Ecocentric Utility:
a Dependent Variable
By Victor C. Vosen
Sept 20th, 2019
last revised 9/17/2020
What is economic
justice, new world order, or independent wealth? We may know these
things with or without definition, but their name more or less
implies how they are defined. Also, they are nothing new, instead
new terms defined for things like independence and freedom and
opportunity. Something new: economic utility perhaps or notionably
Welfare Economics; never before have we really had to think about it,
since it was just obvious to put the mill next to the river, the
windmill in the wind. However, when we have to expand our definition
of utility to include our environment, like putting a foundry next to
a windmill.. then can we assert utility, or usefulness.. because the
foundry is placed next to the power source instead of the ore. When
we put a silicon refinery next to a hydroelectric dam, then can we
assert responsibility towards humanity, because it means no pollution
from a heavy industry. For economic utility or even efficiency to
work.. this must include people and their environment.
Economic utility
defined as five parts(form, time, place, possession, and information)
does not do justice to the definition, for they only define utility
in terms of money and usefulness. Working within the archetypes we
already know about(economics, anthrocentrism, ecocentrism,
utilitarianism), we need to meet four consideration: money, people,
industry, and environment. One sees immediately how this definition
fails these criteria.
Economic utility is
better defined as common sense. How do we meet the classical
definition while doing no environmental harm, and still benefit the
greater good? We have always done this! From the first wheat farm a
farmer lived on, to the first windmill with steady wind. We have
located our industry where resources are available. Now that history
is repeating itself, the price has gone Up! And by-and-large this is
due to easy coal, unlimited resources, and our population. If the
new world order and successive winners/losers to succeed in creating
a global community, it must turn each of these on its proverbial
head! We’re talking renewable regenerative redesigned power grids.
We’re talking about planned parenthood. We’re even talking
about finite earth. And hopefully I’ll be able to redress what
Ecocentric Utility is through examples of economic usefulness to
truly illustrate by discussing these.
What we really need
is fusion power. Fusion power would be a drop in replacement and
turnkey solution for coal. But this is what we got.
The Math First:
ordinally:
Ecocentric Utility => Economicly Useful
Eco(y) = some
function of our Ecosphere
Fos(x) = some
function of our Climate Change
Eco(y) ≤
Fos(x);
Eco(y) =
Geography(y) + Geology(y) + Ecology(y) + Climate(y) +Time/Space(y);
Fos(x) = Heat(x) +
War(x) + Death(x) + Famine(x) + Illness(x) ;
Eco(y) = √(-1)
= і
x Progress of our Mind and Imagination and our Knowledge;
is a set Y Œ
{(power/labor) , (money) , (industry) , (cities) , (markets) ,
(compassion), (energy)}
Fos(x) = √(1)
= 1 x World’s
Worth of Resources;
is set X Œ
{(always on grid) , (easy coal) , (mythical resources) , (unplanned
parenthood) , (perpetual war)} ;
Always on Grid:
Given that, the
only difference is one is an intermittent/ephermeral world having
been offered no world at all. Which is pretty natural, given the
intermittency of rain, sunshine, wind, water, and even spatially of
geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, and waves. We call these
intermittent, which means in between they’re not there, but then
sometimes they are. But because it’s predictable, this makes them
useful. Webster’s defines it as: starting and stopping at
intervals. Time/Space are intermittent in the natural world with
host worlds such as ours that harbor life while places like Venus and
Mars and Jupiter harbor no life. More than has and has-not, but that
the ecosystems we live in aren’t always on or off as has and
has-not implies. Trees are not solid blocks of leaves, our Earth is
not an even distribution of soil, neither. There’s space, there’s
time distributed in it from the raw rock to the 100 year old soils.
Even economically: stores close some hours, to save money, some
cities have no Starbucks, because it’s cheaper, Congress adjourns,
because this taxes our Senators less. So you can see how the costs
of a power grid are substantially lower with an intermittent
power-grid.1 Also, it costs less If there’s power
failure, which costs the industry billions and billions if not in
insurance alone, because people are assuming it’s Always-On. 2
3 4 5 I said the only difference, but that’s not
entirely true. The information is different and the capital
investments are different, and so are the products that labor creates
to support capital investments that we know Industry to be today.
Which may sound circular, but the fact remains industry built
industry after someone dreamed it up. This is economicly useful to
know!
Easy Coal:
One of these
products in which we’ve invested is coal/fossil fuels. Right now I
can buy on Amazon a solar panel for 1 dollar per watt. My
eco-friendly power plant produces power at 10 cents per kilowatt/hr,
which is about 100 cents per watt, or 1 dollar. Cheaper than trying
to pedal a bike to charge my laptop! More time for other activities.
Sometimes, wind-power is even cheaper. I saw a windmill selling for
262 dollars that will probably last for 5 years(at least) of 1 kw/hrs
of power!! That’s super cheap considering 262 dollars / 43,800
hours = ½ cent per kilowatt/hr, if I lived in Livingston, MT, I can
only imagine.
Of note, is a
hydrogen economy based on subsequent synthesis of propane. Not only
can one produce propane and run their car on it from hydrogen, one
can take CO2 out of the atmosphere to do it with a pebble bed
reactor.6 I read the Navy proved this was
possible, and produced synthetic jet fuel. This probably produces oxygen, though the method I read
didn’t capture carbon monoxide to produce LNG – liquid natural
gas. This is economicly useful.
Mythical Resources:
This is an idea
that there’s an endless ocean to dump our garbage into, rivers our
sewage, atmosphere, our smoke and pollution. That there’s another
emerald forest to burn and pillage, after we’ve taken this one of
its glory. That there’s another hole we can find more ore in.
That’s mythical and ignorant. We have to redesign, renew, and
regenerate our resources and our waste supply in order to use the
waste nature is unable to.7
If our Gross Domestic Product
is our garbage, that’s gold down we’re putting into a hole that
nobody can use. It’s a waste of a money to pay for it now so we
can throw it away later, unless.. we can upcycle it through
redesigning what we use and how we throw it away. The futon beds
becoming wall insulation, or carpet into ragstock paper, or ragstock
paper turned into futons from unsalable magazines. We need to find a
different hole that leads into a factory that can make a usable
feedstock, rather than virgin feedstock we then burn when we throw it
out. 7 Mainly, because nature doesn’t know what to do
with most all of the synthetics we produce and they choke natural
recycling. This is economicly useful.
Population:
Family planning offers ways to people whom want control over the next 18-25 years of their life, and their bodies. World Bank predicts global poverty may have reached 700 million, in 2015. 8 Eighty percent of those poor, live in rural areas; 64 percent work in agriculture; 44 percent are 14 years old or younger; and 39 percent have no formal education at all.9 That’s nearly three times the population of the USA, and some are Americans. Poverty is a common experience, if not a trap.
7.7 billion people live on the globe. Enough people to fill the entire State of Texas in a suburban home with a front and back yard. Every day, 800 women die from causes related to pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum. 10 Family planning prevents disease, pregnancy, and poverty. These are just common sense. This is economicly useful!
Perpetual War:
We owe 23 trllion
dollars because of taxbreaks to the rich, and corporate welfare, and
charging war on a credit card. Not because of grandma’s foodstamps or SSI
check. The U.S. has only been at peace 16 years in its 242 years
as a nation, and has supported every single right wing dictatorship
in the world since the end of WWII.8 And since 1949, has
actively sought to crush every people’s liberation movement. 8
11 The U.S. has spent 6 trillion dollars on war since 9/11.12
Not Economicly Useful!
So you see when we
have everything to gain and everything to lose, this will not end
well, since to be part of the solution is to reinvent, renew, and
regenerate what we already use. Perhaps by buying less stuff and
things, working less, earning less, and spending more time with our
families we may have the innovation at hand and our ideas to
commandeer. But let’s talk about economic usefulness, a melding of
Industry and Markets like we’ve never dreamed possible. Given fact
a) a market has a product and capital investment in selling said
product, and fact b) industry makes said product with labor with its
own capital investment, one begins to see they aren’t so different
from each other. Having said that, with the democratization of the
internet it is possible to sell Tesla cars off the factory
floor like Henry Ford once did. This is my new world order,
where there’s no middle man taking his cut ‘cause he fixed my
problem after selling me a problem. This is my idea of economic
usefulness where everything costs less, and because everybody has a
job rebuilding industry. It may be possible that places like Etsy
and Amazon replace the likes of Walmart and McDonalds, or maybe not,
if we can’t solve energy, transportation, and security. Give a
billion dollar prize on each of those, and I’ll bet you we have a
plan.
TreeTop
twined through
the
industry
of natureplace markets,
swings mankind
liberating
bananas
from a box
delivered
through mechanical
means
and eaten through
mastication
while peace
and clarity
imbuing synergy
flows from said banana
freeing
up realities
freeing up sight
feeding one's belly
feeding
one's mind
In Advertisement
swings
mankind
delivered
with imbuing synergy
hopefully
freeing up realities
Citations:
2.
Telson,
Michael L. “The economics of alternative levels of reliability for
electric power generation systems.” The Bell Journal of
Economics (1975): p.679-694
3. Schröder,
Thomas, and Wilhelm Kuckshinrichs. “Value of lost load: an
efficient economic indicator for power supply security? A literature
review.” Frontiers in energy research 3 (2015):
55. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2015.00055/full
4.
Ratha,
Anubhav, Emil Iggland, and Goran Andersson. “Value of Lost Load:
How much is supply security worth?.” Power and Energy Society
General Meeting (PES),
2013 IEEE. IEEE,
2013. https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/itet/institute-eeh/power-systems-dam/documents/SAMA/2012/Ratha-SA-2012.pdf
5.
De
Nooij, Michiel, Carl Koopmans, and Carlijn Bijvoet. “The value of
supply security: The costs of power interruptions: Economic input for
damage reduction and investment in networks.” Energy
Economics 29.2 (2007): p.277-295
6.
Peter Maitlis, Arno de Klerk. “Greener Fischer-Tropsch
Processes for Fuels and Feedstocks.” Wiley-VCH 2013.
p.11,21,63,150,152,165,168.
7. Mcdonough,
Braungart “The
Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance.”
North Point Press, 2013.
8.
World Bank Group. 2016. Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016:
Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change. Overview booklet.
World Bank, Washington, DC. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC
BY 3.0 IGO
9.
World Bank. 2016. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on
Inequality. Washington, DC: World Bank.
doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0958-3. License: Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY 3.0 IGO
10. World
Bank Group. 2015. Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015: Ending Poverty
and Sharing Prosperity. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:
10.1596/978-1-4648-0336-9. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC
BY 3.0 IGO