Urgent Evoke

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Food, Energy, Water- Patterns


What´s the commonality in the past Evoke missions? What is the structural pattern behind the food, energy and water crisis? What is failing in this systems?

The answer is:
A) A disruption in centralized system networks
B) The lack of redundant resilient systems.

A) A disruption in centralized networks
The dependence on nodes that distribute to the rest of the network. If this nodes fail, the rest of the network fails. If a power plant (a node) fails, the rest of the grid will not have electricity. This is an "All roads lead to Rome" system. Our food, energy and water systems are all centralized grids. If we really want to solve this issues with a long term approach we should modify them at a systemic level. Otherwise we will be dealing with short term solutions, diverging time and resources to solutions that don´t address the fundamental systemic malfunctions.

The solution is to build food, energy and water distributed networks. Food can be produced locally and sustainably. It´s about changing the entire structure from a centralized model to a distributed network where we all produce energy, food and clean water. It´s about sharing the surplus in this systems and sharing them with the rest of the distributed network.
If we localize production and take it to a hyper-local level then our food, energy and water reserves should also become hyper-local. Households and communities should have small reserves of this basic 3 items- Food, water and energy.

B) The lack of redundant resilient systems.
The lack of redundancy and a single method to provide the services for this grids. An energy producing system can be based on renewable energy but if that only method fails then the network will fail too. There is no such a thing as a single method to capture and distribute water, a single method to produce energy or to produce foods, no magic bullets.
The solution is to build sustainable resilient systems. Resilient systems are achieved through redundancy. If one method fails there is always other ways to achieve the same expected outcome. This can be applied to water, food and energy.

Our way to produce and distribute food, energy and clean water must become hyper-local and sustainable, forming a distributed network where all surplus can be shared. Decision making becomes hyper-local too, fomenting direct democracy and people becoming really involved with their communities and regions. This will greatly increase the sense of community. The only danger of this hyper localised community life is that in the long term people might feel disconnected from the greater global dialogue. That is why it´s so important to maintain a constant dialogue with the rest of the global network, not only the neighboring or regional nodes but also interacting at a global level. One way to achieve this is to engage every node helping with the surpluses in case of emergency in other parts of the planet.
It is through citizens actively participating at a local level producing energy food and water and at a global level helping with the surplus that we will see less emergencies where central grid models collapse. We will be able to create a sustainable, resilient global community that will still feel local.


Image found in http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeography/...

Views: 339

Comment by Nick Heyming on March 31, 2010 at 5:31am
Local, distributed resource networks to sustain us, global distributed information networks to fulfill us.
Comment by Patricio Buenrostro-Gilhuys on March 31, 2010 at 6:33pm
Exactly!!! In the short term we urgently need to work on localized resource production. This will be a huge cultural shift and we had similar shifts in the History of humanity (from centralized Rome to descentrlized middle ages) In the long term this shifts had brought a fragmentalisation of societies, so it is extremely important that we think in long term terms. What cultural changes will this local production of resources will bring for the next seven generations (like native americans say all desitions should be made yhinking in the next 7 generations) or more? It´s extremely important to keep this sense of a global community that it can be achieved as you say Nick through global distributed information networks.
Comment by Chris Frueh on April 5, 2010 at 4:45pm
Do you mean distributed as decentralized or merely fragmented? (Historical example: aircraft production in WWII Nazi Germany was fragmented but under the oversight of the industry heads whereas aircraft production in WWII Japan was decentralized to the point of individual microproduction plants) I think each might have their own place.
Comment by Patricio Buenrostro-Gilhuys on April 5, 2010 at 6:27pm
For this networks of food production, water and energy I´m thinking in this diagram and taking the model of a DISTRIBUTED NETWORK http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeography/... Apparently this first drawing is the the model that inspired the internet. So we have a functional, global model of a distributed network used by millions worldwide.
Comment by Chris Frueh on April 5, 2010 at 8:33pm
I see what you're saying. But start-up costs/materials for distributed networks always come down by way of a centralized (or moderately decentralized) network, no?

p.S> Pictures help refine the terminology; thanks :P
Comment by Patricio Buenrostro-Gilhuys on April 6, 2010 at 5:04am
"I see what you're saying. But start-up costs/materials for distributed networks always come down by way of a centralized (or moderately decentralized) network, no?" Yes you are absolutely right on that one. Mass production and centralization do bring cost down in the short term yet in the long term distributed networks are more efficient and resilient.
Comment by Turil Cronburg on April 7, 2010 at 6:08pm
Thanks for pointing this one out. I'd missed it before, and it's excellent!

Networks are the way nature works, and the way my IMAGINE5 River Bank works, too. (As well as pretty much every project I work on these days, I'm kind of focused on networked systems as the solution to most every social and environmental problem in existence. :-)
Comment by Patricio Buenrostro-Gilhuys on April 7, 2010 at 7:18pm
"'m kind of focused on networked systems as the solution to most every social and environmental problem in existence" I also believe that´s the way to go!!! :-)
Comment by kaiting tu on May 26, 2010 at 4:18pm
you must see : neural webs and "graph theory" ( discrete mathematics ) it`ll be a excellent tool for you .

Carlos amezcua

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