Original article:
Your Request for Reactions to Your Article
matthew Polsky
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5:15 AM (4 hours ago)
to Jonathan, Ira, me, Gus, Victoria
Yes, challenging.
As you report, there are a number of themes here. If some find value in some or all of them, such as for self-improvement, inspiration, or discovering their niche, more power to them.
But, while I occasionally like to flit in, this isn’t my type of thing.
The whole way of viewing reality is not my preference as someone who leans to social science, and, when lived up to, the associated critical thinking tenet. Which is not to say there aren’t other ways to look at things or to know. (I’m going to view a webinar on just that later this month, drawn in part because the speaker seems to offer a different look at a term the mainstream too readily deifies: pragmatism, as a part of explicitly categorizing different ways of knowing.)
The teleology is a problem. Who or what set the universe up this way? The assertion of forces also. Too easy to say. How does one confirm that? Just read an article on physicists who also assert universal forces. But they try to prove them, even if it takes decades. (See https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/books/review/frank-wilczek-fundamentals.html?referringSource=articleShare.)
The way terms and phrases are used in strange ways is off-putting; e.g. the universe wants…. or Intelligence. (There are also multiple forms of intelligence, but that comes from another place.)
I once took an independent study course on The Gaia Hypothesis because that one time I wanted to focus on unraveling some mysteries about how it was being discussed. I found there are 3 Gaia Hypo’s, one of which at least, the original developer, Lovelock, disowned. A larger lesson about terms. But if any of the 3 versions can be used by some to find guidance in dealing with the Earth’s problems, also so be that. But you shouldn’t have to take a course to critically understand what people are saying.
After a recent webinar, I’m somewhat more comfortable with spirituality than I used to be, as the type of things that seem to fit within it have broadened beyond what I took as its original limitations (primarily religious). Still when I raised the above-point about social science, while no one objected to my raising it, other than a cheer in the chat box, I never got an answer.
I believe one must occasionally try to separate, at least in principle, what one believes or wants to believe from what is. Also, social science has shown how easy it is to fool ourselves. I can't 'unknow' that. After these occasional self-tests, one can see how what one believes holds up. But you have to allow for, and preferably set up a mechanism to determine, when one is wrong. I recently had a version of that printed on a T-shirt. (see attached.)
I wouldn’t say reductionist science is at an impasse. Depends on how you define it, I suppose, but it is giving us 5 vaccines in record time.
One can just as easily argue for “Dumbness” in “The Universe” as “Intelligence.”
I’ve never fully agreed with you about the axiom: “The planet itself would do fine without us.” While it has value in a certain way. It also depends on how you define terms and see ramifications.
Despite it not working for me, I see a lot of value in the article, and the range of her and your themes is impressive.
From: Jonathan Cloud
Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2021 3:30 AM
To: matthew polsky
Cc: Ira Feldman ; Peter Burgess ; Gus Escher ; Victoria Zelin-Cloud
Subject: Re: Your article with Ira Feldman
Hi Matt:
I copied Ira on my comments, so he’s probably seen them.
A few thoughts:
(1) You identify 30% of the population as Trumpers, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all opposed to doing something about climate change. People have different identities in different situations. Being for Trump is maybe on aspect of who they are, but not necessarily the most significant one. It may be more important that they’re rural, or unemployed, or whatever. Maybe a better approach would be to treat them as humans, and forget their misguided political choices. It’s a matter of who we say we’re speaking to.
(2) The language we use is a matter of choice, and it has connotations as well as denotations. “Sustainable” is almost corporate-speak. “Regenerative” is more counter-culture, more life-oriented, more challenging. Who can disagree with “sustainable”? But regenerative takes it oner step further and promises that the future can be more prosperous than the past without harming the Earth and indeed while resuscitating and revitalizing it. Did your course include the idea that we could re-green the deserts? Food-forests? Permaculture?
(3) Wasn’t part of the purpose of the article to position both of you to make approaches to the new Administration, as you’re doing? If we’re going to turn things around, as Gina McCarthy and others are saying, there will be a lot of hands needed to make this happen. But I don’t think they’re looking for gadflies or critics; if what you mean by a “real job” is one that involves program management, research. and policy development, why wouldn’t you want that?
Here’s my latest: https://possibleplanet.org/do-we-live-in-an-intelligent-universe/ — which you may find a bit challenging, and obviously has no political aspirations, but I think is worth discussing in terms of what’s really “transformative” for our society. Reactions?
My best regards,
Jonathan Cloud
Executive Director
Possible Planet
Possible Planet | Regenerative Financing
Center for Regenerative Community Solutions, a NJ 501c3 Nonprofit
RegenerativeFinancing.org • PossiblePlanet.org
Direct: 21 Beacon St., Rochester, NY 14607
Mail: 121 Wawayanda Rd., Highland Lakes, NJ 07422
908-581-8418 cell
On Feb 10, 2021, at 6:29 PM, matthew Polsky wrote:
Jonathan:
If I didn’t already get back to you, thanks for the comments-plus on my article.
Do I have your OK to share your comment with Ira who has asked to see them all? It would just be for his personal use.
See below for more specific responses.
Regards,
Matt
______________________________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan Cloud
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 3:25 AM
To: matthew polsky ; Ira Feldman
Cc: Peter Burgess ; Gus Escher ; Victoria Zelin-Cloud
Subject: Your article with Ira Feldman
Hi Matt :
Congratulations for a timely and interesting article on 'Climate change, a divided America, and the need for sustainability policy.'
Thanks.
Your email arrived just as I was looking for Ira’s, to follow up a voicemail to discuss possibilities and opportunities in the new administration. Talk about synchronicity; or is the universe drawing us together?
I know some believe in that kind of thing.
Hope Ira can help you, but I think he's been badly burnt in the past at the federal level and won't be very optimistic about opportunities for PP. Hope I'm wrong.
I was a bit mystified by your initial premise that we can’t solve climate change without solving the political divide in America. You don’t say much about this in the rest of the article, though clearly we have to avoid civil war if we want to get anything done.
The latter is part of it. It's explained more in the links. We need the 30+% of the population that are still Trumpers to reduce their emissions, too, unless the rest of us are prepared to not only do our share, but pick up theirs. The link gives at least some support that the former isn't as impossible as it sounds.
My own perhaps rosy vision is that a majority of Americans will support doing something about climate change, however insufficient or sugarcoated it may prove to be, and that the political divide will hopefully recede in the public’s mind and be muted by the arrest and prosecution of the movement’s leaders after the failed putsch.
Hope that's true, and it might be, but 'something about,' as you know, won't be good enough.
More challenging is your argument that sustainability can easily accommodate the regenerative approach by 'clarifying the environmental goal is restoration, not maintenance of the status quo.' I’m all in favor of interpreting sustainability in the broadest possible sense, especially if it’s going to be used in public policy, but it’s important not to miss the differences between the sustainability and regenerative frameworks as ways of identifying what’s needed I’m order to address the real emergencies of biodiversity and the climate. The same to some extent goes for “resilience” and the circular economy as well — not to mention Rockstrom’s ecological boundaries and Katie Raworth’s donut economy. They all have important insights to add that should not be dismissed in the search for solutions.
I've never thought of sustainability as not these things. They were all parts of the sustainability courses I taught.
This having been said, I think you’re right to emphasize the SDGs and the potentially broader appeal of “sustainability” as a concept that can shape intelligent policies if it’s interpreted broadly enough. And when it comes time to “flip our thinking forward,” it may be an easy step to recognize that the future needs to be both resilient and regenerative.
Yup. That's part of the point of writing it.
At least that’s what we’re advocating at a local level — regenerating communities as well as restoring ecosystems, if we’re going to act on a large enough scale to respond to our converging crises. I hope we can find a way to direct some of the new Administration's efforts in this direction, e.g., into regenerative agriculture, local self-reliance, community banking, etc. Let me know what you think. Thanks
I read one article that says the new/returning Ag Secretary, despite his earlier reputation, is familiar with regenerative ag and OK with it, although a second article said he has higher immediate priorities.
I recently wrote 9 high level Biden Appointees asking for a special position doing what, you know I do; not a job-job. Ag was the last one I decided to include.
It's a long shot.
My best regards,
Jonathan Cloud
Executive Director
Possible Planet
Possible Planet | Regenerative Financing
Center for Regenerative Community Solutions, a NJ 501c3 Nonprofit
RegenerativeFinancing.org • PossiblePlanet.org
Direct: 21 Beacon St., Rochester, NY 14607
Mail: 121 Wawayanda Rd., Highland Lakes, NJ 07422908-581-8418 cell
On Jan 25, 2021, at 9:30 PM, matthew Polsky wrote:
Unrelated.
An article I did with Ira Feldman on big-picture sustainability at the national level, just out.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/climate-change-divided-america-need-sustainability-policy-ira-feldman
Climate change, a divided America, and the need for sustainability policy
by Ira Feldman and Matt Polsky January 20, 2021 The U.S.
www.linkedin.com
Sorry, Peter. No numbers.
From: Jonathan Cloud
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 2:26 AM
To: Peter Burgess
Cc: matthew polsky ; Gus Escher ; Victoria Zelin-Cloud
Subject: Re: DRAFT: SBA EIDL Application # 3302174490 - Center for Regenerative Community Solutions
Hi Peter:
Thank you for your thoughts. It was certainly not a problem that you missed Sunday’s discussion, as we are effectively following it up to resolve the issues by email.
Gus asked for a budget for how to spend the $4,200 from the SBA loan. I don’t think we’re ready to do that with any degree of certainty or specificity, but I think we will know more in a month or so.
And yes, I am very much interested in your help in Rochester — please send me every thing you can, as we’re just starting to make contacts with the City. I’m attaching our “briefs” on PACE and local economic development to give you the flavor of what we’re proposing and hope to replicate elsewhere (comments welcome of course).
Sorry to hear of your problems with Verizon. They’ve been bending over backwards for us, getting us 2 new iPhones for the price of 1, with a lot of the accessories, and talking us through how to use them over several hours. Possibly it’s just random who you get to talk to or maybe it’s just a case of getting more flies from honey….
My best regards,
Jonathan Cloud
Executive Director
Possible Planet
Possible Planet | Regenerative Financing
Center for Regenerative Community Solutions, a NJ 501c3 Nonprofit
RegenerativeFinancing.org • PossiblePlanet.org
Direct: 21 Beacon St., Rochester, NY 14607
Mail: 121 Wawayanda Rd., Highland Lakes, NJ 07422908-581-8418 cell
On Jan 25, 2021, at 1:04 PM, Peter Burgess wrote:
Dear Jonathan et al
Sorry I missed the Sunday virtual meeting ... I had it on my schedule, but then got sidetracked and failed to tune in. Mea culpa.
I guess I have to face it ... I am aging, and unlike a good wine, not getting better with age. I am still quite good at starting things, but not so good at finishing them.
At some level I am quite gratified that many of the issues that I have wanted to see addressed going back several decades are increasingly on the agenda ... but by no means at the scale and intensity that is required. It is somewhat salutary to compare the socio-enviro-economic performance of the USA over the past 40 years with that of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China. These countries have improved quality of life by orders of magnitude while the USA has ... for probably as much as 80% of its population ... experienced a substantial decline in household income and wealth. To be honest ... I am appalled at the (lack of) progress and performance of the USA since 1980.
Another part of my mea culpa. I promised Jonathan that I would help with some community engagement related to Rochester ... but did not get to do anything of substance in connection with this. As far back as the early 1980s I became aware that socio-enviro-economic performance had an important locational component and I started to do my socio-economic analysis not only from a sector perspective but also from a place perspective. My first work using this approach was in connection with Juba and Yei ... two of the main towns in what is now South Sudan. Fast forward, this sort of approach would be of immense value when trying to optimise policy between places like North Dakota and New Jersey or indeed Camden and Montclair!
With regard to specifics of the Sunday meeting ... you all are more up-to-speed on these items than I am and I am not sure I would have added much to the discussion ... though I am fairly certain that I would have tried to talk about the STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND ACTIONS that are contemplated for the organization as soon as we emerge from the current multi-crisis state of affairs.
Again ... my apologies ...
PeterB
PS ... and in another unconnected saga ... my NEW mobile phone has been disconnected ... talk about a mix-up between corporate indifference on the part of Verizon and my own anger at their lack of service where I live ... an issue unresolved after around 22 years !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
_____________________________
Peter Burgess ... Founder and CEO
TrueValueMetrics ... Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
True Value Impact Accounting ... Multi Dimension for ALL the Capitals
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
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 11:39 PM Jonathan Cloud wrote:
Hi folks:
We got a small EIDL loan ($4200) on June 15, which we haven’t spent yet, but seemed worth it to have a small cash reserve (currently $5,560.63). Repayment starts this June at $18/mo. (2.75%). The SBA is now asking for a Board Resolution, which I’ve drafted and attach for your approval, along with the loan closing documents that I signed last year. We do have a backlog of expenses that I haven’t submitted, and don’t plan to if we don’t need to, until we have more money.
Not sure what date to put on it. Technically we were supposed to provide it within 180 days, so we could make it December 10, 2020; or we could date it today. I assume no one has a problem with conducting the meeting by email, though we could always have a short call or Zoom meeting if anyone thinks it’s necessary.
Improvements welcome, of course.
Once everyone approves it I can circulate a copy for signatures. Thanks
My best regards,
Jonathan Cloud
Executive Director
Possible Planet
Possible Planet | Regenerative Financing
Center for Regenerative Community Solutions, a NJ 501c3 Nonprofit
RegenerativeFinancing.org • PossiblePlanet.org
Direct: 21 Beacon St., Rochester, NY 14607
Mail: 121 Wawayanda Rd., Highland Lakes, NJ 07422908-581-8418 cell
'If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.' (Paul Hawken)
'The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.' (John Schaar, Professor Emeritus, UC Santa Cruz)
Begin forwarded message:
From: 'Hudnall, Samantha C. (Contractor)'
Subject: SBA EIDL Application # 3302174490 - Center for Regenerative Community Solutions
Date: January 8, 2021 at 11:36:34 AM EST
To: 'jcloud@possibleplanet.org'
Good Morning Jonathan,
I am reaching out to you in regards to one additional document still needed after you have signed your closing documents.
Per your Loan Authorization and Agreement, please provide the following document(s):
Corporations – including Non-Profits and single member entities
Please provide a Board Resolution that includes:
A statement that the Board held a meeting
A statement that the Board authorizes acceptance of the SBA loan and specifying the loan amount
A statement designating an individual or individuals by name and title authorized to sign the SBA loan closing documents
The Resolution should be dated and signed by at least one Board member. The signature should also include each Board member’s title.
More information about this document can be found on page 7 of your closing documents.
Please make sure the Resolution states ALL of the above listed items.
Please email documents back to my email address, fax them to 202-481-4481, or mail them to:
U.S. Small Business Administration
Office of Processing Disbursements
14925 Kingsport Road
Fort Worth, TX 76155
Please be sure to include your SBA Disaster Loan Application Number on the documents.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Samantha Hudnall
Case Manager
202-934-3040
Office of Disaster Assistance
U.S. Small Business Administration
Samantha.hudnall@sba.gov
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Thanks for the feedback.I agree with you.Thanks!
NONFICTION
Electrons, Photons, Gluons, Quarks: A Nobel-Winning Physicist Explains It All
Frank Wilczek recalls that one of his earliest childhood memories is “of a small notebook I kept when I was first learning about relativity, on the one hand, and algebra, on the other.”
Frank Wilczek recalls that one of his earliest childhood memories is “of a small notebook I kept when I was first learning about relativity, on the one hand, and algebra, on the other.”Credit...James Leynse/Corbis, via Getty Images
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By Nell Freudenberger
Feb. 8, 2021
FUNDAMENTALS
Ten Keys to Reality
By Frank Wilczek
Whether or not you’re accustomed to reading physics for pleasure, the Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s “Fundamentals” might be the perfect book for the winter of this plague year. Early on, Wilczek quotes the 17th-century French physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal’s lament, “The universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck.” For Pascal, that thought produced intense spiritual anxiety, but for the contemporary reader it might actually provide a certain comfort: Whatever obscene amount of damage we’ve managed to do here on Earth is insignificant when seen on an astronomical scale. Wilczek has a more optimistic take, though, based on quantifying the space inside us: The number of atoms in a single human body is roughly 1028 — 1 followed by 28 zeros, “a million times the number of stars in the entire visible universe.” He sees potential in our inner vastness, too.
Another way to write that number is 10 octillion, and “Fundamentals” is filled with facts like these — the kind of question adults think they can answer until their children ask. How long until the Earth is swallowed by the sun? How does GPS work? How many thoughts can a person have in a lifetime? (Based on an average speech rate of two words per second, Wilczek estimates approximately a billion.)
Although Wilczek’s voice here is endearingly humble, it’s clear that his mind was never like that of most kids piping up from the back seat. He recalls that one of his “earliest childhood memories is of a small notebook I kept when I was first learning about relativity, on the one hand, and algebra, on the other.” Wilczek grew up in New York City and attended public school in Queens, graduating from high school in two years. As a teenager trailing his mother in the grocery store, he was taken with the brand name of a laundry detergent called Axion, and promised himself that if he ever discovered an elementary particle, he’d give it that name. Incredibly, in 1978, Wilczek did identify a hypothetical particle — one that coincidentally solved a problem related to axial currents — and was able to fulfill that fantasy.
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Wilczek was still a graduate student at Princeton when he and David Gross developed the theory of asymptotic freedom, an explanation for the way quarks interact with one another inside the nucleus of an atom, clarifying the workings of the strong force, also called quantum chromodynamics. The theory explained a seeming paradox in the behavior of these elementary particles — that they attract one another more forcefully at a distance than in proximity — a discovery that earned him and Gross, along with David Politzer, the 2004 Nobel Prize.
Image
Wilczek writes with breathtaking economy and clarity, and his pleasure in his subject is palpable. He lays out the elementary particles of matter — electrons, photons, gluons and quarks — and their strikingly short list of properties: mass, charge and spin. He then defines four principles that characterize the four basic forces in nature: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force and the weak force. Most people vaguely remember electromagnetic fields from high school physics, but Wilczek makes very clear the way that those “space-filling” fields are contiguous with the smallest building blocks of matter: “We now understand particles as manifestations of a deeper, fuller reality. Particles are avatars of fields.” It’s a beautiful description that would be especially evocative for today’s game-fluent high school students.
Sometimes, to see if you understand a concept in physics, it helps to try to explain it to someone else. Wilczek points out that the elementary particles “aren’t even solid bodies. Indeed, though it’s convenient to call them ‘elementary particles,’ they aren’t really particles. … Our modern fundamental ingredients have no intrinsic size or shape.”
In trying to paraphrase this enchanting idea for my husband, I realized that I didn’t actually know how something with no size or shape could have mass. I thought Wilczek might not enlighten me, and then a chapter later he did, articulating the concept this way: “Quarks have very small masses, and gluons have zero mass. But inside protons they are moving around very fast, and thus they carry energy. All that energy adds up. When the accumulated energy is packaged into an object that is at rest overall, such as the proton as a whole, then that object has the mass m=E/c2.” That inverted version of Einstein’s famous formula incidentally is one of the things Wilczek remembers writing down in his childhood notebook. What a reader gets in “Fundamentals” is the native language of physics — mathematics — precisely translated by someone who has spent a lifetime (about a billion thoughts!) on these forces that shape our physical world.
Beyond the facts, “Fundamentals” is full of the kind of heady ideas that keep laypeople reading about contemporary physics: the possibility that the mysterious “dark matter” that makes up 25 percent of the mass of our universe might actually be a remnant of theoretical particles called axions in the very early universe, an invisible cousin of the cosmic microwave background radiation, also a relic of the Big Bang; or the idea that with a biological engineering technique called “modulated self-reproduction” it might be possible to “terraform” a new planet. In a book this far-reaching, it’s understandable that Wilczek spends only a few pages on climate change, focusing mostly on the enormous potential of solar energy. The optimism inherent in chapter titles like “There’s Plenty of Time” and “There’s Plenty of Space” can seem Panglossian next to the reality of what we’re facing on Earth in the next few decades.
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I think Wilczek might answer that criticism by talking about complementarity, an idea that he’s elevated to an intellectual credo: “the concept that one single thing, when considered from different perspectives, can seem to have very different or even contradictory properties.” He explains that in physics, when a model becomes too complicated, an alternative model can help answer important questions.
“Fundamentals” offers readers just that sort of radical shift: the way that energy, seen from another angle, is a particle; the way that space-time could be a form of matter; the way that stepping outside a catastrophe to look at it on a cosmic scale might actually be the first step toward a solution.
Nell Freudenberger is the author, most recently, of “Lost and Wanted.”
FUNDAMENTALS
Ten Keys to Reality
By Frank Wilczek
272 pp. Penguin Press. $26.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/books/review/frank-wilczek-fundamentals.html
| The text being discussed is available at
and
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/books/review/frank-wilczek-fundamentals.html
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