Ecosystem Services and Shadow Governance

 In my course on ecosystem services the 5th module is devoted to government and how to form international networks to bring new laws that support ecosystem services approaches. I found that less than useful. I know what governance is. Building layers of bureaucrats who rule society as a sluzhba while slopping the masses and owning allegiance to plutocrats is less than good.

Interestingly a square meter of Danish soil may have more than 15 million organisms in it and billions of individual bacteria. Alaska has some areas comparable to Denmark I would think. Ecosystem services is a term mentioned in scholarly articles yet promulgating laws in Alaska with that term is not established. Plainly defense of the natural ecosphere is a vital interest of the human species yet the ecosystem services approach may be too bound up with the established political economy to accomplish that. The entire module on governance in this ecosystem services course is somewhat concerning and less than useful as it seems the course is instructing methods for building political structures and even sedulous international political networks rather than instructing on how to implement ecosystem service analyses scientifically, practically.

We were asked to look into national government laws that use the term 'ecosystem services' and send in the findings to an international database. The title of the discussion prompt was 'Global database on emerging laws on Ecosystem Services'

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18uu-PGp9g6UHCBUt_Ug6BtKaQASP6VUErFqGwCuSo2o/edit?usp=sharing

There is already a surfeit of government bureaucrats and careerists affiliated with movements of various kinds that don't actually get things done yet do tend to take over governments and make them ineffective. Building international shadow governments with however honorable an operating premises is still inimical to democratic, national government.

I have written before that combining ecospheric rescue and restoration efforts with a particular divisive political agenda is a sure way to lose much support. Because the players involved have drank the same kool aid they fail to understand the problem. At the least it will waste a lot of time and create the externality of opportunity costs concerning failure to find an actual efficient plan that a democracy could consider and vote to use.

Without Three-point Shots NBA Scoring Leaders Would be Different

 The N.B.A. was forced to introduce three-point shots to the game in 1979 because the A.B.A. with a red, white and blue basketball, Dr. J and three-point shots was becoming too popular. The introduction of three point shots changed the game and the list of career scoring leaders.

Lebron James is a great basketball player and may pass Kareem tonight in his ascent to the number one spot of career scoring leaders. Yet Oscar Robertson and John Havlicek each scored 28,000 points before 1979 and would probably be at number one and two instead of 13 and 15 respectively. All of the players career totals above then were complied in the three-point era.

N.B.A. scoring records complied after 1979 are a little like baseball records set after steroids reached American shores and became used by pro athletes; they are tainted with suspicion. In 1973 East German women won 10 of 14 medals at the World Swimming championships; it was believed the swimmers were using steroids. Steroids were banned from the Olympics in 1975.

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2008/03/11/steroid-timeline - notes Hitler's use of steroids and mental state consistent with heavy steroid use including suicide

Lebron James is a naturally healthy guy who might not have used steroids to promote his scoring. Havlicek and Robertson given three point shots might have scored 7000 more points and Lebron James without three-pointers about 2500 fewer. James made about 7000 points with three-points shots.

Robertson and Havlicek played guard (Havilcek was primarily a forward though). They were strong from the three point range- Kareem made just a single three point shot out of eighteen attempts so his total wouldn't have changed without three point shots, so in effect Kareem is the real scoring leader by a country miles in a scenario without three-pointers ever entering the N.B.A. If some of the value of James' threes are subtracted so a real comparison is possible he would have about 2500 fewer points.

In my opinion, if the three point shot existed in from 1960 the NBA career scoring leader would be Oscar Robertson, Lebron James, Kareem and Havlicek. If the three point shot never existed the leader would be Kareem followed by Robertson, James and Havlicek.

Is it true to say that Patrick Mahomes is Black?

A sports broadcaster said this morning that the upcoming Superbowl is the first to have two black quarterbacks starting. I was reminded of Mitchner's book Caribbean wherein the racial categorizing ideas of one French slave owner of Haiti were described. A black was said to be anyone to have 1/256% African black ancestry.

having painted hundreds of buildings over the years I tend to object with calling a color something other than what it is. Patrick Mahomes' skin simply isn't black. Wal-mart paint departments ( I am not making a recommendation here) generally have laser paint color identifiers that can detect the angstrom wavelengths of light reflect off a color sample fairly accurately. If the Walton group that bought the Denver Broncos used their paint sample analyzer on Patrick Mahomes I am certain that it would not report the finding 'black'.

In my opinion it is wrong to continue to use slave-era color generalities for television analysis classifications of players. If a player if coffee with cream colored the sportscaster should say that the Superbowl is the first to have a coffee colored with cream quarterback vs a somewhat black quarterback.

Creamed coffee color is not the best term. I am sure the Wal-mart paint analysis laser would have a more accurate term. The genome of Americans with African black ancestry is 24% European and nearly 1% American Indian. Muhammad Ali was probably more than 50% Euro and perhaps was 75% Euro, Mahomes probably is more than 60% European ancestrally speaking, so why the inaccuracy anyway. Get the paint machine out there and sample everyone's derm and get the HTML color code chart out for better verbal communication.

To Draft Richardson or SignCarr is the Question

 Trading away Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos provided the Seattle Seahawks with a few opportune choices to build their future. In ten days Derek Carr of the Vegas Raiders will become a free agent. He has more come from behind wins than any other QB playing today, possibly because the Raiders often weren’t well positioned to win a game the past several seasons. The Raiders, like the Jets when Geno Smith played there, were not a very good team. If Seattle signs Carr for a couple of years they may advance farther into the playoffs.

Yet the Seahawks have two first round draft choices in April and should be able to pick a franchise quarterback. Three qbs are available that appear to be outstanding prospects and Anthony Richardson is most likely to be available at number five and twenty. Richardson would need to learn the position for a couple of years from the bench since he is just 18 years and was a college freshman. A very talented though untrained and unseasoned draft prospect. Smith or Carr could start for two or three season while Richardson learned the pro style.

The Broncos absorbed Russell Wilson's vast contract freeing up cash for signing prospects for the Seahawks. The Broncos also signed a real coach today; the tough guy Sean Payton, so they may be spending more too having discovered the futility of not having a proven winner arranging things.

Gambling on quarterback prospects has worked out badly for several teams picking one with their first round choice. Drafting the second best edge rusher in the nation is a more conservative choice that can pay off and isn't likely to fail. So the Seahawks may draft an edge rusher with pick five in the draft and hope Richardson is still available when pick twenty rolls around. Coach Carroll seems to be a one with a good eye for picking QBs and knowing when to release them.

Plainly drafting a quarterback with a team's first round pick also pays off. Mahomes was the first round pick of the Chiefs in 2017 at number ten. Burrows was picked by the Bengals in 2020 at number one. On the other hand, Jalen Hurts was draft by the Eagles in the second round at number twenty-one.

If the Seahawks can sign Carr maybe they change their draft priorities, and perhaps not; Richardson is 18 while Carr 31 and Smith is 32. Having a fellow who might be the number one quarterback selected in the draft if he remained in college through 2024 on the Seahawks bench is a rare opportunity for a time that isn't likely to have a losing record the next several years. Waiting for resolution of the circumstance to learn what coach Carroll chooses to do is one of the more interesting diversions of the season, especially since Geno Smith and the Seahawks went on a losing streak after playing a game against Tampa Bay in Munich last season yet still made the playoffs. If Smith isn't a reliable QB of the future for Seattle, could he mentor Richardson for two or three years and win enough to make the project profitable?

Ecosystem Services is a Developing Science FIeld

 Nearing the end of a course on ecosystem services I have discovered that much of the course is focused on how to get people interested in it rather than upon technical methods for evaluating ecosystem content. Since it is a growing field there can be much improvement in it from the scientific axis and that of politics and economics.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/ecosystem-services/home/welcome

It may be that ecosystem services approaches to discovering how the ecosystem is valuable to people may support the exploitation and optimal use of the ecosphere overall rather than restoring it to a fully healthy state that isn't suffering a mass extinction in progress. part of the problem of keeping biological pluralism alive on Earth is in accurately measuring the quantity and species of life in existence. When an ecosystem has a wealth of species they not only interact, some exist to adapt to any environmental changes on Earth basically. With few species the opportunities for successful biological responses to physical challenges are fewer. People need necessarily pro-life for midst the spectrum of living things are those that benefit humanity and all life by supporting the existence of life on a given day when a particular challenge is presented.

Below are a pair of interesting web sites that work toward mapping ecosystem services and biological pluralism.

https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-interactive-map

https://ipbes.net/

The Night of Living Dead Presidents

 In the year 2039 scientific medical breakthroughs enabled aged heroic Presidents to have their lives extended indefinitely in a semi-suspended animation period. Regarded as living dead mummies the first President to live to the age of one-hundred sixty had his blood removed and replaced with nanobytes of synthetic quantum data organelles receiving power from microwaves at low power penetrating the flesh of the cooled down leader enmeshed at two hundred degrees below zero fahrenheit with superconducting sensors penetrating his body.

The President was awakened from his dogmatic slumber on important occasions between snoozing for days in what became known as ‘The Hammock’. The Hammock was invented by a reclusive billionaire who owned outter space travel in effect after raking in trillions of dollars from high-energy electro-magnetic accelerators on Earth for orbital launches machine-gun quick and his network throughout the solar system that pushed and pulled space capsules to two thirds of the speed of light, The Hammock was a minor contribution of Bill Plates to the public welfare, and the President agreed with the program of Bill Plates to consolidate wealth safely into the hands of the man who bought the Earth’s ecosphere to regulate it at a constant, comfortable temperature of 68 degrees.

President Viden had served his nation for thirty two years in the highest office of the U.S.A. before the first rival to his power arrived; one Monica Hillary von Lubinwhurst, governor of Arkansaur. The resolution of the conflict between the two candidates for the 2073 general election will occur in two weeks when President Viden awakens from his nap to announce another run for the White House or retirement to his Presidential Library on Mars.

Ecosystem Services isn't a Self-Standing Solution to Ecospheric Degradation

Ecosystem services isn't a self-standing solution to ecospheric degradation. I suppose the ecosystem services approach could provide particular answers to particular 'stakeholders' (better to be the stake owner) by making surveys and quantifying conditions of a given eco-service. That doesn't mean that the ecosystem services approach is a comprehensive environmental policy that would correct degradation of the planetary ecosphere.

Maybe there is some kind of law of diminishing returns that is applicable to ecosystem services management approaches to conservation. Expecting the ecosphere to repair itself through continuing social interaction with it doesn't seem reasonable. Instead society converts everything into marketable mass with a UPC on it. That is degenerative in regard to the wild ecosphere rather than restorative.

https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-interactive-map

If people utilize ecosystem services approaches to environmental restoration they should be aware that the method outside of a comprehensive planetary restoration plan of the ecosphere will not necessarily be weighted to benefit the environment for-itself so much as the 'stakeholders' or players interested in the service. Ecosystem services exemplified in this course do seem to be tailored to fit a capitalist economy, and capitalism itself is in dire need of correction and direction within a green objective regulatory paradigm.

Regulation of capitalism would let free enterprise solve ecological problems in the regulated paradigms for restoration or not net loss of ecosphere minimally. Free enterprise can best solve challenge-response Toynbee/Skinnerian criteria selecting from possible economic methods that could work to restore the planetary ecosphere. Ecosystem services analysis might be used to develop tax and business plan criteria with incentives for optimal use plans/bids in competition in the governed, directed, regulated free enterprise and limited capital paradigm (there would be a cap on the accumulation of wealth by individuals or networks at a low percent of national wealth).

Pres Biden Woke to Dangers of Balloon Orders It Shot Down After Mission Accomplished

The Biden administration apparently learned the danger of leaving technology intact that falls into the hands of the enemy like Hunter Biden's laptop and had the Chinese Spy Balloon shot down over the Atlantic ocean after it completed traversing the United States mission was accomplished. Getting the technology intact at any time might have been done before it entered the 48 states; even Alaska would have been a better place to grab the balloon with a drone of some kind sending a few bullets into the bag.

People wonder if Ukraine and China have the dope for Hunter Biden and President Biden so that he acts like the politician in The Godfather who woke up with a horse's head beside him in bed and thereafter served as the mafia's tool. Well, no matter, for with Democrats all roads lead to war while peace, balanced budgets and eliminating public debt are regarded as delusional things rational voters wouldn't think about.

Ecosystem Services- Should 'essential variables' serve special interest groups first?

Essential variables as standard candles for measuring ecosystem content need be independent and free of tailoring to special interest groups. The paradigm of satisfying stakeholders as special interest groups could generate ecospherically counterfactual data in regard to the best interests of humanity in its ecosphere. Humans probably should learn new building and living economic methods rather than perpetuate the system that is processing the ecosphere toward oblivion. Present necessary ecosystem services should be viewed as temporary measure utilized until the new paradigm of living synergistically with the ecosphere is actualized.

Yet not of it (poem)

 

Wandering the streets of time
cluttered with canisters
of mythic electrons
mud brick homes
aging dust of the world
sights sounds, mysteries
known and unknown
with troubles of inefficiencies
ecosystem servicing
allocations of everything
packaged, priced, calculated proplits
transversal rules for deposits-
the lines compile nothingness softly
with bar-coded rainbows
layered and striated
Meisner-infused sandwiched
talus slopes tumbling
dimensions falling apart
with nightfall within sagebrush
until shadows return
to silence.

Spy Balloon Vector Threats version 2

 The 'spy balloon' meandering at 60,000 feet over the U.S. is said by the Pentagon to be from China. It is a threat only insofar as it demonstrates a good position to release biological war vectors into the United States from above. Maybe a new variant of Covid 19 is being released in tiny caplets that survive descent and release on the ground, or some sort of weaponized pneumonic-plague-ebola hybrid. The Pentagon says it's not a threat.

China said that the sort of balloon observed couldn't survive the trip from China. Several China experts have denied that China released the balloon and that it probably was released by a commercial boat for weather observation. Apparently the balloon was under observation for several days traveling along the Aleutians and over Canada until reported hovering menacingly above Montana. The Pentagon said it is too dangerous to civilians to take down the balloon over populated areas; if that is the case why didn't they take it down several days ago over the ocean or the wilderness regions of the north? If it is releasing weaponized viruses or other advanced technology such as nano-gremlins to float on the currents to the ground the President feels it does not warrant capturing the balloon to see what's inside. They refuse to unbox the balloon and let the public know what's inside.

Those of the opinion the balloon isn't Chinese imply the balloon is a false flag stunt or propaganda tool of the Biden administration to intimidate Americans with a real Chinese threat invading hillbilly regions of the U.S. President Biden may need help for Americans to be made to believe that he is in good form on U.S. national security.

Chinese Spy Balloon a False Flag or Covid 19 Dispersal Device?

 The 'spy balloon' meandering at 60,000 feet over the U.S. is said by the Pentagon to be from China. It is a threat only insofar as it demonstrates a good position to release biological war vectors into the United States from above. Maybe a new variant of Covid 19 is being release in tiny caplets that survive decent and release on the ground, or some sort of weaponized pneumonic-plague-ebola hybrid. The Pentagon says it's not a threat.

China said that the sort of balloon observed couldn't survive the trip from China. Several China experts have denied that China released the balloon and that it probably was released by a commercial boat for weather observation. Apparently the ballon was under observation for several days traveling along the Aleutians and over Canada until reported hovering menacingly above Montana. If it is releasing weaponized viruses or other advanced technology such as nano-gremlins to float on the currents to the ground the President feels it does not warrant capturing the balloon to see what's inside. They refuse to unbox the balloon and let the public know what's inside.

Those of the opinion the balloon isn't Chinese imply the balloon is a false flag stunt or propaganda tool of the Biden administration to intimidate Americans with a real Chinese threat invading hillbilly regions of the U.S. President Biden may need help for Americans to be made to believe that he is in good form on U.S. national security.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284774.shtml

That Paragraph on Ecosystem Services

 An ecosystems services approach for governance of the ecosphere does seem somewhat reductionist missing out on conservation of wilderness values. Erosion of wilderness brings irrecoverable damage to the ecosphere. It should be possible anyway to have better and more accurate data on species living on Earth quantifiably speaking with drones and cell samples mapping all living species in an area. Drones and remote sensing with computational tabulating should be much better than simply measuring water and land biota quantitatively- The latter is rather crude although better than ignorance of course. Satellites are great surveillance devices and provide wonderful data in a variety of spectrums however they should be complimented with drones. Every living thing on Earth should be quantified as well as Noah knew the number of animals on his boat. There should be real time numbers for every living species to monitor there status. One might have the suspicion that ecosystem services could otherwise end up being a tool for capitalists to learn how to extract the most value from ecosystem services even as it declines overall.

Stocking Shelves (the poem)

Stocking shelves of poems with thought
salads of furies
with metaphors bought
wrangled misty cereal aisles
one crunch miffs another one’s style

Ice cream sailing ship root beer floats
inflated bread of yeasty jokes
scribbled lists cover stockers woke

Stanza’s reigned to low pressure cisterns
Ali Babas fed with magic beans
skyfalls drop to mulch units earned
more heavily flopped coordinated tat skeens

Paragraphs draw new air to the sea
surfaces shine as if meant to be.

Mariculture Increases with Fish Prices

 My course on ecosystem services leads to some interesting urls , for instance, integrated farming of livestock and fish.

https://www.fao.org/3/AC155E/AC155E04.htm

https://thefishsite.com/articles/shrimp-and-salmon-farmers-are-set-for-a-year-of-profits-and-plenty

https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/farmed-shrimp

a comparison of India and Equador's farmed shrimp resource use

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/aff2.23

https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/ecuador-sets-legal-framework-for-offshore-fish-farm-development/ legal framwork in Ecuador set for offshore fish farming

https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?184801/Sustainability-standards-completed-for-tilapia-farming

Is the U.S. Losing the Race with Russia for Total Ecosystem Services Mapping?

 Why be primitive or last place in trying to map the ecosystem services of the state or nation one lives in? Alaska could probably have the entire state's ecosystem services mapped with some sort of federally financed, state operated program. Germany has done it...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318252191_Germany's_Ecosystem_Services_-_State_of_the_Indicator_Development_for_a_Nationwide_Assessment_and_Monitoring

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/mapping-ecosystem-services

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304571223_National_ecosystem_services_mapping_at_multiple_scales_-_The_German_exemplar

It is possible that the EU https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/mapping-europes-ecosystems-1 is ahead of Alaska too. As in the arms race, the ecosystem services race may have economic, political and financial consequences for the players. Alaska should not be a loser in the ecosystem services mapping race.

It doesn't appear to me that the U.S. government has got an ecosystem service map and survey with comprehensive data for Alaska done. The Russkies may have more data on their big board about Alaska ecosystem services than the Alaska State Government or even the U.S. Government. I wonder if the White House situation room has a Big Board with full display of the state of U.S. and Russian ecosystem services in real time providing updates whenever launches of defoliation or loss of biological species happen.

Maybe I should have invented a way to make potato chips at home from whole potatoes or soy beans and got a patent and manufactured the chip makers in China so I could live on Golden Pond. Instead I need to wonder about ecosystem services and water conservation and if wastewater could be reduced by using solar charged electrical toilets without water; maybe microwave toilets in major cities, instead of water-using ones. A properly designed microwave toilet ought to be fairly cheap. It would be interesting to see the design. I suppose even a poor manufacturer could make Beatles wigs with good hidden audio headfones and mp3 players for workers not allowed to listen to music at work. Maybe the wigs could have built in motion sensors so one would get a beep if their boss is sneaking up from behind. Perhaps Shanghai would be the place to make those. Even the Chinese could listen to my blog if the wig had a speech translator so they could find blogs talking about ecosystem services.

Ecosystem Serices and Post-Modernist Epistemology

 Plainly monetizing and commodifying ecosystem services with neo-liberal market criteria should be used as an advisory evaluation for government planners rather than as fungible things-for-themselves. In a way money itself- e.g. cryptocurrency, is commodified and relative with volatile values for what people are willing to pay in addition to its utility for avoiding taxation. Ecosystem services could be used for properties privately held I suppose, and bought or sold to governments or NGOs because they show the immediate worth to politicians and company economists of ecosystem services of a particular commodity within their general profit-loss paradigm concerning their present goals (politicians live in the present and act in the present rather than the future, while alternatively nature evolves within a continuum, unlike politicians as humans although party politics could be said to evolve, though quite unlike natural evolution).

Evaluations of environmental objects, or things as processes deemed to be objects may always underestimate object-values because they need necessarily be incomplete appraisals of object functions within the ecosphere. W.V.O. Quine’s ‘Word and Object’; a philosophical work of epistemology and naming, and Kripke’s ‘Naming and Necessity’ show some of the issues and structures concerning the developing of words and ideas in relation to objects, sometimes called perhaps inaccurately ‘external objects. It is interesting to me to find that environmental objects like wetlands are also subject to linguistic philosophy paradigms about naming. Quine’s ‘Ontological Relativity’ provides a formalism for the logical constructions of naming to a certain extent and is somewhat less of an epistemological treatise than ‘Word and Object’ or P.F. Strawson’s ‘’Individuals’. Quine notably demolished the philosophical foundations of empiricism in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ and demonstrated the subject nature of knowledge cannot be overcome too well. Yet I believe the entire idea of dead reckoning judgments of a pragmatic nature and working nature while remaining informed of the subjective and relativity of language and categorization of words and objects is an adequate replacement for naive realism. Relativity and uncertainty are transcendent ideas that allow space-time and matter to flow withing the Higgs Field’s entangled massless particles. Even so humanity still needs to keep its ecosphere working properly and ecosystem services including those of bats are a part of that. Bats evolved in caves comparable to the way human knowledge evolved in Plato’s cave. The prisoners chained to the cave floor saw things they didn’t understand and made explanations for them and over time they found the conditional truth at the surface. Then of course they could face new problems concerning environment and cosmology like those of contemporary humanity.

I wonder if this interesting module of socio-historical analysis of ecosystem services is very useful in regard to the purpose of learning how to evaluate and set pricing paradigms for ecosystem services at the introductory level. Life offers only so much time to humans and while philosophical reflection is useful, some intellectual journeys can be superfluous to practical applications of knowledge.

The reference to Paul Erlich was interesting because he wrote 'The Population Bomb' in the 1970s- an early and sensational recognition of human overpopulation of the limited, finite world ecosystem. For those concerned with adapting human life on Earth to the available resources and conserving the remaining health of the ecosphere perhaps ecosystem services is a tool that can be used for bringing an appreciation of the value of the ecosphere to the masses and to political leaders analytically by showing clear and present costs and even dangers of harming or displacing/destroying environmental elements.