Ethics

Transport Business Idea

Environmental Architecture, Plans

Having  just watched Chris Blaine’s “Who Killed the Electric Car?” on freedocumentaries.com,  I’ve got a fun idea.

Based on the theories put forth in the documentary, the socio-political-economic situation of America is too wrapped up in profit to make a commercially viable vehicle built by a major domestic company.  As the film lays out, either through poorly conducted marketing or public near-sightedness, electric cars are not viable as profitable products.   By viewing the influence of Big Oil, we see that financial push from the large incumbent of energy is too strong to defeat in a market scenario.  Then, when looking at the nature of the car company itself, a lack of constantly replaced parts reduces the financial incentive to produce such a vehicle.  When looking at the nature of both the local and national government, the desire of the people, both rich and poor, allows the first three issues to show that government influence on a profitable company will not help create a more efficient car, especially with a four to eight year turnover in government policy creating inconsistencies.  As a profit driven endeavor, the electric car won’t work for an American market.

The solution, then, for an American made electric car, is to create a not-for-profit company.  This company, through donations, links to educational institutions, constant exposure, and creative problem solving, would generate a commercially competitive electric vehicle that is made without regard to the company’s profit.  Thus, the company would be driven on the power of an idea rather than on the promise of increased profits over time.

The issue with only making a car leaves the question of fueling stations.  This initiative needs to be taken in cities where the environment is a priority.  Using these as starting cities, the company could make contracts with local businesses -not necessarily gas stations, but parking garages, lots, and restaurants – to expand the range of recharging facilities.  Working with various industries increases the odds of support that cannot easily be bought – or rather, stretches thin the influence of large companies opposing such business.  As certain cities expand in their influence with a short distance car, more cities can be brought in, longer distance battery models sold, and the idea of the electric car industry expanded.

The benefit, even to detractors of the electric car, would be a city by city case study where the efficiency both of the product and the business of the electric car could be critically studied.

This company would be most effected by state and federal policy as a not-for-profit, so lobbying from large corporations would threaten it the most.

However, if a desirable conversion for a business model was needed, one needs look no further than the computer industry.  These products operate on an electric system and have constant profit and advancement.  The industry makes large profits continuously and continues to grow and expand.  Why should an electric car industry be any different from the computer industry?

Tying into an earlier post, the potential of wireless charging makes the electric car that much more viable.  If the ability to charge the car becomes wireless as well, we’d have a car that charges as it travels, removing the fear of loss of fuel in suburban towns and cities.

Anyway, that’s my response to the documentary “Who Killed The Electric Car?”  I think the more important question is: how can it brought back to stay?

Additive Architecture

Environmental Architecture

Considering the fields of Theatre, Economics, Environmental Sustainment, and Architecture, I’m beginning to feel that a more conservative approach to the Green movement is necessary.  There are plenty of locations where mega-mansions are being built, huge, new, Green houses that take a lot of money and time and labor, but will eventually pay for their own costs.  What I’d like to see more of is tweaking: taking existing spaces and making them more green without demolishing them.  In other words, using the resources that are in place and making them more efficient.  One could say I’m advocating ‘baby steps’ in Architectural Sustainability, but there are more factors to consider in the Green movement than ‘houses that pay for themselves.’

What I’ve seen so far that I’ve liked includes the Gable House, a structure built using ‘lamboo’ – laminated bamboo – and resources from condemned farms, to build a house.  What’s excellent about these two materials is that the first is rapidly renewable – bamboo is a grass and if improperly contained, becomes an invasive weed; and that the second is a reused resource – in essence, it’s good waste management.

Detractors say that liberal approaches to Green Architecture lead to a higher carbon footprint in that resources must be transported to a site to build, whereas more conservative approaches lead to less transport and building.  They also argue for conservation of culture – especially those interested in historical landmarks.  I don’t entirely disagree with them.  However, living in Colonial Williamburg, I will say that over- conservation eventually leads to marketed celebration and a biased viewpoint of history.  In other words, nostalgia, like all things, should be taken in moderation.

Now that I’ve poo-poo’d CW, I will laud it: several years ago, the Foundation switched over to less authentic electric candles.  Preservation is important, but only to a certain extent.  If the Colonies had had electricity, I’m sure they would have used it.  After all, history shows that eventually, they did.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that one need not build an entirely new building in order to produce a grand eco-site.  Especially those in theatre, who someitmes used condemned buildigns as playign spaces.  Theatre should act both as a conservative function of culture and a progressive one.  By using the old ways and the tried and true aspects of a culture, it can also act to fix problems within a given society.

Looking at that role, one can extrapolate the ideology to architecture.  Rather than destroying condemned sites to build new green spaces, one can modify a dilapidated space into a more useful and efficient site.  This allows for both progressive movements in architecture and culture as well as a preservation of history and a conservation and reuse of resources. Especially in the Theatre, this approach would allow organizations to make a sustainable home while still paying homage to their roots (or at least their patron houses).

Macrocosm

Uncategorized

On The Human Thought

This essay focuses on the use of human invention and culture as part of the human animal function and how humanity is naturally aimed at space travel.

A human being, at its most biological level, is an animal.  It needs food, drink, shelter, and reproduction.  Unlike most animals, however, human beings have a highly advanced capacity for the use and creation of tools.  Indeed, after a certain point, the evolution of the human race can be tracked more by its technology than by its biology.  In addition, following the evolution of Humanity by Technology raises fewer ethical questions than following its Biology.   When looking at the progress of technology, one regards the phrase  ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’  What does this mean?

What is necessary?

If we look at humans as organisms, we find, as mentioned, that food, water, shelter, and reproduction are necessary.  Thus, all inventions should aid in one, if not all, of these categories.

As humans invented tools, they also invented societies and rules and religions and governments and culture.  Throughout history, culture and invention have driven each other’s focus.   The invention of the telescope, the astrolabe, star charts, have all bred controversy and confusion as man began to comprehend the universe beyond Earth.  This led to a changing understanding of not only the philosophies and religions of the world, but also of the means to navigate the globe and reach new lands.  An improved understanding of the heavens led mankind to better navigate in unfamiliar territory, to expand societies and cultures which were growing beyond their borders.

Societies have always had an expansionary tendency.  In the system which has dominated most of human societies, the most celebrated civilizations were those whose reign encompassed the most land, who demanded tribute from the most cultures.  With this as a marker of success, humanity has found itself at a strange new equilibrium: most of the world has been discovered.

To be more accurate, the surface of the land has been generally taken over.  That endless horizon after which pioneers have chased has vanished – horizontal expansion has ceased.  However, vertical expansion is still possible.  People can live in higher and higher buildings in more and more clustered groups, making cities and societies.  The problem with such areas is that it reduces a human instinct: survival.

The culture of the city is different from that of the country.  In cities, populations have exploded, crowding occurs, and the drive to reproduce is reduced.  This leads to views that encourage longer lifespans, more varied ways of life, from cultural awareness to sexual enlightenment, but also reduces the drive to create new life.  In more industrial societies, the nuclear family has become a model – fewer people in families with fewer generations raising children and fewer chidlren being produced.  The number of single parents is higher in cities.  The use of contraception is encouraged as a means of reducing disease ( a problem more rampant in urban centers).

With this in mind, in the advent of a global village, the entire world has become a city.  The ideas of first world nations now tend toward those of the city – more nuclear families, fewer children, less drive to reproduce.

In many circles, the act of sexual intercourse has become a stimulant rather than a tool.  The idea of the large family is not the first-world citizen’s idea of success.

Economists have noted that the most severe problem facing mankind today is the threat of overpopulation.  Food is not necessarily the problem: transport and resources is, however.  With more people, the expansive tendency becomes a warring tendency as more and more bodies vie for space on an increasingly ‘smaller’ planet.  That horizontal urge that humans have for ‘space’ is conflicted by the dangers of a global urbana.

Some theorists believe that humanity is reaching its peak population.  This is a problem: never in its history has humanity had a ‘peak population.’  If a place becomes too populated, people move outward, they travel, they settle elsewhere.   With all the societies and cultures in existence today, that same solution of moving has many more complications.  Immigrants the world over face oppression and alienation.  As societies become more and more tied to their citizens, the hope that lies in immigration is reduced.

Humanity should not have a natural peak.  Throughout its history, mankind has always found new horizons and new places to live.  All we need do now is switch from a horizontal expansion to a vertical one.  As technology evolves, the habitats which humanity can safely occupy expand. Human life can exist in deserts, under oceans, in the stars, even.

The rapid development of communication and data technology allows for ideas to be transfered faster, and so technology and culture continue to ‘evolve’ more rapidly.  However, the current culture is concerned more with lamenting overpopulation and complaining about use of resources than it is with continued expansion.

If humankind becomes a starfaring species, then many problems will be alleviated (although not eliminated).  Earth is a finite place, but the universe is ever expanding.  If humans need more room, if a population is becoming too great for this one world, why not populate more?

Travel across the stars has been the subject of fiction for years, and has even, to some extent, been acheived.  Satellites that orbit the planet show that space is a frontier which mankind is ready to explore, and the Hubble and other explorative satellites encourage expansion into the rest of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe.

There is no reason that mankind should reach a ‘peak population.’  If our only solution to ‘overpopulation’ is to stop reproducing, then why not simply expand?  We can go further, we can gain land, fame, and that ever-fascinating horizon line by becoming frontiersmen once again.  The human need to reproduce is reinforced by space travel, and as such, it is natural that the human race should expand into space.