ABCtech #57 29JAN16 Imagine Sustainability

ABCtech #57 29JAN16 Imagine Sustainability

Turmoil seems to be the new norm as we are confronted by conflicting messages at all levels:  economic – up or down?, environmental – true or false?, regulatory – stable or not?, technology – helping or disrupting?  When will stability return? Who to trust? What values will prevail? Where is the leadership?  Or is the uncertainty simply a reflection of having access to so much unfettered information? 

Don Diduck shares below his view.  Don is a Director on the Board of the Alberta Council of Technologies Society (ABCtech) and founder of the  new Alberta-By-Design. – Editor

Our Deepest Fears about the Future have arrived on our front step. Should you answer the doorbell? by Don Diduck, Alberta -By-Design   Contact 

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.  (Rod Serling 1974)

Some people might say that sounds a lot like Alberta today.

The Twilight Zone was a TV series which originally aired in 1959 and offered stories that always managed to put a twist into the premise of what we believed was certain.  In that world, the premise became suspect but only at the last moment and at a time when it was seemingly too late to do anything about it.

In many respects, that is the world we are living in today.

Whether it is technology that is ready to upset the apple cart or, figuratively speaking, replaces the notion of apples with the idea of communication devices like cell phones, there is a trust factor in play.  We trust that those who are bringing forward their ideas in the form of technology or socio-economic policy are fully-informed, possess good judgement and express constructive intent for the world at large.

But this is not necessarily the case.

For example, in Alberta, we have built entire systems which we might like to believe are reliable and will never let us down like our healthcare system and the Energy Industry in Alberta.  These are complex systems and have deep roots into all facets of our society and economy.  They are driven by policy makers on the one hand and the open market in the other case, or some mix of the two.  We trust systems like these for our livelihoods and even, at times, our very lives.

Many of Alberta’s systems are already unsustainable or soon-to-be unsustainable in their current form.

In order to understand and realize the potential consequences of unsustainability, let’s defer to history when the world was in severe crisis and a particular moment when technology was used to turn events around.  In the movie, “The Imitation Game”, Alan Turing is faced with the challenge of deciphering Enigma, a coding machine used by the Germans in World War II and which was their primary communications encryption device.  At that time, there was no system that existed which could decipher the messages Enigma created until Turing developed a new system which was able to supersede the capabilities of the mechanically geared Enigma.  The result was our first ‘large scale’ electronic computer.  This computer turned a totally unsustainable condition (Britain was losing the war at the time) and shifting it to one which totally changed the direction and ultimate outcome of the war.  The systems that followed with the advent of the computer eventually facilitated sustainability by way of innovation and the application of new superior systems in all segments of our society.

Currently, Alberta is at risk of becoming irrelevant if we really believe that returning to the conditions of the past will save us.  It won’t.

Energy pricing and the consequential return of higher public revenues from related taxation will come with a return of higher oil prices.  This will happen at some point.  And, when it does, many of us will be relieved that we managed to get through yet another bad down turn in our economic cycle.  We might even declare that we are much stronger for having survived the experience.  This is nonsense.

We need to put in place a new system which can supersede our existing system that keeps turning Alberta into an economic war zone of attrition and low value production using non-renewables.  This is not a message about green energy.  It is about sustainability and its truer meaning can be differentiated by how our leadership sees Alberta’s place in the world.

There is a great deal of literature on sustainability and how to create new systems which can help us move out of this reality into one where we design it. Right now, Alberta’s public leadership at all levels needs to be able to turn to a new system for solid, long-term policy development and implementation which aligns with what socio-economic sustainability is really all about.  This would not be some etheric exercise but a down-to-earth grounding of what can be done with the imagination and creativity of well-informed Albertans.   There are many Albertans (our own Alan Turings) who have not yet been invited to be part of the solution for developing the new system for sustainability.

Imagine an interface with the best and brightest Albertans which, through a new system for the honest brokering of good, practical ideas and related policy which can support our public and private sector efforts to bring about a transformative change to our current reality.  Perhaps, we can decide to take that step and avoid yet another episode of Alberta’s own “Twilight Zone”.

Articles

Alberta’s Climate Change Plan submitted by the Climate Change Advisory Panel HERE

Alberta’s Royalty Review Panel’s Final Report  HERE

Innovation is key to Alberta’s new economy. HERE 

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