Idélab received 155 applications, decision to be made by 20/12

The Research Council of Norway reports in today's newsletter that they have received 155 applications to their Idélab scheme. 25-30 participants will be selected by December 20th.

See also:

Application sent to take part in "Idélab" on climate-friendly technology

Application sent to take part in "Idélab" on climate-friendly technology

Today, tempted by Research Council of Norway's teaser of an announcement text ("Store utfordringer krever radikale prosjektideer" [Big challenges require radical project ideas]), I have sent an application to participate in "Idélab" [idea lab], with the theme "Mot et nullutslippssamfunn" [Towards a zero emission society]. RCN seeks scientists within nanotechnology, biotechnology and information/communication technology, plus scholars within the humanities and social sciences, who will work in teams for some 5 days to develop innovative ideas concerning climate-friendly technology. Altogether some 25-30 researchers will participate. The application and appointment process is unconventional - for instance, no CV is to be submitted, and no references are to be given. The winning project ideas will get substantial funding so as to be further developed after the Idélab (some 30 mill. NOK in funding is available altogether).

Summer Symposium on Sustainable Systems

Unfortunately I did not get the chance to submit an abstract to the Summer Symposium on Sustainable Systems (4S), an interdisciplinary symposium for doctural students and post-doctoral researchers (Sannäs, Finland, June 14-17, 2010).

The aim of the symposium is to bring together motivated researchers and high level keynote speakers with an interest in interdisciplinary systemic approaches to complex issues under the theme of closed-loop sustainable material systems.

4S theme this year:

Harmonizing Policy, Technology, Product Design and Resource Management

Lotman/Semiotics of technology

What you find below was posted by me last week in the community SemioComm on LiveJournal.

I have just read "Technological progress as a problem in the study of culture" (Lotman 1988 [Russian], tr. to English 1991). A very rich text, dealing not least with various technologies of language (writing, printing etc.). Early on, Lotman attacks Thomas Kuhn's view that "[o]utside the laboratory everyday affairs usually continue as before" whenever scientific revolutions occur (quoted p. 781 of Lotman's article). Here, Lotman portrays himself in contrast with Kuhn - though Kuhn is in other contexts known exactly for emphasizing not only the the social workings of science, but also the way in which scientific intuition and common cultural intuition interact - think only of his analysis of the transition from a heliocentric to a geocentric world view (I don't know how much Lotman read of Kuhn?). At that instant, Kuhn defended the view that it was somewhat rational of the scholars of the day not immediately to adopt the new, revolutionary ideas - because they actually for quite some time contradicted common and accepted knowledge, as well as the everyday intuitions of the day.

As Lotman stresses, the cultural impact of scientific revolutions oftentimes takes time to materialize. "There is a repeated pattern to the immediate consequences of a technological change: having acquired new powerful means, society first attempts to use them for old ends", he writes (p. 782-3), "increasing its possibilities only quantitatively". Lotman's examples of ancient bureaucracies are amusing. His simple observation that the invention of writing made much more advanced architecture and infrastructure administrable is intruiging. In consequence, we can theorize (with Lotman) that the advent of writing also made empires possible. Statehood, then, is from this theoretical perspective a (actual, materialized, factual (though not necessary)) consequence of the written word.

Similarly prolific are Lotman's observations regarding elements in the emergence of capitalism. The technology of printing - enabling mass publication - is a central example, which further points to the modern phenomena of mass hysteria, mass mentality etc (as well as, as Lotman notes, expressions of individualism and eruptions of creativity). The individual and the mass - the individual as representative of the mass - the individual in opposition to the mass (thereby reaffirming the centrality of the mass, nevertheless)... Limitless optimism which can any given moment turn into its opposite, bottomless pessimism...

And I ask myself: This global (or US?) culture of fear and hysteria ... After 9/11 in particular, perhaps ... how is it related to our most recent advances in mass communication? How is language changing today, in cultural terms? This, I realize, is not a new debate... Perhaps the swine flu "pandemia" would represent a good case study. Have we been infected by modern language?

Climate change and the growth paradigm

Stephen Purdey (University of Toronto) has composed a short text addressing "the link between science and society regarding climate change" (email distributed via the adaptation-list for participants at the March 2009 Copenhagen climate conference). More specifically, he writes about "The Growth Paradigm" (cf. his book Economic Growth, the Environment and International Relations, to be published in November by Routledge).

Excerpts:

Mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change are important objectives, but the biggest obstacle to achieving those objectives, and to successfully maintaining a stable planetary climate, is the deep-seated commitment among policy-makers to continuous economic growth.

... Continuous growth depends irrevocably on the continuous transformation and consumption of energy. The socio-political commitment to unending economic growth will inevitably overwhelm any effort to conserve energy, or to shift energy supplies from carbon-based to renewable sources, and it is fundamentally incompatible with any absolute reduction in the amount of energy consumed. Greenhouse gas emissions can be significantly reduced per unit of economic production in the global economy, but if production itself continues to increase, then those relative reductions will ultimately be futile.

... at its root, climate change is a socio-political, indeed a cultural issue and as such requires from scientists a kind of social and moral awareness which often falls outside their normal range of professional interests. ... Now scientists have the ... obligation of pointing out that the core policy priority of governments around the world is at odds with immutable physical laws which preclude unending economic growth.

And here's my response (sent to Purdey only):

Dear Stephen,

I do believe this is a very important point (see my article "The Statistician's Guide to Utopia: The Future of Growth").

In this context I think it is further crucial to emphasize the shift in attention and political priority that is going on today as part of the rising global awareness about climate change, wherein climate issues tends to dominate and almost monopolize environmental policies. Just think about energy: Even if we did manage to use only renewable energy etc., that energy consumption (and the economic activity that goes along with it) would, within a paradigm if never-ending growth, be likely to have severe environmental consequences; even it the climate problem was hypothetically solved (which is in itself a totally unrealistic assumption, of course).

A further consequence of the prospect of continued growth is that policies increasingly depend on high-tech solutions, which further commits us to a technologically dominated society and in effect limits our range of policy options.

By the way, have you read "Surviving 1,000 centuries: Can we do it?" - A very informing book about the physical limits of our long-term global activities.

Best,

(morten tønnessen)
Academic homepage: http://utopianrealism.blogspot.com