Inside ECO:nomics– Dr. Phyl Speser talks golf, education and the energy crisis
Inside ECO:nomics (part 1)– Dr. Phyl Speser talks golf, education and the energy crisis
For an inside look at ECO:nomics, I’ve turned to one of the conference’s most vocal participants, the co-founder, CEO, and CTO of Foresight Technologies, Inc., Phyl Speser.
As you can tell from the video below (and this one and this one and this one), he’s a fairly animated guy.
In a room brimming with money and influence, this inquisitive Ph.D from “humble” Rhode Island stood head and shoulders… and arm and hand (his hand raisin’ rivaled only that of Amory Lovins during the 3 day event) above the fray.
I have successfully parlayed his fondness for questions into a response to one, very important question of my own: What steps need to be taken to ensure that our young people (researchers) are properly equipped to inherit our current energy crisis?
Needless to say he was not shy. (He outlines his own curriculum)
Your question gives me hope for our country and helps me justify the cost of going to events like Eco:nomics. It is flattering to think I make a difference.
I hope I do.
But on to your question, my thoughts on what steps need to be taken to ensure that our young people are properly equipped to inherit our current energy crisis.
I think there are a four parts to the answer.
The first part is captured by the old adage: Think Global, Act Local. Those of us who want to make a difference cannot build an artificial wall between thinking and action. Thinking, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt once said, never ends. Each thought blends into the next, which blends into the next. This is what the classical Greek philosophers meant by contemplation, this act of dialogue where the ideas flow by. By now it is pretty clear what the line of march needs to be.
At the conference, with the exception perhaps Lomborg and Klaus and perhaps a few others, almost everyone agreed global warming was real and we need to do something about it.
So the first step for preparing is to start doing something. Little things are fine. Bike someplace rather than drive, for example. Not only is it green but it is exercise and we don’t have to worry about parking.
May not be the best example, but hopefully I am making the point, which to express it in different terms. Simply put: start being part of the solution.
We learn things when we do that. The first thing we learn is being part of a solution to an entrenched social problem is not easy. We fail a lot, even on little things. You want to buy fluorescent bulbs, but you need a bulb to do homework and the corner drugstore only has incandescent, so you buy one this time.
We all are not perfect all the time. So one thing we learn is to not be holier than thou, to be tolerant of each other, but also to pick ourselves back up and try again.
As I mentioned in one setting at the conference, I have been working these environmental issues since I was in my late teens when I was a bicycle messenger for the Center for Law and Social Policy and the National Resources Defense Council as a job in DC while going to college night school.
The other key lesson from trying along the way is to live the 80/20 rule.
If we try for 100% of everything we want, we usually fail or have to get pretty draconian and repressive to get it. Few things justify that kind of harshness. So look for the 80% we all agree upon and focus on that. If we get it, then we find the next 80%, and so on. It is a variant of Zeno’s Paradox. You can never walk from here to the wall if you keep going half-way there as there is an infinite progression of ever smaller half-way theres. But in movement work, if we keep going half-way there, we make a lot of progress. After a while people get used to working together and making progress and social resistance fades.
So that is the first part: let’s call it spirit. How do you get the spirit to want to solve problems like this? Try to find the consensus, go for it, find the next consensus and if you cannot do big things, do little things so there is always progress and you do not lose hope. In the context of your question, the first thing we do to help young people prepare and equip themselves, is to teach them how to have hope and live hope.
The second part is knowledge. These are complex, interwoven problems and solving them takes, both, insight and analytical capabilities, plus a healthy dose of knowledge. Get educated, help others get educated.
In this I am with the President. If everyone in America went to college we would be a lot farther downstream towards solutions. Thinking about problems helps you develop ways to solve them. Blind inspiration may be motivating and may provide insights but you still have to think about them to make sure it is inspiration and not too much beer last night or whatever…
Check back for Part 2 of this interview later in the week.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Energy crisis can be overcome by using energy saving equipments and materials. Between its a good post about energy crisis.
replyJune 27th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I’ve watched the guy in the video a few times and found his action to be quite funny.
I think we all need to help one another become educated about what is really happening and what we need to do to help the environment recover.
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