The following is an edited excerpt of "A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life" by Hunter Lovins, which is currently undergoing a Kickstarter campaign to aid the author in self-publishing the book.

Imagine:

The day dawns fine and clear. You stretch your 87-year-old bones in your bed, luxuriating in the tropical sun pouring in through the super-insulated windows in your PassivHaus co-housing unit in Indonesia. Initially designed for northern climates, the concept of super-efficient buildings has transplanted well to hot climates, with some modifications (PDF), and keeps residents comfortable year-round with only solar energy from the roofs to power it.

Small, but suited to your needs, your unit is part of a larger community committed to working together. This has allowed you to stay in your own home as you age, eating communally with your neighbors when you wish, but fixing your own meals in the trim kitchen when you want privacy.

You were alive in 2015 when a group of applied mathematicians released the Human And Nature DYnamical Study (HANDY) study that warns, "Cases of severe civilizational disruption due to precipitous collapse often lasting centuries have been quite common." Its subtitle: "Is Industrial Civilization Headed for Irreversible Collapse," crisply sets forth the thesis.

Using a NASA funded climate model, it explored the history of prior collapses to understand long-term human behavior. It did not set out to make short-term predictions, but the warning is stark: Under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world today ... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.

It described collapses due to: population decline; economic deterioration; intellectual regression and the disappearance of literacy (like in the Roman collapse); serious collapse of political authority and socioeconomic progress (repeated Chinese collapses); disappearance of up to 90 percent of the population (Mayan collapse); and some so complete that the forest swallowed any trace until archaeologists rediscovered what has clearly been a complex society (many Asian collapses).

These collapses, the study argued, were neither inevitable nor natural; they were human-caused.

These collapses, the study argued, were neither inevitable nor natural; they were human-caused. They inflicted massive misery, often for centuries following them. The study identified two underlying causes of collapse throughout human history:

These features, the study concluded, have played "a central role in the process of the collapse" in all cases over "the last five thousand years."

The study elicited reams of criticism, most posted on ideological websites. Critics objected that the studys use of mathematical models made collapse seem unavoidable. To be fair, the HANDY authors stated, in terms, that collapse is not inevitable.

But its analysis led you to change your life. And today, in 2050, it feels very distant.

Children play outside in the central spaces, safe from cars, which, as in the early car-free city of Vauban, Germany (PDF), are banned from this and many neighborhoods. A few residents still own electric cars, although they pay handsomely for the privilege, and wonder why they do, as their vehicles reside in garages where the carshare program used to live. Now almost no one drives herself: driverless cars deliver last mile services and regional transit works spectacularly well.

Today the air is clean. When you moved here, 34 years ago, 10,000 people died each year of acute air pollution across Indonesia.The killing smoke spread across Southeast Asia from forests burned to clear land for palm oil plantations. Since Unilever and other major users of the oil shifted in 2020 entirely to algae oil, the palm oil market collapsed, except for a vibrant smallholder palm industry.

Their trees are integrated into sustainable forestry initiatives that support rural communities. Tied closely to the eco-tourism industry, this has enabled Indonesia to ensure that the once endangered orangutans and tigers have plenty of forest home in which to flourish, adding to visitor appeal. Indonesia once exported almost half of the world's palm oil (PDF). Unilever (PDF) and governments like Norway funded the creation of a domestic algae oil industry that now employs twice the number of people who once worked on palm plantations.

Today the air is clean. When you moved here, 34 years ago, 10,000 people died each year of acute air pollution across Indonesia.

A world away from your snug co-housing unit in Indonesia, New York City is settling into autumn. Arjana, a young African graduate student, steps off the electric trolley that now runs down the middle of Broadway. A few blocks north of Wall Street, an urban farm runs the length of Manhattan, and what were once concrete canyons now echo with birdsong.

It is part of a program begun back in 2016 called Growing Roots, which has created urban farms across Manhattan and now dozens of other major cities. Like your neighborhood in Jakarta, Manhattan is car-free, with space once taken up by vehicles freed for housing and local food-production.

Arjana stops to chat with the previously incarcerated young woman who is just ending her day weeding the kale patch, suggesting that they should try growing cassava.

They both laugh as Arjana hurries off to her evening classes at the Bard MBA in Sustainable Management. Sent to study social entrepreneurship and sustainable development, she is only the latest of thousands of students funded by the German Marshall Plan with Africa to study at innovative programs that teach them how to regenerate their continent so that the refugees who once fled to Europe now have a flourishing life at home.

Its working. With stronger, locally based economies growing across the continent, the temptation for young men to hire themselves out to terrorists has declined. Renewable energy now powers Africa, and because it creates ten times the number of jobs per dollar invested than central fossil-fueled power plants, it has become the job creation engine for the continent.

Unilever and governments like Norway funded the creation of a domestic algae oil industry.

Now the whole world runs entirely on renewable energy, as Stanford professor Tony Seba predicted back in 2014 that it would. In the years following, hundreds of companies, from Google and Apple to Ikea and Unilever, led the conversion to 100 percent renewable power. They realized that failing to act on climate change exposed them to increased risks from physical disruption to financial loss.

Countries like Scotland, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dubai, Germany and Saudi Arabia followed suit. Cities joined the race. It simply was better business to shift from fossil fuels that were threatening the climate and implement the cheaper, job-creating renewable technologies.

Coupled with regenerative agriculture pioneered by the Africa Centre for Holistic Management at Dimbangombe, we are running climate change backwards. Regenerative development has not only enabled Africans to produce sufficient food for all its citizens, it is ending hunger in every country. The practice of holistic grazing actually takes carbon from the air and returns it to the soil, where it is needed as the building block of life. Coupled with the success of renewable energy, over the last 30 years, the world is beginning to cool, and the climate becomes more stable. Soon, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have returned to preindustrial levels.

But you sigh deeply, thinking about just how close it was. We turned from collapse only at the last moment.

The rest is here:
To avoid collapse, humanity needs a new narrative - GreenBiz

Californias plan to cut energy consumption by 80 percent by 2050 cannot be achieved with current proposed policy changes because most solutions focus on changing technologies rather than changing behavior, a new UC Davis study suggests.

With all the advances in building more energy-efficient air conditioners, better-insulated homes and cars that run on less or no fuel, consumers actually have increased their energy consumption. The expected energy savings have been outweighed by people living in larger homes with more appliances.

Add to this the phenomenon of a population that has shifted from non-users or people who used fans and open windows to cool their homes, for example to users. Those are the consumers enticed by marketing of high-efficiency air conditioners with consumer rebates, the study said.

What is needed is policy that focuses on reducing the overall consumption of energy, according to the study. To do this requires more sociological research that focuses on consumer behavior.

The average person doesnt think about how many kilowatts or the unit price of energy theyre consuming when they turn on the lights or heat up the stove, said Bridget Clark, a UCD doctoral candidate in sociology and author of the study. For most people energy is essentially invisible, just as people are essentially invisible in most energy research.

Clark presented her paper, Getting to 80 Percent: Mobilizing Feedback, Lifestyles, and Social Practices Research to Shape Residential Energy Consumption at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in Montreal on Tuesday.

In her paper, Clark looked at the goals of recently passed legislation mandating that the state cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030, and a further reduction to 80 percent by 2050.

Along with these cuts are authorizations for policy changes, technology improvements and other measures, such as rebates and upgrades in the electrical grid, that would help California achieve its goals.

But policy changes and technology improvements wont work, she argues, mostly because people still desire to be comfortable in a cool (or warm) room, have convenient ways to cook food, and have lighting in their homes they consider to be warm and pleasing.

Instead, Californians should consider interventions similar to those undertaken elsewhere, such as in Japan, the paper suggests. In 2005, as a means to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the Japanese government mandated that all government buildings could not be heated or cooled when temperatures are between 20 and 28 degrees Celsius (68-82 F).

But, the government also changed employee dress codes. Marketing consultants were hired to create campaigns to transform the meaning of smart and appropriate work attire to encourage more layering in the winter and lighter fabrics in the summer. Within two years of implementation, the so-called Cool Biz program led to an estimated 1.14 million-ton reduction in emissions.

While current solutions that seek to increase energy efficiency of various technologies, invest in renewables and regulate emissions are important first steps these current strategies will be insufficient to make the deeps cut that the state is mandating, the author concluded. Instead, using social practice research, the government should take steps to better implement policy solutions that incentivize and change human behavior.

It is time to stop treating the end-use consumer as just a barrier to energy-efficiency measures, Clarke said. Through deeper examinations of the ways in which energy consumption is socially and culturally determined we can begin to construct more holistic policies that take into account why and how people actually consume energy.

UC Davis News

See original here:
'Getting to 80 percent' on energy cutbacks requires behavior change - Davis Enterprise

Executive Summary

Many people have asserted that biological differences can explain the gender gap in math, engineering, and science. To address these claims, we need to examine three interrelated questions: Are there gender differences in outcomes achieved by men and women? If so, is there evidence that they are due to biological differences? Is there stronger evidence that they are due to bias? A review of research finds that the evidence on biological differences is too thin to explain the large gender gaps in leadership roles and STEM careers, while the evidence for gender bias driving career outcomes is much stronger.

Former Google engineer James Damore was hardly the first person to argue that biological differences between men and women determine career outcomes. Many people even smart, science-minded ones have asserted that biological differences can explain the gender gap in math, engineering, and science. A 2005 Gallup pollfound that 21% of Americans believed men were better than women in terms of their math and science abilities (though 68% believed men and women were about the same). The fact that this argument keeps coming up means that we need to engage with it and clarify which claims are supported by evidence and which are not.

To address these claims, we need to examine three interrelated questions: Are there gender differences in outcomes achieved by men and women? If so, is there evidence that they are due to biological differences? Is there stronger evidence that they are due to bias?

To answer the first question: Yes, there are gender differences in the participation of men and women in some STEM fields among college students, and these differences do contribute to the underrepresentation of women in STEM professions. Women are also significantly underrepresented in top leadership positions.

But are these outcome differences due to biological differences? While there are (of course) biological differences between the sexes, social science has shown that men and women are more similar than different on a wide range of characteristics, from personality to ability to attitude and that these factors have a larger effect on career outcomes than biology does.

My former colleague Janet Hyde, a developmental psychologist and an authority on gender differences, reviewed 46 meta-analyses that had been conducted on psychological gender differences from1984 to2004. (A meta-analysis examines the results from a large number of individual studies and averages their effects to get the closest approximation ofthe true effect size.) Hydes review spanned studies looking at differences between men and women in cognitive abilities, communication, personality traits, measures of well-being, motor skills, and moral reasoning.

She found that 78% of the studies in her sample revealed little to no difference in these measures between menand women; this supports her gender similarities hypothesis, which states that men and women are far more similar than they are different. The only large differences she found related to girls being better than boys in spelling and language, and testinghigher than boys on the personality variable of agreeableness/tendermindedness; boys tested higher than girls on motor performance, certain measures of sexuality (masturbation, casual attitudes about sex), and aggression. So there are some gender differences, but most are small to nonexistent.

But can these differences truly be classified as biological? Or are they due to differences in socialization? Its the old nature/nurture debate a debate that can be a false one because most human behavior involves complex interactions between genetic, environmental, and epigenetic influences. For example, one study that Damore cited did find gender differences in personality across cultures,but the researchers described the differences as relatively small to moderate and concluded that human developmentlong and healthy life, access to education, and economic wealthis a primary correlate of the gap between men and women in their personality traits.

And a review of studies on levels of prenatal exposure to testosterone found resultant differences in empathy, aggression, and toy preference between males and females, but found no significant differences in dominance/assertiveness or ability. Unless all of the differences in mens representation in STEM and leadership are the result of their lack of empathy, high levels of aggression, or toy preferences, there is little evidence that biological differences affect work-related outcomes. In fact, based on the research on leadership, we would expect to see that a lack of empathy and high levels of aggression would hurt a persons chances of becoming a successful leader, not help them.

On the other hand, there is a great deal of evidence to support the impact that environment has on gender differences in society. For example, a review of research on gender differences in math test scores shows that the already small effects have declined over time and tend to be greater in countries with less gender equality. In terms of behavior, a study by economists showed that in cultures where women are dominant, theytend to be more competitive than men. Meta-analytic evidence on gender differences in leadership aspirations showed that differences are decreasing over time women are closing the gap in terms of wanting to be leaders suggesting that the gap is more due to society than to biology.

Other data also contradicts the idea that women are biologically predisposed to lower levels of leadership. One meta-analysis of 95 studies found that female leaders tend to be rated by others as significantly more effective than male leaders, and this effect is stronger after 1996. (On the flip side, men rated themselves as significantly better leaders than women, particularly before 1982.) But thisdata does tell us something about the impact of gender roles (as women tend to rate themselves as less effective leaders) and societal changes (since the effects are diminishing over time).

If the evidence on biological differences is too thin to explain the large gender gaps in leadership roles and STEM careers, is the evidence on gender bias any stronger?

Several studies have shown that employers do discriminate against women and minorities. One robust vein of research uses rsums to test how people respond to different candidates with identical qualifications. For example, in one study, professors rated the identical applications of fictional male or female students. When a male name was used, faculty members rated them as significantly more competent and hirable than the female applicant, and they offered the male applicant a higher starting salary and more career mentoring. The reason for this was that women were perceived as less competent by the faculty members; faculty who had greater bias against women rated female students worse. The effect sizes here were moderate to large, unlike those shown in sex-differences studies. And numerous other studies have hadsimilar results, not just in hiring but in promotion rates, performance evaluations, getting credit for good work, and project assignments.

This body of research also shows why advocating for a pure meritocracy rather than explicitly pursuing diversity doesnt help companies overcome bias. In fact, companies that highlight meritocracy may actually cause greater bias against women: Experimental studies show that when an organization is referred to as a meritocracy, individuals in managerial positions favor male employees over equally qualified female employees and give them larger rewards. The author theorizes that calling the organization a meritocracy may create moral credentialing (when ones track record as egalitarian makes them feel justified in making nonequalitarian decisions) or greater self-perceived objectivity, giving them license to discriminate against women.

Calling for a meritocracy and denying that workplace inequality stillexists captures what scientists refer to as modern sexism.Modern sexism is characterized by beliefs that discrimination against women is a thing of the past, antagonism towards women who are making political and economic demands, and resentment about special favors for women. Notably, individuals espousing such views do not regard these notions as sexist or unfair andconclude that, given the even playing field upon which the two sexes now compete, the continuing under-representation of women in certain roles (e.g., management positions) must be a result of womens own choices or inferiority as opposed to discrimination.

In his memo, Damore wrote, We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism, and that we should assume people have good intentions. But the gender gap in the workforce can be explained by sexism, just as the race gap can be explained by racism. When workplace practices aim to support underrepresented groups, that does not mean they are unfairly biased against overrepresented groups. It just means that we need more than good intentions to change biased behavior.

We all want systems that are fair. But we need to consider how to make them fair for everyone.

Read the original post:
What the Science Actually Says About Gender Gaps in the Workplace - Harvard Business Review