"Practicing Sustainability" Wins a Nautilus Book Award

Practicing Sustainability has been selected for a 2013 Nautilus Silver Book Award. The awards program, now in its 13th year, represents "Better Books for a Better World" and "honors, awards and promotes print books that inspire and connect our lives as individuals, communities and global citizens." 

Previous winners of the Nautilus Book Awards include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Barbara Kingsolver (selected again in 2013), and Deepak Chopra.

"The Nautilus Book Awards are named for the mollusk whose beautiful, pearl-lined shell contains chambers of increasing size which the sea creature constructs for itself as it grows. The nautilus symbolizes both ancient wisdom and expanding horizons; both the elegance of nature and a continual growth of understanding and awareness."

Hearty thanks to Nautilus Awards for this incredible honor! And congratulations to Springer, my co-editors and chapter contributors!

Topping it Off: Rules and Incentives

I don’t seem to have much luck when it comes to the Philadelphia airport. Looking out the window from a Canadair CL 65 at Terminal F on a recent Saturday morning, it was clear to me that I was missing out on the peak cherry blossom weather as I was heading back home from a conference to Washington Reagan.

As the turbines started screaming, the flight attendant went over the canned script “electronic devices must be switched off for takeoff.” Everything seemed normal for our under 30-minute hop-on hop-off shuttle service. The plane pulled back a couple of feet and made a tentative stop; then emerged a deep voice on the microphone from the flight deck. It began with a really hesitant “Ladies and Gentlemen…” The person sitting next to me must have received a cosmic alert that he could preempt a delay even before the pilot could finish his sentence: “Now what?” he said with a shade of frustration shaking his head. 

It turned out that a service staff member had over-fueled the airplane, and rules didn’t permit the cockpit crew to fly with that excess gas. The three-year old sitting in front of me knew how to reboot his iPad and started to poke the touch screen for a game. His mom too turned her e-reader quickly back on again to continue reading a gripping novel. Why waste time? The delay that was to follow—45 minutes—went toward waiting for the Aircraft Service International Group to “defuel” the plane to the right level. The flight staff kept appreciating us for our patience—three times.

This event triggered me to reflect on how rules tend to generate compliance when they involve some form of incentives. As the defueling process was underway, I picked up the copy of the April 2013 edition of the US Airways Magazine from the seat pocket in front of me. As I thumbed through the pages eager to check out the cover story: “The Ultimate Graze: Eating Venice One Bite at a Time” I landed on page 12. An article titled “Fuel Economy.” Author: Tara Titcombe.

In the wildest synchronicity, a paragraph—titled “Less is More”— in that article went like this: “The amount of fuel required for each flight is carefully calculated by trip distance, plane weight, and potential delays. After studying the fuel loads on flights leaving from Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Washington, US Airways discovered that many aircrafts were being over-fueled—sometimes by more than 300 pounds. Newly revised fueling procedures have resulted in more accurate fueling which in turn has reduced the cost of carrying extra fuel.”

            After reading this piece I let my mind wander in relation to how the federal aviation regulations have remarkably evolved since the 1960s, and especially after a series of high profile accidents in the 70s and the 80s. The wisdom behind these regulations stemmed from the fact that human judgments were fallible, and human induced errors were essentially unavoidable. Later regulations required manufacturers to develop several additional layers of redundancy to ensure safety.

These safety innovations including simple checklists are not just symbolic of engineering excellence but on a more philosophical level, a reflection of our society’s shift toward rule-driven efficiency. Think of the number of high fatality airline accidents over the last two decades. Rock bottom.

In the case of air carrier I was in, the concept of efficiency—and by extension, economics—was purely a matter of the “right level,” perhaps even a derivative of safety standards. Nothing more. Nothing less.

            In the concluding lines of Titcombe’s article, Marc Gross, managing director of the US Airways operations control center says: “Our approach to fuel conservation isn’t just about cost savings. It’s also about being good stewards of the environment.” An economic incentive tied to an environmental objective—or could it be the opposite?

If such conservation-like standards were to be applied for let’s say overeating (topping off the bellies incessantly) would that result in anything besides the guaranteed public outrage and political concussions? How come we value rules differently when it comes to machines that we expect (and tame) to be devoted to our safety versus our own (irrational) behavior that plays a massive role in determining our health and performance?

In my own case, there are “rules” in place for me to take my car for routine preventive maintenance more frequently than going to my primary physician or dentist. Why? A system’s behavior (read: performance) changes as the emphases placed on the notion of efficiency changes. And of course, this involves incentives. After all, a change without an incentive is a change without any real change.   

            As the defueling process was completed and our plane started to crawl on the notoriously congested runway for take-off, the flight attendant reminded us that due to the short duration of the flight there won’t be any beverage service. Not surprising, but was the actual reason for not carrying beverages to keep the weight of the airplane at the right threshold? I don’t think so, but that’s another story.

The Temple of Science is 150

It's a unique privilege to be working at the National Academy of Sciences during its 150^th anniversary. On March 3, 1863, at the heart of the bleak and bloody Civil War President Abraham Lincoln signed the creation of NAS reminding us of what it means (and takes) to be a visionary. 

As Yale historian Daniel Kevles notes in a recent article covering the history of NAS in the Issues in Science and Technology: “The foundations of that future had been laid in the Civil War, when Congress established the academy, and during the Gilded Age.” Former NAS president Bruce Alberts’s recent editorial in Science is also a useful reminder on why societies need scientific academies and a scientifically well-informed citizenry. Penn State geologist Richard Alley's video covers Lincoln’s vision--and invention--very well in PBS's Earth: The Operator's Manual (5 mins):

Happy anniversary NAS! And thank you very much President Lincoln.

Image sources: The National Academies

Green Music

In an article for the Annapolis Capital Gazette, Theresa Winslow covers Maestro José-Luis Novo’s chapter contribution to Practicing Sustainability. I’ve been a fan of Maestro Novo since my graduate school days. Included below is the article, posted here with permission:

= = =

Green Music

Capital Gazette

Posted: Sunday, January 20, 2013 5:00 am

By Theresa Winslow, Staff Writer   

Annapolis has a Green Drinks group, Green Beer Races and green space.

Now, it also has green musicians.

No, the members of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra aren’t going paperless. They still need their sheet music.

But as José-Luis Novo explains, composers always recycle material, drawing from colleagues and culture for inspiration. So, the ASO’s musicians are simply contributing to a longstanding musical tradition.

Novo, the orchestra’s music director, writes about music and recycling in the new book “Practicing Sustainability.”

Published by Springer in October, the book looks at issues typically confined to the environment from the perspective of many different fields, ranging from community development and medicine to education and historic preservation.

“We thought this would be a very interesting and significant complement to the more technical, scientific approach to sustainability,” said David Packer, executive editor at Springer in New York City.

Scoring a book deal

Novo’s participation in the project owes to his work with the Binghamton Philharmonic. He splits time between the New York State-based group and the ASO.

Guruprasad Madhavan, lead editor of the book, was a frequent concertgoer in Binghamton when he was in graduate school and became a fan of Novo’s. When he came up with the idea for the book, he contacted the conductor.

Madhavan, who has an engineering background, said there’s a great deal of similarity in the way he and Novo think about issues.

Still, Novo balked when first approached about the book because of time constraints. But after he met with Madhavan, he decided to give it a try. “The concept he had was powerful,” Madhavan said.

The book wasn’t the first time Novo considered the topic of music and recycling.

In the ASO’s 2010-11 season, he organized the concert “Recycling Redefined,” in which works of Brahms and Rachmaninoff were highlighted. Novo writes about this, noting that both composers “recycled some of their themes from either tradition or previous compositions.”

Other luminaries, as well as present-day composers, do the same, and this makes music sustainable, he said. “Often, you hear from people classical music is a dead art form. This couldn’t contradict that more.”

Even the title of Novo’s chapter in the book is an example of recycling, since it draws on the name of the concert. The chapter is “Recycling Reinvented: Music and Sustainability.”

“Art, in order to subsist, has to be sustainable,” the music director said. “If it doesn’t connect with what it comes from, it’s never going to have an impact on society.”

Novo said art is like to science in this way.

“Scientists are always ahead of their times, inventing the next gadget or concept,” he said. “Artists are the same, inventing the concept of how human beings interact and relate to the world.”
© 2013 CapitalGazette.com. All rights reserved.

Turn 'Em Loose!

"You've got to get kids out in the woods, in the natural environment as much as you can, and leave them alone...The worst thing you can do is to take them down the path of some nature park that has the label on each tree and tell them to be careful not to step off the trail because there might be snakes. What a terrible way to introduce them to nature. Turn 'em loose!"-- Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson at the 2012 Aspen Environment Forum.

Source: The Aspen Idea, Winter 2012/2013, p.20

It’s Different: Sustainability and Touchy Trade-Offs

Preface for Practicing Sustainability (Madhavan, Oakley, Green, Koon, and Low)

“Sustainability” means different things to different people. It is underpinned by differing—and frequently contradictory—preconceptions, public attitudes, political agendas, cultural beliefs, emotions, and goals. We customize sustainability to fit with our needs, lifestyles, and belief systems. Importantly, there is a tension between personal sustainability and global sustainability. This is an echo of the tensions between caring for oneself versus caring for one’s community.  Practicing and achieving sustainability starts by being willing to look critically at the concept. It also means enabling rich and vigorous discussion to determine a framework for best ideas and practices. That’s what this book is an attempt to do. 

In Practicing Sustainability, contributors pour their distilled life experiences into their essays. The writers come from an extraordinarily broad range of backgrounds: poet, symphony orchestra conductor, secular evangelical pastor, chef, skyscraper architect, filmmaker—all these, along with visionaries, scientific leaders, business executives, practitioners, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and contrarians in sustainable development. What emerges from these essays is a wide spectrum of views that confirm one thing: sustainability is perceived and pursued in different ways not only due to different interpretations, but also because of different trade-offs, incentives, values, and tensions associated with it.

How can we understand and make the best out of these differing views? A peek back at the history of the sustainable development might help. In the 1980s, a commission led by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, helped kindle public awareness about sustainability. The commission’s definition of sustainable development has become one of the most widely cited: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The definition is inspirational, but difficult to implement.

So what is implementable? If there is one basic message in this book, it is that more of the same is not the right approach to sustainable development. Worse yet, aspiring to create a more sustainable society by simply throwing more money or finite natural resources at something without thinking through other realistic options may actually impede sustainable development. Increasingly sophisticated use of technology has enabled humans through thousands of years to overcome apparent resource limits. An important message of this book, however, is that technology forms only one route towards achieving sustainability. Pragmatism and common sense are also key.

Ultimately, the key questions remain: What is it we are trying to sustain? As a society, are we capable of practicing or achieving sustainable development? Is the concept of sustainable development realistic? What are our social—and personal—limits, constraints, and responsibilities? How do we resolve or take advantage of the opportunities that tension between growth and sustainability can afford us? There is no “one size fits all” answer to these questions. With time and the much needed critical thinking, sustainable development will become a more integral part of our culture. We are not there yet, but we hope Practicing Sustainability will serve as a stepping stone.

Introducing "Practicing Sustainability"

My newest general interest book Practicing Sustainability co-edited with my fellow engineer Barbara Oakley, MacArthur Fellow David Green, the Honorable David Koon, and the Honorable Penny Low will be out this month from Springer. 

From the Back Cover:


Sustainability applies to everybody. But everybody applies it differently, by defining and shaping it differently—much as water is edged and shaped by its container. It is conceived in absolute terms but underpinned by a great diversity of relatively “green”—and sometimes contradictory—practices that can each make society only more or less sustainable. In Practicing Sustainability, chefs, poets, music directors, evangelical pastors, skyscraper architects, artists, filmmakers, as well as scientific leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, business executives, policy makers, and the contrarians, shed light on our understanding of sustainability and the role that each of us can play. Each contributor addresses what sustainability means, what is most appealing about the concept, and what they would like to change to improve the perception and practice of sustainability. What emerges from their essays is a wide spectrum of views that confirm an important insight: Sustainability is pursued in different ways not only due to different interpretations, but also because of varying incentives, trade-offs, and altruistic motives. Practicing and achieving sustainability starts with a willingness to look critically at the concept. It also means enabling rich and vigorous discussion based on pragmatism and common sense to determine a framework for best ideas and practices. With time and the much needed critical thinking, sustainable development will become a more integral part of our culture. By sharing experiences and crisp insights from today’s savants, Practicing Sustainability serves as a stepping stone to the future.


Praise:

“Delightful…the chapters are gems of precision and insight.”—Michael Spence, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics 

“This book so aptly demonstrates [that] the concept of sustainability can be applied to many different areas, which could be woven together into a sustainability agenda.”—Robert Rubin, Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations, and Former U.S. Secretary of Treasury

“Seminal…a thoughtful and refreshingly different book.”—Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum 

“Mahatma Gandhi once said ‘unsustainable lifestyles and unacceptable poverty should become problems of the past, to achieve harmony with nature and with each other.’ Practicing Sustainability not only brings out the relevance of this vision clearly, but also the need to develop better concepts and pathways to achieve that vision.”—M.S. Swaminathan, World Food Prize Laureate and Member of Parliament, India 

“An enlightening book that demystifies what sustainability really means with a fresh, unusual range of voices and practical insights. Practicing Sustainability should be read by anyone who cares about the future of our planet.”—Neal Lane, Former Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the U.S. National Science Foundation. 

“In this unique collection, each reader will find three or four sparks—things that will connect with their head or heart or both, and perhaps spur them to real action. It's a necessary book!”—Bill McKibben, Founder, 350.org, and author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy, and Eaarth 

“Practicing Sustainability is an engaging and ultimately uplifting kaleidoscope of ideas from the people on the front lines of building a better planet.”—Greg Ip, author of The Little Book of Economics 

“The popularity of “sustainability” has taken a toll on its meaning—it is too often used as a lofty aspiration or as a vague objective. This book provides a great antidote to this trend. Practicing Sustainability is a must-read for anyone looking for good ideas on how to make sustainability more real and concrete.”—Moisés Naím, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Chief International Columnist, El País; Former Editor-in-Chief, Foreign Policy 

“An important book that contributes greatly to the understanding and practice of sustainability in a comprehensive, lucid, and thoughtful way.”—Shu Chien, National Medal of Science Laureate; University Professor of Bioengineering and Medicine, University of California, San Diego

Smart Decisions

Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Framework is a recent Institute of Medicine report that I worked on. It describes an early stage decision-support software tool called "SMART Vaccines" to help prioritize new vaccines for development—a unique product for the National Academies. 

In his foreword, Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine, notes: "Decision makers in the area of vaccine development—including developers, investors, practitioners, and policy makers—are constantly challenged by rapidly changing demographics, epidemiology, economics, technologies, and health systems. Thus, a comprehensive yet adaptable framework is needed to assist decision making...SMART Vaccines, described in this report, provides one such framework."


He adds: "Like all decision tools, SMART Vaccines is an aid for decision making, not a substitute for sound judgment...Beyond its potential applications in independent and collaborative decision making, SMART Vaccines can facilitate focused and informed discussion among various stakeholders. In this role, it can provide a common platform for diverse constituents to arrive at mutually agreeable priorities and help foster collaborations among them. In addition, SMART Vaccines is being designed so that it can be adapted and configured to help set priorities related to health interventions other than vaccines."

The report can be viewed or freely downloaded as a PDF from the National Academies Press: www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13382

The Truth May Just Be Inside All of Us

Morgan Freeman features David Sloan Wilson, one of my supremely polymath mentors and "a card carrying evolutionist," whose recent work offers insights into prosocial behavior and community development. 

Good Grief

Sharon Tregaskis—an upstate New York-based writer—in her article for the Binghamton University Magazine writes about my recent work and evolving partnership with Barbara Oakley and David Sloan Wilson.

In Tregaskis’s words:

“Since he started work on Pathological Altruism, Madhavan says he’s often found himself meditating on its themes as he goes about his job in D.C. ‘Frequently when you’re confronting a situation that piques your empathy, people leap into helping,’ he says. ‘It’s like Velcro. You’re immediately sticky and you can’t get yourself out.’

Instead, says Madhavan, he now models his response on the water lily. No matter the wind, rain or waves that buffet its floating leaves and blossoms, water simply pools on its waxen surface. For Madhavan, it’s the perfect analogy for altruism at its best — floating in a sea of needs, but far from drowning. ‘It’s constantly submerged, but you look at the pad and you can see the water droplets,’ he says. ‘It’s attached and detached.’”

Image art by Mark Smith. Source: Binghamton University Magazine. Link: http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/good-grief