COVID LOCKDOWN BLUES
By Ahmed Shihab
The documentary "Planet of the Humans" sends a very clear message: we need to reduce our energy consumption. We need to eat less, drive less, travel less, go out less, ... we need to practice "less is more." Now, you might think the film advocates quarantining and sheltering at home: after all, what better way to consume less, than to cocoon? But, no, the film has nothing to do with the pandemic.
On Earth Day, during the Covid-19 lockdown, Executive Producer Michael Moore and Director Jeff Gibbs put the film online for free on YouTube: all one-hour-and-forty-minutes of it. And what a master stroke; the Covid Lockdown is just what the doctor ordered for reflection and contemplation. Also, can somebody please release a blues record with the title "Covid Lockdown"? I imagine it would be disturbing and yet bittersweet.
Can we track our energy use?
Most of our non-Covid-Lockdown activities consume a lot of energy; and the ever-rising energy demands of our ever-rising population will reach a point where they cannot be met. Meanwhile, we continue damaging our environment and depleting our natural resources. This got me thinking how can we go about holding ourselves to account?
Well, apart from hosting regular Covid-Lockdown Remembrance Weekends (where we'd play a certain blues record), what else can we do to cut down on our consumption? Forget holding our governments to account; forget holding Big Oil execs to account. (How many decades have you got?) No: let's hold OURSELVES to account. Ourselves. How do we track ourselves? How do we know how well, or how badly, we are consuming? Rather like the way we track our weight on a scale.
Easy! Let's just use blockchain technology to track all of our energy consumption.
Blockchain to the rescue
Imagine that you have an app that is fed trusted, verified updates of your meter readings, your food and drink consumption, your transport journeys, your spending, etc. The app would show us a running count of how well we are doing. "Is my curve rising? What should I do to start decreasing it?" Imagine using this information to construct pictures of our communities and how consumption-hungry we are.
Let's deconstruct a little. What's blockchain technology? It's a massive spreadsheet in the sky that is replicated many, many times across many, many sites. Any change to the spreadsheet is logged and timestamped then broadcast to all other copies of the spreadsheet. Every copy of the spreadsheet stamps data onto the change, so that the change cascades down the chain of spreadsheets in a way that is virtually impossible to break. There is no central governing authority, or third-party trusted intermediary. The complexity of the system is its guarantee of trustworthiness.
My energy supplier tells the spreadsheet in the sky that I used this much, my water supplier, same, my gas supplier, same; TfL tells the spreadsheet about my bus and train journeys; the petrol station reports about my car-driving habits; the restaurant reports about my eating; the pub; the coffeeshop; the gym; etc. None of these transactions identify me to other people, but I, myself, get to find out how much of a bad boy I am.
Fascist state, much?
I know you will think that I am encouraging a police state. I am not. The whole idea of blockchain, which is the technology behind cryptocurrencies, is decentralisation and transparency.
"Is this not a reinvention of the wheel?" I hear you ask! Don't we already have the concept of carbon offsets? Is that not the same idea? A company works out how much CO2 it produces and then says "okay I have gone over my allocation by X," so to offset that "I will do the following sustainable, green energy activities to put some CO2 back into the atmosphere."
Organisations play hide-and-seek with their so-called carbon footprints and carbon offsets. With a system like this, we know exactly how much energy a company consumes. This verifiability and transparency will allow us in due course to choose the organisations from which to buy, with which to deal, based on their energy numbers.
The earth's atmosphere has cleared up during our lockdown; yet most of my friends have no faith that humans will change their habits. Everybody pays lip service: "things will never be the same again." But no-one really believes it. Join me in improving and refining this idea so that maybe one day we can make it happen, and then "things will never be the same again" -- really!
This blog post and its content, except for the image, is copyright of Ahmed Shihab, 2020. (c) All rights reserved. Click on image for its rights.
The documentary "Planet of the Humans" sends a very clear message: we need to reduce our energy consumption. We need to eat less, drive less, travel less, go out less, ... we need to practice "less is more." Now, you might think the film advocates quarantining and sheltering at home: after all, what better way to consume less, than to cocoon? But, no, the film has nothing to do with the pandemic.
On Earth Day, during the Covid-19 lockdown, Executive Producer Michael Moore and Director Jeff Gibbs put the film online for free on YouTube: all one-hour-and-forty-minutes of it. And what a master stroke; the Covid Lockdown is just what the doctor ordered for reflection and contemplation. Also, can somebody please release a blues record with the title "Covid Lockdown"? I imagine it would be disturbing and yet bittersweet.
Can we track our energy use?
Most of our non-Covid-Lockdown activities consume a lot of energy; and the ever-rising energy demands of our ever-rising population will reach a point where they cannot be met. Meanwhile, we continue damaging our environment and depleting our natural resources. This got me thinking how can we go about holding ourselves to account?
Well, apart from hosting regular Covid-Lockdown Remembrance Weekends (where we'd play a certain blues record), what else can we do to cut down on our consumption? Forget holding our governments to account; forget holding Big Oil execs to account. (How many decades have you got?) No: let's hold OURSELVES to account. Ourselves. How do we track ourselves? How do we know how well, or how badly, we are consuming? Rather like the way we track our weight on a scale.
Easy! Let's just use blockchain technology to track all of our energy consumption.
Blockchain to the rescue
Imagine that you have an app that is fed trusted, verified updates of your meter readings, your food and drink consumption, your transport journeys, your spending, etc. The app would show us a running count of how well we are doing. "Is my curve rising? What should I do to start decreasing it?" Imagine using this information to construct pictures of our communities and how consumption-hungry we are.
Let's deconstruct a little. What's blockchain technology? It's a massive spreadsheet in the sky that is replicated many, many times across many, many sites. Any change to the spreadsheet is logged and timestamped then broadcast to all other copies of the spreadsheet. Every copy of the spreadsheet stamps data onto the change, so that the change cascades down the chain of spreadsheets in a way that is virtually impossible to break. There is no central governing authority, or third-party trusted intermediary. The complexity of the system is its guarantee of trustworthiness.
My energy supplier tells the spreadsheet in the sky that I used this much, my water supplier, same, my gas supplier, same; TfL tells the spreadsheet about my bus and train journeys; the petrol station reports about my car-driving habits; the restaurant reports about my eating; the pub; the coffeeshop; the gym; etc. None of these transactions identify me to other people, but I, myself, get to find out how much of a bad boy I am.
Fascist state, much?
I know you will think that I am encouraging a police state. I am not. The whole idea of blockchain, which is the technology behind cryptocurrencies, is decentralisation and transparency.
"Is this not a reinvention of the wheel?" I hear you ask! Don't we already have the concept of carbon offsets? Is that not the same idea? A company works out how much CO2 it produces and then says "okay I have gone over my allocation by X," so to offset that "I will do the following sustainable, green energy activities to put some CO2 back into the atmosphere."
Organisations play hide-and-seek with their so-called carbon footprints and carbon offsets. With a system like this, we know exactly how much energy a company consumes. This verifiability and transparency will allow us in due course to choose the organisations from which to buy, with which to deal, based on their energy numbers.
The earth's atmosphere has cleared up during our lockdown; yet most of my friends have no faith that humans will change their habits. Everybody pays lip service: "things will never be the same again." But no-one really believes it. Join me in improving and refining this idea so that maybe one day we can make it happen, and then "things will never be the same again" -- really!
Ahmed
loves to write think pieces. By day, he is a computer science academic with
many years’ experience teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students; he
also conducts research in the field of Artificial Intelligence. By night, he
has a passion for writing and performing comedy. You can email Ahmed on
str82ais@gmail.com.
This blog post and its content, except for the image, is copyright of Ahmed Shihab, 2020. (c) All rights reserved. Click on image for its rights.
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Nice one Ahmed. It makes sense. Now you just need to create the app and I will download it.😀
ReplyDeleteThese are the types of actions we have to take so that we dont go right back to how we were.
DeleteI have reached out to my contacts but have, so far, failed to find knowledgeable advisors. If anyone reading this wants to get in touch, please use my email address at the bottom of the article.
DeleteThank you for mentioning the film "Planet of the Humans". I just watched it and changed my view on the value of Biomas power stations. Keep watching, there are a few rays of hope at end. I like that you say it is ourselves to hold to account and the blockchain energy app sounds a great idea!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Thank you, Doug, for your input.
DeleteYes, there are rays of hope -- and we need to think about mechanisms to hold ourselves to account!
I enjoyed reading this article. And agree we should hold ourselves to account on how we look after this earth. The air has been so much cleaner, and the flowers and plants look so vibrant. How beautiful the sky has been. I do hope that everyone will hold themselves to account. Only time will tell.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how the app would work. But anything is possible.
Thank you, Diane, for your input. My feeling is that the app can only work with government input. Data gathering and subsequent publicising of processed information could run into legal problems very quickly.
DeleteI like the idea of the app, but I do have concerns of the 'naming and shaming' approach which although would ignite human's competitive streak, it can also be used negatively to undermine good will towards our neighbours. Could the app, just be between me and the energy providers?
ReplyDeleteVery good point indeed.
DeleteTransparency and the inability to manipulate numbers is the first priority.
Once the data is gathered, there will have to be policies set through law to regulate information use.
For example, I think we should know about the consumption data of a private, commercial enterprise: that can help people make decisions.
In so far as residential, private data, that needs to be shared in (say) postcode fashion, or council ward fashion.
I do think it is important that we know which neighbourhoods in a city consume the most. Shaming is useful; naming, probably not.