Social capital

Note: for reason/excuse why yesterday's post didn't come up, see Tuesday's post! Same thing, sorry.

Sometimes a young person looking for a toe-up in the job world feels inadequate or unqualified. There's advice offered in this article that could change things, because she/he has something to offer that goes beyond degrees or certificates. Here's how the author leveraged his value:

"I had met somebody . . with whom I kept in touch and I knew was building a company  . . I knew he had a ton of things to get done. He was busy launching a company while working at another company and taking care of his wife and kids.

"I offered to take some work – any work – off his plate.

You make deposits when you create surplus value for others that isn’t captured by cash money.

"In time, I learned new skills about writing copy, doing sales, and organizing content for the product and my role became more specialized, but I started with nothing to offer besides time and an extra set of hands.

In time, I was hired full-time and given equity in the company – something I could never have achieved in such a short time if I made my case based on “qualifications.”

"It is from this position that i've been able to publish a book, appear on major news networks, meet mentors and new business partners I would have never otherwise interacted with on my old track."

"Value-creation is the core of getting ahead. While your peers are busy racking up credentials, you can start racking up social capital."

Re-gen village

Off-the-grid, is it really possible? Could be the energy grid or the food grid or some other grid, or all of the above. But some inventors and designers are giving serious thought as to how to accomplish living without dependence on public or government-provided necessities.

Regen Villages has a vision to engineer and facilitate "the development of integrated and resilient neighborhoods that power and feed self-reliant families around the world."

"In ReGen villages, household food waste is composted and fed to flies, which in turn feeds fish, which then fertilizes aquaponic gardens (multi-layered systems that combine fish farming and hydroponic agriculture, with plant roots submerged in nutrient-rich solution rather than soil). Those aquaponic farms grow produce for residents to eat, as do seasonal gardens, which are be fertilized by waste from livestock raised to feed residents. Rainwater is harvested and filtered for use in the farms and gardens, and on-site solar panels power the homes."

2nd look back

Posted originally on July 2, 2014

Benefits

So, to summarize:  this planned grazing approach takes land that has almost stopped producing life, places large herds of animals on it, manages animal grazing in a way that mimics nature - and in a just a few years the land supports grass, shrubs, and animals . . and pulls large amounts of carbon out of the air and into the soil.

photo:  ted.com

Sounds like a miracle!  The land comes back to life, and it sustains human life by producing food both plant and animal.  Now we go beyond environmental achievement to social benefits.

Desert-ified land in Africa results in millions of people requiring aid.  When they can support themselves on renewed land, their society becomes more stable and there is hope that their culture will survive.  Prospering, self-supporting people are less vulnerable to violence and suppression.

Scientist Allan Savory (Monday's post) thinks that global efforts  should be re-directed from a focus on replacing fossil fuel (a long, long, disruptive, expensive project) to a focus on reversing the ruin of productive global land.  I wish him success.

1st look back

For the last two days of 2014, we're taking a look back at last summer's surprising and controversial series on potentially saving the earth.  Originally posted June 30, 2014.

Desert to green

Here's a take on "climate change" that I've never heard before.  Scientist Allan Savory says that the biggest problem relating to climate change is desert-ification:  about two-thirds of the globe is becoming desert.  He has a solution that does notfocus on replacing fossil fuels.

He's been using his theory on land that's become dry and unproductive and shows pictures of the land renewed and re-greened.  His solution involving animals actually turns things around.

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Save the earth

(cont'd)

From wildly differing backgrounds & worldviews come people who passionately support the mission to restore land and climate in a natural, amazingly effective way:  people such as new-age health guru Deepak Chopra and "eco-radical/conservative environmentalist" Dan Dagget.

Watch this video from the Savory Institute website:

"The grasslands can be saved.
Grasslands depend on biological decay to survive.
With a wholistic approach, the natural cycle can take place.
The grasslands can be healed, people can thrive, and the earth can be restored!"

Benefits

So, to summarize:  this planned grazing approach takes land that has almost stopped producing life, places large herds of animals on it, manages animal grazing in a way that mimics nature - and in a just a few years the land supports grass, shrubs, and animals . . and pulls large amounts of carbon out of the air and into the soil.

photo:  ted.com

Sounds like a miracle!  The land comes back to life, and it sustains human life by producing food both plant and animal.  Now we go beyond environmental achievement to social benefits.

Desert-ified land in Africa results in millions of people requiring aid.  When they can support themselves on renewed land, their society becomes more stable and there is hope that their culture will survive.  Prospering, self-supporting people are less vulnerable to violence and suppression.

Scientist Allan Savory (Monday's post) thinks that global efforts  should be re-directed from a focus on replacing fossil fuel (a long, long, disruptive, expensive project) to a focus on reversing the ruin of productive global land.  I wish him success.

Greening method

A little investigation has turned up an impressive record for this scientist (yesterday's post):  he says he has been applying his method, using animals to turn desert into green land, for forty years on five continents without a single failure.  A stunning claim, potentially world-changing.

How it is done:  "[H]erds of well-managed grazing animals, nibbling on native grasses and roaming from spot to spot to elude predators and seek fresh pasture—managed in a way that mimics their behavior in the wild—will restore the land's natural dynamics."  Savory Institute's explanatory graphic is here.

photo:  savoryinstitute.com

"[Cattle] could help prevent and even reverse land degradation and the desertification of grasslands, combating in the process both human poverty and the disappearance of wildlife."

See the TED Talk in yesterday's post for pictures.

If these successes can be turned into massive reclamation of land, there are more benefits to come.

Desert to green

Here's a take on "climate change" that I've never heard before.  Scientist Allan Savory says that the biggest problem relating to climate change is desert-ification:  about two-thirds of the globe is becoming desert.  He has a solution that does not focus on replacing fossil fuels.

He's been using his theory on land that's become dry and unproductive and shows pictures of the land renewed and re-greened.  His solution involving animals actually turns things around.

"The Bet" reviewed

Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, had plenty of company in predicting certain societal collapse due to the over-population of humankind.  He enjoyed an elevated notoriety during the environmental hysteria of the 1970's, appearing on the Johnny Carson tv show "at least twenty times."

He called for drastic population control by world governments, even suggesting that some nations (i.e., India) were not worth receiving U.S. foreign aid because their overpopulation had rendered them hopeless.

He wagered that five specific commodities would increase in price over ten years because of demand by runaway overpopulation.  He lost the bet.  

"The Bet" is filled chockablock with Mr. Ehrlich's outbursts—calling those who disagree with him "idiots," "fools," "morons," "clowns" and worse. His righteous zeal is matched by both his viciousness in disagreement and his utter imperviousness to contrary evidence."

This review was written by the author of What to Expect When No One's Expecting, the subject of my posts on demography in the "Less people" series May 2013.

The bet (3)

Ehrlich said in 1969, "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."  His view was that overpopulation would cause war, plague, or disastrous resource scarcity.

"Complaining that Ehrlich made wild statements without ever facing the "consequences of being wrong," Simon said, "I'll put my money where my mouth is" and asked Ehrlich to do the same.  Rather than betting on the future existence of England, Simon challenged Ehrlich to bet on raw material prices" to test his theory that the world was running out of  resources due to overpopulation.

Ehrlich chose the raw materials to be tracked.  If they went up in price over the next ten years, Simon would pay the difference to Ehrlich.  If the minerals went down in price, Ehrlich would pay Simon.

In October of 1990, Julian Simon received a list of metal prices in the mail from Paul Ehrlich plus a check in the amount of $576.07.

The bet (2)

If bad news "sells", and it does, then Ehrlich's news was a great example.  "End of society as we know it" is pretty bad news and it got the public's attention.

Individuals started asking if the alarmism was really justified.  Economist William Nordhaus said that the doom scenario "allowed for no technological progress, no new discovery of resources," no human inventiveness - in short, the model did not represent how human society really works.  He suggested that human beings have more options than butterflies. 

Julian Simon was another scholar who became convinced that people can think and imagine and adjust to changing conditions.  It became a conviction with him that, far from being a plague or a curse on the earth,  people are the ultimate resource to each other and to the planet; they're not just consumer units.

Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich were headed to a face-off.

The bet (1)

Making predictions is risky - if you predict something that can actually be measured so that it's obvious if it came true or not.  The Bet tells the story of this kind of prediction and who won that bet.

amazon.com

Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who primarily studied butterflies, became alarmed at world population growth and began to predict apocalyptic disaster (The Population Bomb, 1970).  His mental model seems to have been the insect world in which populations expand until their environment can't sustain life, resulting in massive famine.

Momentum carried environmentalists like Ehrlich to fame, tv shows, hundreds of personal appearances, even influence on White House policy making.  He told audiences to expect famine, race wars, nuclear winter.  He recommended government control of human reproduction and coercive regulations because "collapse was inevitable."

Resistance to the doom scenario formed - backlash was coming.

(Based on The Bet by Paul Sabin)

Fuel gratitude

In tongue-in-cheek mode, this author thanks "Mother Earth" for oil and gas and all the ways they benefit the life of earthlings.

Scared of your dream

Michael Hyatt is an extraordinary success at blogging.  He has something like 300,000 followers - hard to imagine!  His name is not a household name.  I never heard of him until my son urged me to take a look at his blog.  (Maybe word-of-mouth advertising is more effective than I thought.)

He wrote a NY Times bestseller and used to be the CEO of a publishing company.  He's "down to earth", and writes in a very direct manner about how to accomplish things.

If you scroll half way down on his website, you'll see on the right a number of video interviews he's done with people like Seth Godin,  Max Lucado, Guy Kawasaki (former Chief Evangelist at Apple), and John Maxwell.

Here's a guest post I like, "How to live your dream when you're scared to death," which starts this way:

"There is a tragedy in our world today. Most people aren’t  living their dreams, and the reason is simple: fear. They’re scared to be who they are."