Planet under Pressure: Options and Opportunities (Day 2)

Planet under Pressure: Options and Opportunities. 
Serious stuff today, mostly about what needs to be done.  Perspectives on economics, food&water and other sustenance issues.  The positive role that women play was well articulated by Bina Agarwal (both impacts on their lives and governance roles) and Dutch economist de Boer emphasized the need for a new dialogue with decision makers.  The panel, again with many UKers (although sometimes masked by affiliations with Euro-mainland institutions), picked up on this focus on human behavior and human values.  We need to go beyond describing the processes and issues, and try to touch the heart of the global citizenry.  Moreover, positive arguments about our collective future are a lot more useful than scare scenarios.
A Research and Action Agenda break-out session did not deliver much of an action agenda.  A pattern that is emerging across the conference thus far.  Steps in the right direction were explored, however, focusing on the "what" instead of the "how" of issues that are before us.  I am ready to hear more.
I then attended a nerdy break-out session on Geo-engineering that was science-heavy (mineral reactions, atmospheric particles, yield calculations, etc) and quite illuminating.  It seems that such CO2 removal processes may not be terribly effective, so geo-engineering offers little hope in the short run (but would create lots, lots of jobs).  Whereas there are processes that can reduce CO2, scaling it to the 30Gt of CO2 that humanity adds each year seems impossible.  Perhaps returning areas to natural vegetation is the best, short-term CO2 capture scenario, meaning that we reduce domesticated grasslands/pastures and return them to more C-intensive vegetation without need for nutrient fertilization.  This should appeal to the vegetarians among us, as croplands could be unaffected.  Frankly, they have point.  Like so many, I too enjoy my meat, but agree that average intake can easily be reduced.
An early evening informational session on a new global initiative, "Future Earth", illustrates the genuine desire of the community to see change, but also the lack of a convincing socio-political strategy towards change.  More on that likely to come in the days ahead.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012.
   

Planet under Pressure: State of the Planet (Day 1)

Planet under Pressure: State of the Planet.
The first day of the conference focused on general descriptions and views of the planet from a human perspective. Clearly, the conference is more about "People under Pressure" than "Planet under Pressure", based on these presentations. An annoyingly large number of UK speakers and panelists were featured at this aspiringly global conference. Many of them had the same message, "time to act", a decade ago, emphasizing the stalemate we are in and our inability to create actionable knowledge.
The sciency talks were good.  I especially liked the biodiversity presentation by Sandra Diaz and Steffen gave his informative Anthropocene graphs talk (both non-english accents).  A famous economics guy, Tony Giddens (he was called Lord several times), offered nothing insightful, but was, of course, selected in the UK news for his message (that is, we need change).  Panels are now the standard mode of these type of meetings, with panelists talking for 5 min about their thoughts on their topic of choice, and sometimes answers to (tweeted) questions.  A seemingly bored UK Chief Scientific Advisor, John Beddington, did not hide his effort to prefer prepared words (he was called Sir John each time, which makes me think of A Knight's Tale, not science guy).  The moderator, a former? BBC-WN anchor, was the most energetic of the morning.
The afternoon breakout that I attended on the Anthropocene was more engaging.  This was one of 10 or so break-out sessions.  The Anthropocene was loosely defined as the epoch when humans are the main surface processes driver.  I'd agree that we might be seeing the bottom of a new epoch or it is just a brief geologic event (like the consequences of an impact).  Too soon to claim the end of the Holocene (which is already over-tuning the record) with little geologic evidence that a new identifiable human-centric epoch will be lasting 1000s of years.  On the other hand, unless something dramatic happens soon in today's world, these surface processes may be noticeably preserved in the geologic record.  The jury is out on the Anthropocene, but it makes a great discussion starter about human impacts, regardless.
Good day overall.
Monday, March 26, 2012.

Planet under Pressure: Getting There (Day 0)

Planet under Pressure: Getting There.
Hoping for an oversold plane and a bump to business, I only got bumped by turbulence.  Heathrow is completely on the opposite side of London from the Excel conference center, so serious tubing was needed to get there.  The London Underground is wonderful on Sunday.  Not busy and perfectly on time.  It still took 1:30 h to get to the new Aloft hotel that is conveniently attached to the conference center (thank you, Expedia).  Early check-in available, so at 10:30a in my room.  The conference is one of those modern contraptions that are airy, but otherwise have little character; see picture 1.  Apparently an Abu Dhabie company owns it and Elsevier is the organizing company of PuP here, so corporate sustainability is already well represented (..). 
The conference center is in a former London docks area, which is being developed for suburban living and public other uses.  Lots of new glass buildings and several others under construction.  The hotel is also brand new and shows only as a sandlot on Google; it apparently only opened last November.  Have a nice city view from my "loft" room; parking, canal and London outskirts (2nd picture). 
Nothing on science or policy today, but we did have a reception supported by the folks who give the Blue Planet prize.  Lots of young people and many of the older crowd looks like me (variably grey-haired men).  Stay tuned for actual content (I'd say beef, but many here are likely vegetarians).
Planet under Pressure website is at http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/.
Sunday, March 25, 2012.

My Android Tablet – First Experiences

I got an Android tablet in late May (Asus Transformer) and have been using it a lot, so here are some of my initial experiences and observations.  First, I was looking for a device that retains the laptop experience, so the transformer, with dock/keyboard, was the choice. That configuration also increases the battery life, since the dock has a built-in battery.  Recent firmware upgrade diminished that value, because the dock refuses to deep sleep, so stays on and when not used.  This is fixable, but regrettably demands return of the unit for repair.  Leaving this “early-adopter” punishment aside for the time, what about the general tablet experience.

My goal is to replace a Windows laptop (Why? Because it is), so data productivity and data consumption need to be supported.  Data consumption, such as email, surfing, internet apps work really well.  From what I’ve seen, it is quite similar to the iPad, except that the app store for Android tablets is smaller.  Note that android apps are plentiful, but tablet-based apps (using more screen real-estate) are limited.  It seems that developers are taking a wait-and-see approach, perhaps until Android 4 appears late this year.  This will quickly change, with more tablet models and manufacturers appearing every week and sales increasing.  Several very good Android tablet optimized apps are available (like CNN), while other are strangely lacking (like New York Times).  The browser is similar to the Chrome browser on the PC, with enhancements for touch interface.  New browsers are appearing that offer additional touch functionality (like Dolphin).  Flash is enabled, so essentially all websites works.  Note that you can change the browser setting from tablet to desktop, which tells websites that they are dealing with a desktop browser, allowing more functionality.  Make sure you change this setting.

Productivity is another matter.  The tablet has great email functionality, including the ability to combine accounts (in my case, Outlook Exchange server and Gmail).  The office suite experience is much less satisfying.  My particular brand comes with Polaris suite, which is one of several Microsoft Office alternatives (such as Quickoffice, Docs to go).  These programs allow you to open and edit MO files, but not save in the new format (with the added “x” in the extension).  When opening these files in regular Office, they may contain alerts and have limited editing functionality.  So, just fine for a basic document (word, excel, ppt), but no seamless operation between Windows machine(s) and Android tablet.  Also frustrating is the synching of files.  Google Docs allows cloud access to files and synching, but no local files.  So, when you are not connected to WiFi, no access to files.  Obviously this is not satisfactory, which even GDocs admits (later this year offline capability will seemingly be reintroduced).  I use SugarSync for this purpose, allowing me to identify directories on my windows machine that are synched on the tablet.  This works most of the time, but not as smooth as synching among Windows machines.  SugarSync gives 5Gb free storage, so good for most purposes outside media files.

What about media?  Good music player and nice podcasts apps (such as Listen) are available, so no issues here.  I am using a free cover art downloader to spice-up the display.  Video seems to work fine, although I have not done more than just testing HBOGO and some websites.  Netflix streaming is still a no-go, but may be fixed with imminent Android 3.2 upgrade.  Video output uses a mini-HDMI, which worked fine on my LG TV in 1080i mode.  One also uses this port for powerpoint, but without a VGA-out connector this limits presentation use to newer projectors (with HDMI input).

A professional reason I am looking at tablets is their use as a field computing tool.  I have been experimenting with tablets since they first appeared, including military grade Xplore with Windows XP.  Predictably, Google Maps is well integrated into android tablets and the built-in GPS is excellent.  I used it to track locations in US, Turkey and Italy this summer, without any problems. Because GM caches maps (allowing >100Mb), I simply view the area of interest at the desired zoom level in advance, which is preserved when I no longer have WiFi (such as driving around).  A map cache mode (10mi radius) has just been introduced as well.  Stand-alone GPS apps give location and tilt information without WiFi as well, so it is also a tilt compass (yes, dip and dip direction, for the geologists among us). Some apps offer additional mapping functionality, such a Locus, but no user data input layer (yet) and ArcMap for Android remains in development.

So, all in all, my Android tablet is a nice device that clearly illustrates the future of mobile computing.  Growing pains are expected, and they are certainly there.  So why not get an iPad2, which is more mature?  I am not a fan of the Steve-knows-best culture, making decisions on functionality (add-ons) and connectivity (ports) that do not recognize user needs.  I expect, much like smartphones, that the open Android system will become the leading tablet OS, because of greater functionality, interconnectivity, manufacturer choice and pricing.  Let’s see how this plays out.