If the earth becomes unhabitable without changing how we live is that a problem? Maybe this “harm” is just what it takes to motivate action. Like it took COVID to bring mRNA vaccines to the forefront. A minority of people sitting around a campfire isn’t going to change the global outcome, if the pattern above is how human cognition works on average. The procedure then is that 1) the majority really screw things up, and 2) science comes to rescue to sort their mess out. It only makes sense to arrange that #2 be very profitable. If anything, remediation of our worst impulses isn’t profitable enough.
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Prof David West Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2021 7:36 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires The problem is the term " progress." First, progress implies a goal state,as in progress towards what? The second is teasing out a thread, a sequence of a single factor in a complex data set, and deciding that an increase in the measured value of that factor is what defines progress. [The term progress itself biases against looking for a decrease in some measured factor.] For example: We could look at human beings in the U.S. from 1776 to today as a sequence of states. We could then look at the state and pick a variable that changes — increases — in each successive state. If the variable we pick is 'average lifespan' then we might be tempted to say that we have progressed. But if we picked the variable 'average BMI index' then it becomes problematic as to whether or not we can claim massive obesity is "progress." A third issue is obtaining any kind of consensus as to which variables we should pick to measure progress. Kilotons of nuclear arsenals? Petabytes of video on Pornhub? Tons of food waste from restaurants per day? Average wheat yield in Kansas per year? Number of pure electric cars per capita? davew On Wed, May 26, 2021, at 1:00 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: I don't question the historical link between human progress and hurting the environment. Within walking distance from where I live there is a cave where archaeologists led by Curtis Marean found evidence of modern humans that lived 162 000 years ago. Curtis opines that since then modern humans behaved like an invasive species, causing serious harm to the environment wherever they went. My point is that there is evidence that this human progress/harming the environment link has been happening ever since modern humans set their feet on mother earth and it's still happening. But my subjective observation is that the attitude of pedal-to-the-medal, drill-baby-drill, burn baby burn, gangway, don't look down (or back)! is changing and it's changing very fast. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I compare the attitude of people when I was young to now, I observe a big difference. There is now a very widespread concern for the environment that was absent when I was young. I salute the environmental activists, they have done a great job and are still doing a great job in changing the moral values of society to be against hurting the environment. Personally I am both enthusiastically for human progress and totally against hurting the environment. I have open questions: 1. Admitting that progress hurt the environment in the past, is there reason to believe that it's impossible to have future progress without hurting the environment? 2. Provided it's possible without hurting the environment, is there anything wrong with human progress? On Wed, 26 May 2021 at 03:45, Steve Smith <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: As Stephen already knows well, *these* were in all of the lookout towers before modern tech finally meant humans didn't need to man them 24/7 during fire season. A precision, calibrated "lazy susan" with a map and a "protractor" for measuring altitude angle to a fire. The Simtable work Stephen describes is a highly efficient and accurate replacement for this art/skill (and beyond), even before the citizen-mobile cameras are integrated. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Osborne-cw-01.jpg/220px-Osborne-cw-01.jpg] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Fire_Finder I knew quite a few permanent and short term (usually college summer students) fire lookouts in my time. The permanent folks got to know their territory like the back of their hands, as well as the other lookouts and the local fire crews. My dad had a fire-radio in our dining room that ran 24/7 during fire season as well. It would have been fascinating if it hadn't been so "normal" at the time. I very much appreciate Stephen's Schtick about fires (and other natural threats/disasters) being much more frightening/threatening when you don't know where they are and what they are doing, and that good (collective) awareness is the first step toward "managing" not only the wildfires themselves, but the people and property they threaten. The same thing goes for "managing" nature in a broader sense. The more we know what is actually happening in the short and long term, the better chance we have of doing something clever, or ... wait for it... maybe even "wise"? What Merle and I are vying for is an appreciation that this ~10,000 year old experiment of humans manipulating the biosphere with significant (and exponentially growing?) leverage has not gone well (for the biosphere). While First World peoples, especially in the 1% (or even 50%) wealth category, it all might seem plenty peachy, but if you ask the myriad folks (and non-human folks) that are enduring the unintended (usually) consequences of our arrogant mucking about, they might not be so proud of what we have done. When the chickens (refugees) come home to roost (Europe dealing with those displaced by climate change and war throughout north Africa and the Middle east, the US dealing with Central American refugees, etc ad nauseum) some of us struggle to figure out how to accommodate them without giving up "too much" while others simply identify them as a dangerous, foreign, plague to be repelled or exterminated. Whether the former OR the latter is even possible is up in the air, but in the meantime, we continue to either stick with "business as usual" or "rush forward to the next grande technological (and highly profitable for *someone*) fix without honestly considering the meta-problem of whether we really *learn* anything from our mistakes (experiments) except how to be more efficient at executing the narrow goals we set for ourselves. Optimization run amok? I shouldn't be so negative... I know *many* people are honestly trying to expand their awareness to include that which they were not previously aware of, not just double down on being more effective at whatever they set out to be effective at earlier in life (as individuals or as cultures). I accept (reluctantly) the truism that "the only way out is through". There is huge momentum in the human project, or more to the point, the Homo Faber project. Man the Maker. Sapiens means knowledgeable or wise, I do believe we've done a fair job of living up to the former, I think the latter is very much a work in progress. Meanwhile, pedal-to-the-medal, drill-baby-drill, burn baby burn, gangway, don't look down (or back)! On 5/25/21 12:22 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote: I don't think drones aren't an efficient choice for detection. Stationary PTZ cameras on ridgetops and citizen phone camera reporting along with 911 calls are soon enough. Where drones are valuable preliminary mapping to fill in gaps of existing camera viewsheds to get an early sizeup. We are working with www.alertwildfire.org<http://www.alertwildfire.org> to calibrate their 1000 cameras on the ridgetops in the 5 western states of CA, OR, WA, ID and NV. Our bit is solving for camera pose based on observations of stars to solve for the 9 degrees of freedom of a camera (x, y, z, yaw, pitch, roll, horiz field of view, vert field of view and lens distortion) You can see a map of the cameras that we have robotic control of hear with historical imagery: http://www.alertwildfire.org/tahoe/index.html?camera=Axis-SodaRidge1&v=7a7f1c3 Once a camera is calibrated each pixel maps to a lat/long if it intersects the terrain or triangulating 3D points with multiple cameras for sky-based features. You can see how we detect locations of fire starts after lightning strikes on the LNU Complex last summer in Sonama here: https://youtu.be/oVAwvs4k1n0 All compute and modeling/sim is in the browser with the camera projections using WebGL and rendering to 3D terrain. And how we track perimeters on this example Adams Fire here: https://youtu.be/lP7-UhZQ4IY And here is some live AI looking for smoke in Sonoma that we then map: https://fire.aiir.ai/sonoma We can also calibrate ad hoc imagery coming from citizens based on common features in already calibrated images or by geopoints or the stars. Here's an example on the Maria Fire where we took imagery from Twitter from a private pilot and a second imager from citizen near the freeway. https://youtu.be/aJpgDzFhXng _______________________________________________________________________ [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> CEO, Simtable http://www.simtable.com<http://www.simtable.com/> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828 twitter: @simtable z<http://zoom.com/j/5055775828>oom.simtable.com<http://oom.simtable.com> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 11:54 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad range of methodologies from various disciplines, such as biotechnology<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotechnology>, genetic engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering>, molecular biology<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_biology>, molecular engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_engineering>, systems biology<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology>, membrane science<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_lipid_bilayer>, biophysics<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophysics>, chemical and biological engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_engineering>, electrical and computer engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering>, control engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_engineering> and evolutionary biology<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology>. Due to more powerful genetic engineering<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering> capabilities and decreased DNA synthesis and sequencing costs<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing>, the field of synthetic biology is rapidly growing. In 2016, more than 350 companies across 40 countries were actively engaged in synthetic biology applications; all these companies had an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion in the global market.[1]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology#cite_note-1> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 19:49, Merle Lefkoff <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Marcus, I don't understand your term "synthetic biology." On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 10:24 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: So we move from chemical engineering to synthetic biology. There will always be mistakes. From: Friam <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 10:05 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires Marcus, we've been "experimenting" with our terrestrial biome for at least 10-12,000 years (when the first spade hit the ground). The time for more experiments is over....unless they are experiments that help us understand even more deeply how to restore the Mycelium networks so that the fungi can solve our climate change challenge. This is perhaps the most important task that will save us from extinction. See Merlin Sheldrake's book, "Entangled Life" for explanation. On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 8:41 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: We won’t realize anything unless the experiments happen. We may not learn from experiments, but that is a different issue than the need for the experiments. From: Friam <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 7:46 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Drones to detect wildfires My father dedicated his life to "forest management" as a professional forester, trained in biology and range/timber management. He retired "early" after 30 years somewhat in disgust over the changing of aesthetics and perspectives of the United States Forest Service. He was dedicated and loyal to the spirit of Aldo Leopold and other early conservationists. He spent multiple multi-week segments every summer leading (most Zuni and Hopi native) fire-crews on the West Coast trying ot protec homes and "valuable timber". We lived on the edge of the first Wilderness (Gila) created (at the behest of Aldo Leopold) for 2/3 of my growing up years. My father died 10 years ago (Alzheimers), was cremated, and we (illegall) spread his cremains in the heart of the Gila with a minor amount of guilt as he was a (nearly) strict rule follower (yet asked for this). Within the year, a serious wildfire complex converged at almost the exact spot we scattered him (woooOoooooo!). Even my Trump-voting (2016) sister and husband are now acknowledging that his life/profession were dedicated to a project that was fundamentally "unwise". They *were* (for the most part) doing the best they knew how. Most everything they did (from stopping wildfires at the first opportunity) to running dual bulldozers across landscapes with a chain between them to clear the juniper trees from a landscape to allow more grass (for cattle) to grow was "well intended", but it was *range* and *timber* management not "grassland" and "forest" management as they called it. The goal was to maximize the "productivity" of the public lands under their management (dept of Agriculture_. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM dept of Interior) was know to be *worse* in the sense that their rules on cattle and mining were much less careful of protecting the landscape and biome. The National Parks were derided by both the Forest Service and the BLM for being "much too restrictive" (no "harvesting of resources"!!!!) And yet NOW we realize how "unwise" all of that was. But in the same breath we suggest that all of our exploitative depradations of the planet's "resources" are necessary and possibly "a really good thing"... and I am sure that in another 20 or 50 years we will be lamenting *all* of the things that today we are promoting wholeheartedly in the name of "progress". This is part of how I became a neo-Luddite. - Steve On 5/25/21 2:50 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: Let's hope they are a bit more wise in managing the wildfires in the future than they were in the 20th century. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/14/california-fire-suppression-forests-tinderbox Before this unprecedented era of mega-blazes on the US west coast, California’s forests had a canny, ingenious way of avoiding destructive worst-case forest fire scenarios. By periodically removing the grasses, shrubs and young trees – known as the forest understory – California<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/california> avoided fires growing to destructive intensities before the 20th century. The way this was done? Fire. Every five to 15 years, groundfires would burn through the forest, killing off the undergrowth on a regular basis, thus removing the material that can act as tinder and kindle fires. Such groundfires were sparked by lightning or by indigenous people who used sophisticated burning practices to facilitate crop growing and hunting. Because the fires occurred frequently, the understory rarely had time to build up enough combustible material for the fires to reach the canopies of the mature trees – which is what causes the large, devastating fires we are seeing now. As a result, overstory trees might get wounded by the groundfires, but they would rarely get killed. On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 10:22, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Due to climate change there will be more and more wildfires in California, Arizona and New Mexico in the coming years. Drones could help to detect wildfires early. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/sensors/remote-sensing/drones-sensors-wildfire-detection -J. - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . 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