Sounds like an old student prank here in Lund. The students gathered names protesting against the use of dihydrogenoxide on our parks and lawns. The got a lot of signatures....;-)
/Charlotte
Charlotte Magnusson
Associate Professor
Certec, Division of Rehabilitation Engineering Research
Department of Design Sciences Lund University
Lund
Sweden
tel +46 46 222 4097
fax +46 46 222 4431
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Filippo A. Salustri
Sent: den 21 mars 2011 15:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Status of "design" re Japanese nuclear crisis? Reply to Norman
Yes, reporting is also a big factor in influencing people. My
interest in that regard is not so much in how the users of the media
respond as it is to why the media themselves get their stories so
wrong so often.
Even the CBC, rather known as a reliable source of news at least here
in Canada, slid into the cesspool of bad reporting. Shortly after the
the Fukushima incident started, there was a leak from a secondary
system near Toronto at the Pickering nuclear station. You can't
imagine how quickly everyone seized up. The CBC was extremely
consistent in calling it "demineralized water." Never just "water."
They brought in experts to describe the demineralized water, who all
seemed rather confused by all the importance being given to what, in
point of fact, is just pure water. Then when it came out that the
demineralized water - about 70,000 litres of it - had leaked into Lake
Ontario, everyone got upset yet again, about the potential risk to the
lake.
What really burned my toast was that one of the lead reporters on the
story used to be a "health reporter" at a local TV station. She more
than most should know exactly how un-dangerous demineralized water is.
At no point did anyone at CBC say: Whow! Folks, it's just water -
"pure" water - no radiation, no nothing. Putting it into Lake Ontario
actually makes the lake *cleaner.*
They let that go for the better part of a day before starting to admit
that it was quite foolish to be concerned about the leaked material
and, rather, be more concerned for why it was leaked to being with.
(And that turned out to be nothing too.)
*sigh*
Charlotte is right about chaotic and self-organizing complex systems.
But there is a discipline there, and experts in those fields are
working hard to develop models that *will* help us in the future to
better understand how such systems can suddenly go completely screwy.
That understanding will be vital to develop ways to adapt to and
mitigate those kinds of changes.
I'm not sure about the "true design challenge" that Charlotte writes about.
People are as we evolved to be. It's perfectly natural to have
greater concern for one's local environment.
The 2 possible solutions I see are:
1. Make everyone see the entire earth as their local environment.
This is sort of happening already in that at least in the developed
world it's relatively easy for us to access information from all over
the world. I don't know if this will happen fast enough for the
desired effect to manifest. It would help if we discovered aliens.
Seriously.
2. Flatten the global hierarchy, because in nature there is virtually
no hierarchy of power (except beyond small social units). This would
mean inventing a new way to coordinate billions of people.
Neither of these are easily done. But they'd sure be interesting
design problems!
Cheers.
Fil
On 21 March 2011 08:43, Charlotte Magnusson
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The perceived danger of different alternatives is vastly influenced by the media reporting. It is not necessarily the same as the actual danger. I must admit that I am currently really worried about what happens if global warming really kicks in. Most equilibrium systems have mechanisms that strive to restore the equilibrium, but once you get outside the stable region things go bad in a very non-linear way (and also very quickly). Just hoping there is some more restoring mechanisms (not yet identified) that will kick in......would say that this is a true design challenge which seems to be too difficult for us - the local benefits (driving cars etc etc) go in the opposite of what is good for the global system....
>
> Best wishes!
> /Charlotte
> Ps. Cynical observation: there was yet another coal mine disaster just now. No discussion on the dangers of coal has followed....
>
> Charlotte Magnusson
> Associate Professor
> Certec, Division of Rehabilitation Engineering Research
> Department of Design Sciences Lund University
> Lund
> Sweden
> tel +46 46 222 4097
> fax +46 46 222 4431
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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