I have almost finished reading the brilliant book Beyond Growth by the economist Herman Daly. It is worth quoting at length:

We have three economic problems to consider: allocation, distribution and scale.

Allocation refers to the apportioning of resources among alternative product uses—food, bicycles, cars, medical care. An allocation is efficient if it corresponds to effective demand, that is, the relative preferences of the citizens as weighted by their relative incomes, both taken as given. An inefficient allocation will use resources to produce a number of things that people will not buy, and will fail to produce other things that people would buy if only they could find them. It would be characterized by shortages of the latter and surpluses of the former.

Distribution refers to the apportioning of goods produced (and the resources they embody) among different people (as opposed to different commodities). Distributions are just or unjust; allocations are efficient or inefficient. There is an efficient allocation for each distribution of income.

Scale refers to the physical size of the economy relative to the ecosystem. The economy is viewed, in its physical dimensions, as a subsystem of the larger ecosystem. Scale is measured as population times per capita resource use—in other words total resource use—the volume of the matter/energy throughput (metabolic flow) by which the ecosystem sustains the economic subsystem. Scale may be sustainable or unsustainable. An efficient allocation does not imply a just distribution. Neither an efficient allocation or a just distribution, nor both, implies a sustainable scale.

The three concepts are quite distinct, although relations among them exist, as noted above.

(I had planned to write on this topic, but instead put a gift card towards this purchase—a lucky choice, in hindsight. Usually I am happier to read on new topics than to share my clumsy initial thoughts. Experience is starting to show this is a good habit.)

Daly points out that economics and the problem of scale cannot escape elementary thermodynamics. Human economic activity takes low-entropy matter & energy as input and produces high-entropy wastes. The ecosystem has a limited ability to convert the latter to the former. He also hints that the scale of the economy is unsustainable, or will soon be at current rates of growth. There are also a number of elegantly simple diagrams I will surely reproduce and reuse.

The very clear explanations lend weight to a number of incubating personal beliefs:

• "Ethical-" or "green consumerism" cannot solve problems of scale. The much-touted power of individuals making smart product choices is limited to adjusting effective demand, and in turn allocation. Really the only choice which can help us (well-off North Americans) solve the scale problem is to not consume.
• Posturing about "equal treatment" of rich and poor nations in (for example) carbon-limiting agreements is misguided. If there is an optimal scale for the global economy, the corresponding per capita resource use is certainly lower than the current level in the richest nations, or higher than that in the poorest. The necessary adjustments differ greatly depending on which is the case.
• As a corollary to the above, poor nations (Daly says bluntly "the South") cannot follow the same historical trajectory of development as the North. China and India, for example, err badly in aiming for the North American level of consumption. North America, unconscious of the image it presents, errs badly in encouraging such aims. We cannot all live this way; the only "fair" thing is that no one try either to achieve or maintain it.
• Population control is an inescapable necessity. Either our current 6.8-billion must live in general poverty, or some lower number may live comfortably. It is better to accomplish this peacefully than violently.
• In order to muster the political courage to control population, we must first prove to ourselves that we can solve other problems associated with reaching optimal scale.

These considerations motivate major changes, but of course they don't mean that we must choose to be unhealthy, uncomfortable, hungry or unhappy.

More (hopefully) soon.

Public policy is a growing personal interest, building on my background in engineering, my morbid fixation with local, provincial and federal politics, and a view for leadership.

This term I have a fascinating graduate course in Engineering & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. While much of the material would likely cause the reader's eyes to glaze over, I hope to write about some situations that motivate the use of policy.

My mother grew up in what was essentially farmland in Aurora, Ontario in the 1950s and '60s. School always involved a long bus ride; the nearest neighbours were miles away. Her love of the outdoors led our family to own a ski chalet on 8 acres of land in upstate New York in the '90s, and for decades she has enjoyed an annual, week-long canoe trip with several women her age to one of Ontario's many parks. The works of the Group of Seven are among her favourite art.

I, on the other hand, have resolved never to own a car, which mostly confines my working life to urban areas. I am still interested in living in a Japanese-style one-bedroom apartment, the sort that tend to be too small for even a shower (a nearby bathhouse substitutes). Bicycle activism interests me, and recently I use 'driver' as an ephithet more often that not. Despite these contrasts I find that I share a high valuation of nature, of open spaces away from civilization, of the pristine. I cycle, ski, run and dragon boat because I love being outdoors. Nature's majesty has an unrivalled capacity to awe me.

Whereas earlier generations, especially in North America, had a concept of nature as bountiful and boundless, we are aware today of the limits of our planet. Conventional wisdom has it that a person is entitled to his own homestead, his plot of land, or at least his suburban home on a large lot. When space is plentiful, this is excellent—if each child had his own patch of woods to tromp through, we would surely have better mental health overall.

In Mississauga, where I grew up, there is no longer empty land; every hectare within the city limits has been zoned, and much of it for housing. The consequence is sprawl; youth who feel disconnected from communities they cannot traverse without a license and a vehicle; poor public transit in areas with density too low to support frequent service. Development, far from ceasing, continues in Brampton and other municipalities further from downtown Toronto.

I don't think this should be interpreted to mean that we no longer value nature. Imagery of the Great White North is central to our national identity and we are loath to abandon it. Nor are the developers and new homeowners inherently evil. Instead, I feel, our behaviour has been slow to change and no longer suits our values.

The course has confirmed my distaste for the varieties of conservatism that favour small government and markets. In the Greater Toronto Area, the de facto policy of letting the housing market alone has only allowed the efficient paving of large areas of green land. Yet the market provides no incentive to use instruments of collective benefit (parks, transit and multiple dwellings) over those of individual benefit (backyards, cars and individual homes). Thus the need for progressive policy. Looking to Western Europe and East Asia we can see myriad examples of both success and failure in this policy space, and we have the luxury of adapting the former to our own cities.

Thus also I can reconcile my 'city mouse' predilections with my 'country mouse' values. When wilderness and nature—the urban park, the lakeshore, the ski slopes and national parks a few hours away—are within easy reach, urban living need not feel confined or artificial.

Manufacturing jobs in Ontario, the prophesy goes, are disappearing and will soon be extinct. I think this is unnecessarily dire. I recently read a report that Multibrid was weighing manufacturing the turbines for a large wind project in Lake Ontario.

Read the attached brochure from REpower, another Germany company making 5 MW turbines, and note the thirty-two endorsements from presidents of subcontractors and associated companies. Some of those companies do work exclusively in support of wind power manufacturing, which—if the world's third-largest GDP were not enough—should convince you that Germany knows what it is doing in terms of both sustainability and economic growth. If the provincial government could connect its left and right hands, I suspect the Ontario Power Authority would be quickly convinced to drop its weak claim that offshore wind projects are too expensive for the Ontario grid.

I missed Nuit Blanche last year, so I had a great time this Saturday and Sunday wandering around with some teammates from the Iron Dragons. I won't say more, but you can view some photos at Torontoist or on Kim's Flickr account. Also, I have to go back to Bau-Xi sometime for a less hurried look.

Around 1 AM we were passing through Yorkville and squeezed into the packed Bay & Cumberland Starbucks to get some java (Disclaimer: I'm still a Second Cup nut! A friend passed me a $20 Starbucks card he was given but didn't intend to use). I picked up a couple of bottles of ethos water for our friends.

This ended up bothering me for the rest of the night. Ethos water? The premise (providing clean water to poor children) is nice, but I have a very strong distaste for "consumption philanthropy." Eliminating breast cancer is another cause that is avariciously exploited. Faced with the choice to:

• enable people to do marginal good via increased consumption, or
• encourage people to do good for its own sake and reduce consumption

... the latter is vastly preferable. Some entries in the August Harper's Index echoed facts available on Wikipedia; namely that 3-5 l of water is used to produce and transport a bottle of water, not including the water being sold, that the millions of bottles sold annually are made from petrochemicals, and that they are rarely recycled. On top of this, though 10¢ of my more-than-$2 purchase went to humanitarian work, Ethos Water made some unspecified profit.

Put another way, why not buy a Nalgene and use it (as my mother has) for 20 years. You'd spend $10 once and the (clean, conveniently fluorinated) tap water is free. Instead of buying two-dollar bottled water a few times a week, spending perhaps $6000 and thereby contributing $300, you could save or even invest that money, give thousands to humanitarian works and reduce your carbon footprint.

With a little thought, it's usually apparent how to solve the right problem.

Contrary to popular advice, I often sweat the small stuff. Today, cups.

Coffee shops generate litter. Ideally, we should each tote around a mug to whip out whenever we need a caffeine fix. I try and do this as much as possible, but the paper cup is unlikely to be obsoleted.

Paper cups are not terrible because they can be recycled or composted, unlike (in most locations) styrofoam. Second Cup (my favourite coffee chain) uses cups by Dover Cup in Brampton, Ontario. Tim Horton's and several other shops and use a cup branded Conference Cup, made by Dopaco. I wonder, though—if MEC can use biodegragable plastic bags, why not rigid lids of the same material?

Also, Second Cup locations (including the one at College Street and King's College Road that I visit with healthy frequency), seem to switch at random from plastic to wooden stir sticks and back. At Tim Horton's they prepare your coffee for you, so these are done away with altogether. I find it unfortunate that bags of mostly compostable waste (coffee, grounds, sugar and packets, some stir sticks, cups) are put out as landfill garbage because of a few plastic items.

It is possible but likely not practical to separate the two, but why not use BPI-approved packaging so the entire waste stream can be composted? More info here.