that can be used to predict flooding, and for other water management uses.
I consider eco-regions to be the most efficient scale for designing sustainable economies, partly because 'consistent patterns of ecosystems' means some redundancy -- write once, use several, and partly because of the larger differences among eco-regions. Since in many cases, cultures co-evolved with ecosystems, this also gives an opportunity for the people in related ecosystems to plan complementary sustainable economies together, and for each to bring their knowledge and practices to bear on the designs for their ecosystems. Many of the pieces appear to be available to support developing a knowledgebase in a relatively short time. I'm working on some funding possibilities that may eventually make it possible.
Regards,
Mark [Quoted text hidden]
Peter Burgess
To: Mark Roest
Cc: Tim Foresman
Dear Mark / Tim
Happy New Year ... and thanks for this dialog. It makes a pleasant change from the 'news' in the media!
I went to this event in Manhattan last Thursday run by the Global Sourcing Council ... another initiative that has some of the right ideas by probably unlikely to get much traction!
http://hnb888.wixsite.com/gsc2017?rsvp=84d4497b-4024-4291-8246-66e5a19e3f4f
https://vimeo.com/199361644/dd1f5aecfb
I went to this event in part to meet Evan Harvey of Nasdaq (Sustainability) and Arnaud Brohe of CO2logic (Carbon Accounting) ... both of who are starting to overlap with the work I am trying to do. Another part was to listen in on a dialog about how corporate initiatives and the new SDGs were going to fit together. In the end I was rather unimpressed because the conversation was not very much different than it had been a couple of decades ago!
So Mark, it was only then I got to look at all the material you forwarded to me and Tim ... and then to try and figure out what I knew already and what was new. The good news is that there are many more people interested in these issues than a decade ago ... and the technology is a huge amount more powerful ... but the improvement in UNDERSTANDING of how the global socio-enviro-economic system works and how to measure PROGRESS and PERFORMANCE and how to use data in a way that gives incentive for better decisions is not developing so fast.
I am encouraged that there is a growing interest in PLACE which has been part of my agenda since I was in South Sudan in the 1980s ... and saw the amazing difference in the area around Juba and the area around Yei ... and the changes that resulted from quite modest flows of development investment (mainly through UNHCR as a result of the Ugandan refugee population). Over time I came to realize that the UN agencies and the World Bank were mainly organized around sector specialties which works in terms of technical understanding ... but if I live in a PLACE, I want to have access to ALL the sectors that I need in my place ... roads and schools and clinics and trade and employment and water and food and ... and ... and. The absence of an essential sector makes a decent quality of life impossible.
If we knew as much about the economics and the society and the ecosystem in a place as we know about everything that goes into making a profit in an organization the world would be a much better place ... but money profit accounting is not good enough for the analysis of progress and performance of place ... rather we need a framework of accounting that reflects the change in state (balance sheet) of the place where the balance sheet includes the state of people and the state of the ecosystem as well as the state of money wealth in the place.
I am still guided by something I learned early in my career when I was a corporate CFO and subsequently was called on to run a factory. By using relevant data in a very specific way it was possible to get far better decisions than when we merely ranted about how poor the performance was and how it should be much better dammit! Most people have little idea how to design data systems so that they are effective for decision making ... but without this data are not very much use. So the data architecture that I want to see has to be useful when disaggregated for decision making and easy to summarize for broader overview assessment. The former is needed to change behavior ... the latter is needed to keep politicians and policy makers occupied.
My thinking on all of this is getting much clearer ... though my presentation ( as in my website) remains pretty messy ... and I still have not completed my thinking about how the generalized architecture of a data system can be quantified in a coherent way. This quantification is not measuring in money ... but in several relatively simple measures around quality of life for people and ecosystem performance for nature.
Thank you for alerting me to this again ... it is very much appreciated. I would be happy to talk some more about all of this at your respective conveniences.
Peter
_____________________________ Peter Burgess ... Founder and CEO TrueValueMetrics ... Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society True Value Accounting ... Multi Dimension Impact Accounting http://www.truevaluemetrics.org LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peterburgess1/ Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/PeterBurgess2/ Twitter: @truevaluemetric @peterbnyc Telephone: 570 202 1739 Email: peterbnyc@gmail.com Skype: peterbinbushkill [Quoted text hidden]
foresman@earthparty.org
To: Peter Burgess
Peter: I did not realize you were a UN veteran.
Many lessons learned, I am sure.
Foresman Quote:
You can lead a horse to data, but you can't make him think.
I too have had sufficient exposure to data designs and how to use data to possibly add to your dialog. I am convinced that 'data visualization for community-based decision support' is the correct region to explore. Digital Earth (and Google Earth) were nurtured on the utopian vision of ubiquitous access to data that could inform decisions. It is currently the 7.3 billion consumer decisions that are pushing a tragic trajectory for our reality
For Earth's Sake, keep up the good work.
Cheers, Tim
Dr Tim Foresman, President International Center for Remote Sensing Education 6219 Rockburn Hill Road Elkridge, Maryland 21075 USA +1 410-707-7352 foresman@earthparty.org www.icrsed.org
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Hot stuff! [Quoted text hidden] Peter Burgess
Dear Tim / Mark
Time flies ... I think it was something to do with the Woman's March ... or was it the inauguration!
... and donkeys are worse than horses ......
In many ways I have been incredibly fortunate ... I read engineering before economics and then later trained as a Chartered Accountant. Engineering requires some rigor around facts and measures (otherwise the plane won't fly, the bridge will fall down, etc) ... economics I found to be incredibly sloppy in its approach to numbering, but it really didn't matter because goals were quite fuzzy. To my surprise accounting (double entry accounting) was very rigorous, very principled and very much like the metrics of engineering thermodynamics. I was quite successful as a very young CFO because I had some understanding that you improved profits by fixing the factory or redesigning the product, not merely fiddling the books.
My initiative to do independent consulting was not very successful ... the idea that an Englishman could tell an American company what to do was pretty silly (back in the 1970s) and most of the work that came my way was international ... which then resulted in work with the UN and the World Bank ... and a huge learning curve. Clearly my idea of corporate management information and that of the UN was very different ... and though I did quite a lot of work in the development and humanitarian assistance field ... eventually my criticism of the system caught up with me, or perhaps I simply aged out of the system, or both. My advocacy for better accountancy as a solution to corruption did not help. Nevertheless I did some fascinating work with the UN/World Bank in more than 50 countries including places like Malawi, Namibia, Afghanistan to name just three.
The good news is I learned a lot ... not least is that we need a PEOPLE focused socio-enviro-economic management information system that also has a data architecture that works for NATURAL CAPITAL in all its forms and for everything else that has been put together ... something I call PEOPLE BUILT SYSTEMS which comprise our FINANCIAL CAPITAL system, all the PHYSICAL CAPITAL systems and structures, and INTANGIBLE CAPITAL that comprises enabling environments, laws, governance, knowledge, institutions, etc etc.
PEOPLE are the central focus, and they live in a PLACE, and they work in an ORGANIZATION, and they use PRODUCTS to support their QUALITY OF LIFE.
NATURE supports everything. All FINANCIAL WEALTH has its origins with NATURE, and all PHYSICAL CAPITAL has been transformed in some ways (PROCESSES) from NATURE.
PRODUCTS flow through a supply chain (I prefer a supply stream) accumulating their own profile (cumulated balance sheet, if you will) going from process to process, from organization to organization, from place to place and eventually are the buy or not to buy decision for PEOPLE in support of their quality of life.
PROCESS needs to be better understood ... the goal needs to be not so much to have a profitable process, but a process that is efficient from the point of view of impact on both society and the environment. The United States has some very profitable processes, but at the same time some of the most inefficient in terms of social and environmental impact.
ORGANIZATIONS already have very powerful accounting for all their money transactions and related reporting. There are rapidly growing efforts to improve the reporting around social (CSR, ESG, etc) and environmental (IR, GRI, etc) matters, but in general these systems are not accounting but something far less rigorous. My goal is to get to a system that is based on standard impact profiles rather like standard costs that flow through impact accounts.
PLACE is where PEOPLE live and everything else happens. The QUALITY OF LIFE for PEOPLE is the most important characteristic of a PLACE while doing the least amount of damage to the ENVIRONMENT / NATURAL CAPITAL. All sorts of PEOPLE BUILT SYSTEMS are required to support QUALITY OF LIFE and all sorts of PRODUCT flows.
So ... the big question! What is going to be the best way to get information about a PLACE so that better decisions can be made for the benefit of the PLACE and the PEOPLE in the PLACE. How should information be collected? How should information be stored? How should information be used?
The good news is that technology is a whole lot more powerful than when I first installed a mainframe computer in 1967 .. 4K of memory and the size of a Starbucks coffee shop. At this point technology does not seem to be the constraint, but much more my own capacity to know what to can do and how to do it. I really do not have much interest in data per se, but a deep interest in what can do to help make better decisions.
HELP!
All the best
Peter
_____________________________ Peter Burgess ... Founder and CEO TrueValueMetrics ... Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society True Value Accounting ... Multi Dimension Impact Accounting http://www.truevaluemetrics.org LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peterburgess1/ Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/PeterBurgess2/ Twitter: @truevaluemetric @peterbnyc Telephone: 570 202 1739 Email: peterbnyc@gmail.com Skype: peterbinbushkill
[Quoted text hidden] Claudia Freed
Hi Peter,
My friend!! I hope you have not been too worried about me. Things are extremely busy at EAL as I prepare to face my Board on Feb 11. Much to talk about that. Great news is that today we got word our highly anticipated meeting with Grainger WILL take place on Feb 10. On the family front, I continue to spend endless hours worrying about Marc’s health (more about that later) and to complicate things, my daughter Victoria was given 30 days’ notice that her boss doesn’t like her (personality conflict they call it) and she is now figuring out what to do… GRRR and let’s not even talk about the national news. Good news there is that Erica went to Washington to be part of the WM. She was hired by the NY Nurses Union and went to play drums to make some noise (literally!)
I will try to find time to say on skype in the next few days! Please drop me a line and tell me how you are as well.
Best, Claudia
Claudia Freed
President & CEO at EALgreen
O: 630-690-0694
M: 630-670-3321 Claudia@ealgreen.org
See how we're connected...
View my profile on LinkedIn
From: Peter Burgess [mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:34 PM To: Tim Foresman
Subject: Re: Hot stuff!
[Quoted text hidden]
Mark Roest
Dear Peter and all,
Check out Ian McHarg, Design With Nature, in the 1970s or 60s. He had acetate slides that filled part of the function of a GIS system today. Beyond that, Tim may have contact information for the Yukon Watershed tribes that he announced, at ISDE5 in 2007, had been granted control of the ecology of the whole watershed -- 26 tribes, I think, learned to work together and sent some of their youth to community college to learn ecosystems management from a western science perspective, over a 20-year period -- and the tribes also taught their own methodologies.
That follows Hegel: thesis (traditional), antithesis (modern science), and a synthesis of the two.
Traditional management systems went beyond simply seeking to avoid damage. They proactively manage any significant variable, with great sophistication. For instance, a northern Canada tribe would have the younger hunters report on everything they saw in their assigned hunting range over the previous year to the elders, who would interpret the data to form a holistic assessment of the state of each species, and would tell them how much of each to harvest the following year. So, for instance, they clearly understood the classic snowshoe hare and lynx population cycle -- but they would know literally hundreds of interactions, from thousands of years of co-evolution with their ecosystems. The knowledge would be embedded in the language itself, the spiritual relationships with nature, and the lore and practices, all passed down from generation to generation -- in some cultures like the Cherokee and the Australian aborigines, for 40,000 years.
One of the design intents in my concept of the knowledgebase is to support indigenous cultures in de-colonizing -- recovering all that they can of what may have been lost in the last 500 years, and both creating out of the palette of the past, and borrowing as necessary from what E.F. Schumacher called Appropriate Technology, in his book of the same era, Small is Beautiful. Another perspective to carry into this endeavor is Buckminster Fuller's Comprehensive Design Science.
Tim, do you have a recommendation for Peter to pick up from here and continue the learning, about GIS? Would the ESRI book that is an introductory overview of uses of GIS be helpful here?
Regards,
Mark
[Quoted text hidden]
foresman@earthparty.org
To: Mark Roest
Dear Mark, Peter (and friends): There is a surfeit of GIS literature at this time with many special focus books, e.g., Native Americans, or real estate, or homeland security. I would recommend that Peter peruse the ESRI bookstore (www.esri.com) for titles of interest. Depending upon your location, a local ESRI representative would be a good start to perhaps borrow some books.
Spatial thinking is the key. I spent the last couple of years bringing together ideas for a book/course on spatial thinking as it is requisite for addressing issues of our time. I have not published as yet, unfortunately, but, recommend National Academy of Sciences book of that title.
I came to spatial thinking as a young field ecologist trying to figure out how all these systems of systems interacted. Place. While geographers pride themselves in their understanding of place and space and spatial relationships, other than GIS, they have been slow to promulgate their tools to the rest of the world.
Ian McHarg, who befriended me in his final years, clearly understood the importance of place. Most indigenous people clearly have placed value on place. The Amazon tribe working with Rebecca Moore (easily searched) have harnessed spatial tools to retake and command the stewardship of their lands. A great example to build upon.
In two more years it will be the 20th anniversary of my engagement with Keyhole, which became Google Earth. It would be interesting to plan an anniversary event where we can examine the accomplishments and gaps in accomplishments resulting from this Digital Earth revolution. So much promise. So much sadness.
I wore my pink hat last saturday with a whole lot of ladies on the mall. I see so much promise. But like MLK Jr, I can see the future but I don't know if I will be there to see it with all of you.
Cheers, Tim
Dr Tim Foresman, President International Center for Remote Sensing Education 6219 Rockburn Hill Road Elkridge, Maryland 21075 USA +1 410-707-7352 foresman@earthparty.org www.icrsed.org -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Hot stuff! From: Mark Roest
Mark Roest Jan 25 (2 days ago)
to me, Tim, Claudia
Dear Peter and all,
Check out Ian McHarg, Design With Nature, in the 1970s or 60s. He had acetate slides that filled part of the function of a GIS system today.
Beyond that, Tim may have contact information for the Yukon Watershed tribes that he announced, at ISDE5 in 2007, had been granted control of the ecology of the whole watershed -- 26 tribes, I think, learned to work together and sent some of their youth to community college to learn ecosystems management from a western science perspective, over a 20-year period -- and the tribes also taught their own methodologies.
That follows Hegel: thesis (traditional), antithesis (modern science), and a synthesis of the two.
Traditional management systems went beyond simply seeking to avoid damage. They proactively manage any significant variable, with great sophistication. For instance, a northern Canada tribe would have the younger hunters report on everything they saw in their assigned hunting range over the previous year to the elders, who would interpret the data to form a holistic assessment of the state of each species, and would tell them how much of each to harvest the following year. So, for instance, they clearly understood the classic snowshoe hare and lynx population cycle -- but they would know literally hundreds of interactions, from thousands of years of co-evolution with their ecosystems. The knowledge would be embedded in the language itself, the spiritual relationships with nature, and the lore and practices, all passed down from generation to generation -- in some cultures like the Cherokee and the Australian aborigines, for 40,000 years.
One of the design intents in my concept of the knowledgebase is to support indigenous cultures in de-colonizing -- recovering all that they can of what may have been lost in the last 500 years, and both creating out of the palette of the past, and borrowing as necessary from what E.F. Schumacher called Appropriate Technology, in his book of the same era, Small is Beautiful. Another perspective to carry into this endeavor is Buckminster Fuller's Comprehensive Design Science.
Tim, do you have a recommendation for Peter to pick up from here and continue the learning, about GIS? Would the ESRI book that is an introductory overview of uses of GIS be helpful here?
Regards,
Mark
foresman@earthparty.org Jan 25 (2 days ago)
to Mark, me, Claudia
Dear Mark, Peter (and friends): There is a surfeit of GIS literature at this time with many special focus books, e.g., Native Americans, or real estate, or homeland security. I would recommend that Peter peruse the ESRI bookstore (www.esri.com) for titles of interest. Depending upon your location, a local ESRI representative would be a good start to perhaps borrow some books.
Spatial thinking is the key. I spent the last couple of years bringing together ideas for a book/course on spatial thinking as it is requisite for addressing issues of our time. I have not published as yet, unfortunately, but, recommend National Academy of Sciences book of that title.
I came to spatial thinking as a young field ecologist trying to figure out how all these systems of systems interacted. Place. While geographers pride themselves in their understanding of place and space and spatial relationships, other than GIS, they have been slow to promulgate their tools to the rest of the world.
Ian McHarg, who befriended me in his final years, clearly understood the importance of place. Most indigenous people clearly have placed value on place. The Amazon tribe working with Rebecca Moore (easily searched) have harnessed spatial tools to retake and command the stewardship of their lands. A great example to build upon.
In two more years it will be the 20th anniversary of my engagement with Keyhole, which became Google Earth. It would be interesting to plan an anniversary event where we can examine the accomplishments and gaps in accomplishments resulting from this Digital Earth revolution. So much promise. So much sadness.
I wore my pink hat last saturday with a whole lot of ladies on the mall. I see so much promise. But like MLK Jr, I can see the future but I don't know if I will be there to see it with all of you.