Dear All, As many of you know, I am working on a letter to Members of Congress in the USA. I have received a wonderful response to help me do this. Here is one sample.
Dear Name (withheld), I have interspersed some remarks. You may want to refer to the original so I have placed the draft of my letter to Members of Congress here: http://metricationmatters.com/metricMembersCongress.html but be aware this is the only place you can access it. It is not available from my web site and I may remove it at any time. Please do not distribute this draft. I have received wonderful support from the people who subscribe to the Metrication matters newsletter and I will consider all of their input carefully and thoroughly before I proceed. However there are quite a lot of extremely positive suggestions that are better than, or improve on my original thoughts, so this may take me a little while. I will let you know when this is done. Many (actually most) recommendations say that my draft is far too long. I agree, so the final letter will be considerably shorter. > Dear Mr Naughtin, > > Thank you so much for your reply. I am sure that there are many ways to > approach our congress. I appreciate your effort. I so much do not want to > offend you. My discussions with friends and relatives really would not give > me confidence that there is any hope of converting our country to more metric > than it is, at this time. I think that it is a long way from congress from > even considering it. The point here is that the USA is already fully metric -- but many individuals hide this fact. An individual Member of Congress need do nothing except admit the truth of metrication in the USA as all the legislation is already done. The resistance among Members of Congress is often about their false beliefs that the metric system is somehow foreign. They are unaware of the invention of the metric system in England by Bishop John Wilkins in 1668. They are also unaware of the absolutely key role played in the development of decimal currency and the decimal metric system by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington in the 1780s that led to the legalisation of the decimal metric system by the revolutionary French government in the 1790s. > I think that there needs to be more education in the public schools, etc. The education authorities in the USA have decided to take an approach called "metric conversion". From my experience this is a dead end that I have never observed leading to an effective metrication upgrade. The truth is that schools and teachers need to do less "education" about "metric conversion" and concentrate instead on practical "direct metrication"; see http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/MetricPlayground.pdf for some ideas for a school playground where you will note that there are no "metric conversions" and all measurements are dealt with as whole numbers (hence the preference for millimetres rather than centimetres for instance). A similar plan could easily be developed for a metric classrooms and metric corridors that focuses on "direct metrication" but I have not written a plan for this. Maybe one of these days! > Also, there needs to be a source of products that enable us to access metric > tools, such as a "ruler" a "metric stick." I think the education system is > where we need to focus. Check www.metriconlystore.com for metric supplies. > And if congress would make any law, it would be to convert the United States > Postal Service. That is where we weigh things and measure things to be mailed. See http://www.paclii.org/pits/en/treaty_database/1964/2.html where you will find that the "Universal Postal Union" is already fully metric but, sadly, it allows a get-out clause for the USA (without mentioning the USA). Be aware that the Universal Postal Union has some rather strange "conversion factors". > That would be a great place to get people to learn about metre, are, litre > and gram. I think that this was the biggest mistake in the early seventies > (1970-1975) when we were making an effort to convert to the metric system, > that the USPS did not make any changes. Instead the USPS seems to have lobbied the "Universal Postal Union" to get special "anti-metric conversions". An anti-metric conversion is one that changes a metric system unit into one of the many millions of old pre-metric measuring words. > Could you share about Australia converting to metric. How long did it take > to convert to the metric system? This varies from industry to industry. A metrication upgrade for an individual can take less than a minute to learn almost all of the basics you need to build the largest buildings in the world, and an hour to change your personal metric mind-set using something like the school playground layout mentioned earlier, for an organisation you can complete a metrication upgrade in a day, and for a nation to change its road signs can also be done in a day. Overall, using principles like these, Australia upgraded 85 % of all industries, crafts, trades, and professions between 1970 and 1982 by working one industry at a time. These rapid metrication upgrades were done using (what I call) a "post card" metrication policy and a "business card" training tool that produced simple, economical, smooth, and, above all, fast metrication upgrades using "direct metrication" based on one single metric system unit for each task, a preference for whole numbers, and avoidance of "metric conversion" of any kind, even between metric system units (such as converting from grams to kilograms for babies or from millimetres to centimetres on a building site by sliding decimal markers back and forth.) To dramatically extend your metrication upgrade from a single day to hundreds of years you need to do things like: 1 Make it voluntary so that every individual person can will devise their own metrication policy. 2 Make sure that you give everyone a choice of metric system units. Examples are let mothers and grandmothers choose between grams and kilograms for the mass of babies. Experience shows that they will then meet with "decision paralysis" and ask, "What's that in pounds and ounces?". Another example is to let people choose between centimetres and metres for their own height as this also produces "decision paralysis" that leads to the question: "What's that in feet and inches?" 3 Encourage "metric conversion" as part of your metrication upgrade; this will slow down your metrication upgrade so dramatically that it will seem to have stopped altogether. Schools are a good example of this. Some Australian industries are still struggling where they chose to use more than one metric system unit. For example, the textile industry chose to use centimetres, metres, millimetres, and micrometres (and changed this to the jargon word micron) for measuring lengths without having a policy as to which of these was to be used for what purpose; as I said, the Australian textile industry is still struggling with their metrication transition after 40 years! > At what time in the transition did your postal service convert to the metric > system? Maybe I should ask, what countries have a metric postal service? Probably 1874 when the Universal Postal Treaty was formed. All countries now have a metric postal service with the USA choosing "hidden metric" to hide their participation in the "Universal Postal Union" even though the USA was the prime mover nation that called for its formation in 1863. > all for now, > thanks for your efforts to help our country > > Signature withheld as I have not sought permission to post this to the UKMA > or the USMA maillist. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected] or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
