The Great Disruption

Only one technology can save the economy and environment... Read on:
http://www.thenucleareconomy.com

just read your column re China, 9/9/09. you've got to be kidding me. you're going to take a human rights violator, the world's biggest polluter, a nation that stifles political dissent with brutal force, and put that nation up on a pedestal. for us to emulate. you're a bigger tool than i even thought possible. you don't even deserve to live in this country. go screw yourself....

NY Times auto sales update 9/2/09

Ford F-150 finally drops to 2nd place!

But just the two most popular pickups ADDED nearly 80,000 NEW "clunkers" to the road. At this rate all the crushed clunkers will be replaced in six months or less.

So much for public support for clean energy.

I am still reading Hot, Flat, & Crowded so you may already address this, but in the sustainable energy plan, does it include bike and human powered generators? Seems like in addition to solar and wind, we should be thinking about all of the energy that humans could generate.

Also, is there any research in how chlorophyll could be used to generate energy? Doesn't the photosynthesis process use CO2?

Thanks for writing this wonderful book. You have done a lot of thinking about this and have presented in an understandable way.

Looking at the reports of the Greek wildfires and terms such as "desertification" and "ecological disaster" remind me of some of the predictions made by Gwynne Dyer in his most recent book "Climate Wars". If you look at the recent wildfire histories in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece and the fact the forests that burned in the 1990's have not regenerated then you are looking at the desertification of the entire region. In "Climate Wars" Mr. Dyers predicts mass migrations of people from these regions within 20-30 years.

As a northern country with a small population we will be the preferred destination for millions of people affected by global warming. We can wait till the disaster strikes or we can plan for the future. I would suggest that we target these countries and allocation 150,000 places for people from those regions per year. Second I would start the planning for new cities on the northern edge of the prairie regions because as the world warms those areas are going to move from boreal forest to agricultural lands. Unlike existing cities we can site them on land that cannot be used for agriculture, we can design then to minimize the need for cars, and dense enough to support public transit. We can design the transportation corridors to be wide enough to allow rail line, highways, hydro lines and gas pipelines. We can build the cities of the future.

This way we will have time to absorb the displaced population and provide them with employment opportunities building the new cities and converting forest to agricultural use.

Since I began reading 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' I am inspired by Thomas L Friedman's sensible and thorough analysis to pass on my own idea regarding reform of global economics and the conjunction with global climate change.

While it is heartening to see the news that the US House of Representatives has passed a cap-and-trade bill, I feel that carbon emission is only a part of the picture. The global recession illlustrates that speculaters will find a way to manipulate and profit from any and all partial financial instruments, laws and regulations if possible.

The final and complete answer is for governments through federal reserve banks to instal a mechanism where energy prices and collateral buffers and underpins currencies : an e-dollar. The gold standard became irrelevant and outmoded but in my opinion something has to anchor a country's currency and the logical real-world commodity is energy. Carbon pricing would be a component of this system but on its own carbon trading will be just another partial (therefore vulnerable to harmful speculative manipulation) mechanism. Bringing energy pricing/collateral into the picture will give a robust and defendable position for sovereign governments to defend their economies from predatory banks and private traders.

When reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Friedman’s vision of the world in “20 E.C.E” struck me as the most compelling piece of his book. It effectively illustrated the radical change that we have to endure to reap the lasting benefits of a true green revolution. For that reason, to end this book with the proper “sober optimism”, that vision needs to be reiterated. The science-fiction-like technology is already here and we can and need to realize that vision immediately. In the final chapter, Thomas Friedman should encourage the small group of revolutionaries, who want to create change now, to set an example of what the future holds. These revolutionaries (the people reading this book) need to know what they can do now to make a bit of disruption and how that could lead to the “Energy-Climate Era”.

Solar energy seems to be one of the most accessible sources of clean energy today. The systems and panels necessary for harvesting that energy are ready to be installed in homes and buildings, granted that you may need quite a bit of money to have them professionally set up. The eighteenth chapter should promote investment in the present and ready technology such as this. Not only would homeowners save money on utilities, allowing the PV panels to eventually pay for themselves overtime, they would increase the value of their home. To make that initial investment a little easier for the many revolutionaries out there, Glynda-Lee Hoffman (June 20th) made the suggestion of having a business make loans out to homeowners to finance PV systems. That idea could be expanded to make loans out to people other than just homeowners, like landlords of multifamily establishments and commercial building owners. Even Homeowners Associations and county organizations could ask for loans to finance installations of solar panels on top of telephone polls around the neighborhood, that could be gradually paid for in monthly payments just as you pay for your trash to get picked up, all while saving on your utilities. These systems could be more practical in certain neighborhoods where the design of the development or homes could make installation of individual solar panels difficult or ineffective. Going even further, imagine Hoffman’s loaning company financing multiple projects for companies like Envision Solar, which I learned on ecogeek.com recently created “ a customized photovoltaic-integrated parking lot solar system...[with] solar panels shading the lot.”

With the hopeful tax incentives from the government to make energy upgrades, plenty of individuals, housing developments and companies would want a loan for installing and creating solar power systems. Such success is possible, in the present. The reality is that things are being done as we speak. So, buying those solar panels could inspire a business savvy person to start that small loaning firm that Hoffman envisioned, which could develop in to a business that helps to finance solar panel installations in large buildings, complexes, and neighborhoods state-wide. Before you know it, we could have multiple financing companies around the country and solar energy as a clean major source of energy.

My imagination may be sliding to oblivion here but, those endless possibilities that stem from what we do today provide the essential optimism for any successful revolution. The sober part is that money is a key factor in the success of the technology. We need the government and the business savvy (a group not often referenced a source of help) to steer consumers toward environmentally friendly economic choices.

Using these powerful forces to steer the consumers doesn’t exactly work when the strong are in need of direction themselves. Our government is slow to treat our countries addiction to oil and coal. The businessmen who do care about investing environmental solutions do not have the sufficient funds. The lobbyists for clean energy sources have little political leverage; while, the businessmen that would lose power, if certain changes in our American lifestyles were put in place, are effectively twisting the arms of our politicians to get what they want. These issues listed above are hard statements to face because there is no easy solution for the political mess that complicates all noble environmental endeavors. What the revolutionaries can do is continue to support lobbyists and encourage politicians to fight for clean energy and environmental solutions, to make sure that we can start sliding into the Energy Climate Era.

Chapter 18 should again combine the vision of the new era, with the steps that need to be taken right away so that readers can set out to make change effective immediately because we only have enough time—starting now.

The equivalent of IT's break-through innovation of Internet in the ET (Energy Technology as Mr Friedman likes to say) would be energy generating machines that create energy by absorbing in CO2 and releasing O2 in the process instead of the other way as is presently the case, this way we can absorb back the CO2 we have released so far while not giving up too much the conveniences of today i.e it is not sufficient that we merely install solar panels and wind turbines to produce the future energy in a green way, we also have to do something to undo what has been done so far, it is like we borrowed from nature and we need to repay. Trees do this today in photosynthesis but cannot produce electricity or mechanical motion (they do produce some slow motion of the nutrients and water moving up against gravity from the roots). These machines would continue to be used to satisfy human appetite for energy until the CO2 ppm reaches back to the pre-industrial era after which we would need to operate the machines in the new mode as well as the old way about half the time each to maintain consistent levels of CO2 and O2. Internet was born out of huge R&D investments by DARPA, and the same if not more may be needed for such an innovation in ET. Until such machines are born, we need to act wisely and reduce waste, reduce energy consumption, find greener ways to meet our basic needs and for entertainment. Consumer behavior is the guaranteed way to make changes happen because businesses only cater to consumers. So you, the consumer can make all the difference and you know this well but doesn't hurt to repeat -- drive less, use public transport, telecommute, eat more local produce, print less paper, green your house with the usual tips for insulation and thermostat usage and solar panels, buy smaller houses, grow more trees, reduce reuse and recycle products, buy energy efficient appliances, share more products, drink already clean tap water and not bottled water, use cloth bags for shopping, limit number of children preferably to 1 and no more than 2 (for their own future), and last but not the least, spread the word to others and recommend reading good books like Fridman's hot, flat and crowded. Let's hope with our change in behavior, Mr. Friedman can write a happy ending book titled "not-so-hot, 100 % flat, and not-so-crowded" in 2050 (I think his high hopes and MT (Medical Technology) will keep him alive until this year).

We need to find a way to "sell" the carbon emissions tax and a bigger gas tax so that these two absolutely crucial policies actually have a chance of passing Congress.

Here's an idea: buy the opposition. Identify who would suffer under these policies and give them some type of benefit.

For example, with a higher gas tax, the auto industry would suffer as people started ditching their cars and taking the train/bus/walking/biking/moving closer to where they work. People, especially the lower-class, would also suffer from higher gas prices.

So here's what we do: we give half of the revenue from the gas tax to the auto industry so that they can invest in and build more efficient cars, and we use the other half of the revenue to offset a reduction in the income tax (preferably a decrease in the lowest tax bracket, which would help everyone but would especially help the poor - a "progressive" tax break, if you may) which would cushion the blow of higher gas prices. (This could also possibly attract Republican support.)

Right now, we try to force the auto industry to build more efficient cars through regulation. Then we give them all sorts of money to build them. But the thing is, as long as gas prices are low, the market for efficient cars is small, so the auto industry can't sell them.

But a significantly higher gas tax would create a bigger demand for efficient cars. Giving the auto industry a stake in the profits of the gas tax would give them a reason to support it (the higher the tax, the more revenue they get) and it would also provide them with the money to invest in and build those efficient cars for the newly expanded market.

I think most of the time, people assume that gas tax revenue should go to investments in infrastructure or public transportation (trains/buses). But it doesn't need to. The tax itself is basically a subsidy for public transportation because, by making driving more costly, it makes public transportation more desirable/competitive.

A similar strategy could be used for "selling" a tax on emissions (which I prefer over a cap-and-trade policy for the same reasons you do).

I'm guessing a tax on emissions would raise $1 trillion, more or less. The point is, that's a lot of money that can be used to buy brownie points. We would probably have to give a large portion of that revenue (3/5 maybe?) to energy companies so that they could use it to invest in renewable energy and/or cleaning up their "dirty" power plants. The rest could go, once again, to offset a decrease in the income tax, which would cushion the burden of higher energy prices (and also possibly attract Republican support).

Businesses would also be hit pretty hard, so we could increase the incentives (by creating/increasing deductions in the corporate income tax, most likely) that would reward businesses for investing in renewable energy and/or being more energy efficient. (This could also attract Republican support!)

Once again, this would give energy companies a reason to support a tax on emissions (the higher the tax, the more money they get, which they would then use to invest in renewable energy which, in turn, would decrease their tax burden). Of course, it would also make renewable energy more competitive.

http://www.lania.mx/~ccoello/EMOO/EMOObib.htm... is a list of references on multiple objective optimization , also known as multiple criteria optimization. The variables in a given project can be optimized for minimum carbon emission, minimum toxic gas emission, minimum energy consumption, minimum cost and maximum efficiency, for example.

Here is a short subset of the long reference list. You should download and inspect the entire list.

List of References on Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization

Maintained by

Carlos A. Coello Coello
ccoello@cs.cinvestav.mx
CINVESTAV-IPN
Departamento de Computación
Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional No. 2508
Col. San Pedro Zacatenco
México, D.F. 07300

Last Update: March 5th, 2009

(Keep in mind that this list is constantly being updated)

Author: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

This list as a BibTeX, Gzipped PDF, Gzipped Postscript, or DVI file.

A

1. Raslan Hashim Al-Abaji. Evolutionary Techniques for Multi-Objective VLSI Netlist Partitioning, MSc Thesis, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, August 2002 (abstract).

2. Hussein A. Abbass, Ruhul Sarker and Charles Newton. PDE: A Pareto-frontier Differential Evolution Approach for Multi-objective Optimization Problems, Proceedings of the Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2001 (CEC'2001), Vol. 2, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, New Jersey, pp. 971--978, May 2001

3. Hussein A. Abbass. A Memetic Pareto Evolutionary Approach to Artificial Neural Networks, in The Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Adelaide, Australia, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence Vol. 2256, Springer, pp. 1-12, December 2001.

4. Hussein A. Abbass and Ruhul Sarker. Simultaneous Evolution of Architectures and Connection Weights in ANNs, in The Artificial Neural Networks and Expert Systems Conference (ANNES'01), Dunedin, New Zealand, pp. 16--21, November 2001.

5. Hussein A. Abbass. The Self-Adaptive Pareto Differential Evolution Algorithm, in Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2002), Vol. 1, pp. 831--836, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, New Jersey, May 2002.

6. Hussein A. Abbass and Ruhul Sarker. The Pareto Differential Evolution Algorithm, International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 531--552, 2002.

7. Hussein A. Abbass. An Evolutionary Artificial Neural Networks Approach for Breast Cancer Diagnosis, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 265--281, 2002.

8. Hussein A. Abbass and Kalyanmoy Deb. Searching under Multi-evolutionary Pressures, in Carlos M. Fonseca, Peter J. Fleming, Eckart Zitzler, Kalyanmoy Deb and Lothar Thiele (editors), Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization. Second International Conference, EMO 2003, pp. 391--404, Springer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2632, Faro, Portugal, April 2003 .

9. Hussein A. Abbass. Speeding up backpropagation using multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, Neural Computation, Vol. 15, No. 11, pp. 2705--2726, November 2003 .

10. Hussein A. Abbass. Pareto Neuro-Evolution: Constructing Ensemble of Neural Networks Using Multi-objective Optimization, in Proceedings of the 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2003), Volume 3, pp. 2074--2080, IEEE Press, Canberra, Australia, December 2003 .

11. Hussein A. Abbass. An Inexpensive Cognitive Approach for Biobjective Optimization using Bliss Points and Interaction, in Xin Yao et al. (editors), Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN VIII, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3242, pp. 712--721, Birmingham, UK, September 2004 .

12. H.A. Abbass. An economical cognitive approach for bi-objective optimization using bliss points, visualization and interaction, in Soft Computing, 10(8):687-698, June 2006.

13. Hussein Abbass. Pareto-Optimal Approaches to Neuro-Ensemble Learning, in Yaochu Jin (Editor), Multi-Objective Machine Learning, pp. 407--427, Springer. Studies in Computational Intelligence, Volume 16, Berlin, 2006.

14. Mostafa I.H. Abd-El-Barr and Salman A. Khan. Design and analysis of a fault tolerant hybrid mobile scheme, Information Sciences, Vol. 177, No. 12, pp. 2602--2620, June 15, 2007 .

15. M. F. Abbod, D. A. Linkens, and M. Mahfouf. Multi-Objective Genetic Optimization for Self-Organizing Fuzzy Logic Control. In Proceedings of UKACC Control'98, pages 1575-1580, University of Wales Swansea, UK, september 1998. IEE.

16. M.A. Abido. A new multiobjective evolutionary algorithm for environmental/economic power dispatch, Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting, Vol. 2, pp. 1263--1268, IEEE, 2001.

17. M.A. Abido and J.M. Bakhashwain. A Novel Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm for Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch Proble, in Proceedings of the 2003 10th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 2003 (ICECS 2003), IEEE, Vol. 3, pp. 1054--1057, December 2003.

18. M.A. Abido. Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms for Electric Power Dispatch Problem, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 315--329, June 2006 .

19. M.A. Abido. Multiobjective Optimal VAR Dispatch Using Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm, in 2006 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2006), pp. 2745--2751, IEEE, Vancouver, BC, Canada, July 2006 .

20. M.A. Abido. Two-Level of Nondominated Solutions Approach to Multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization, in Dirk Thierens et al. (editors), 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007), pp. 726--733, Vol. 1, ACM Press, London, UK, July 2007 .

21. J.A.R. Abraham and I.C. Parmee. Extraction of Emerging Multi-Objective Design Information from COGA Data, in I.C. Parmee (editor), Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture VI, pp. 221--233, Springer, London, 2004 .

22. Ajith Abraham, Lakhmi Jain and Robert Goldberg (editors). Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization. Theoretical Advances and Applications, Springer, USA, 2005, ISBN 1-85233-787-7 .

23. Ajith Abraham and Lakhmi Jain. Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization, in Ajith Abraham, Lakhmi Jain and Robert Goldberg (editors), Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization. Theoretical Advances and Applications, pp. 1--6, Springer, USA, 2005 .

24. Ajith Abraham, Crina Grosan, Sang Yong Han and Alexander Gelbukh. Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization Approach for Evolving Assemble of Intelligent Paradigms for Stock Market Modeling, in Alexander Gelbukh, Álvaro de Albornoz and Hugo Terashima-Marín (editors), MICAI 2005: Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Springer, pp. 673--681, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence Vol. 3789, Monterrey, México, November 2005 .

25. Adnan Acan and Ahmet Unveren. Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization with a Segment-Based External Memory Support for the Multiobjective Quadratic Assignment Problem. , in 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2005), pp. 2723--2729, Vol. 3, IEEE Service Center, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2005.

26. Jesús Antonio Acosta Sarmiento. Aprendizaje de Particiones Difusas para Razonamiento Inductivo, PhD thesis, Departament d'Enginyeria de Sistemes, Automàtica i Informàtica Industrial, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, December 2006 (In Spanish).

27. Salem F. Adra, Ian Griffin and Peter J. Fleming. Hybrid Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm with a New Adaptive Local Search Process, in Hans-Georg Beyer et al. (editors), 2005 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'2005), pp. 1009--1010, Vol. 1, ACM Press, New York, USA, June 2005 .

28. Salem F. Adra, Ahmed I. Hamody, Ian Griffin and Peter J. Fleming. A Hybrid Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Using an Inverse Neural Network for Aircraft Control System DesignA , in 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2005), pp. 1--8, Vol. 1, IEEE Service Center, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2005.

29. S.F. Adra, I.A. Griffin and P.J. Fleming. An Adaptive Memetic Algorithm for Enhanced Diversity, in I.C. Parmee (Editor), Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture 2006. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference, pp. 251--254, The Institute for People-centred Computation, Bristol, UK, April 2006.

30. Salem F. Adra, Ian Griffin and Peter J. Fleming. A Comparative Study of Progressive Preference Articulation Techniques for Multiobjective Optimisation, in Shigeru Obayashi, Kalyanmoy Deb, Carlo Poloni, Tomoyuki Hiroyasu and Tadahiko Murata (editors), Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization, 4th International Conference, EMO 2007, pp. 908--921, Springer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 4403, Matshushima, Japan, March 2007 .

31. Salem F. Adra, Ian Griffin, and Peter J. Fleming. An Informed Convergence Accelerator for Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimiser, in Dirk Thierens et al. (editors), 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007), pp. 734--740, Vol. 1, ACM Press, London, UK, July 2007 .

32. Salem Fawaz Adra. Improving Convergence, Diversity and Pertinency in Multiobjective Optimisation, PhD thesis, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK, October 2007 (abstract).

33. Jeroen C.J.H. Aerts, Marjan van Herwijnen and Theodor J. Stewart. Using Simulated Annealing and Spatial Goal Programming for Solving a Multi Site Land Use Allocation Problem, in Carlos M. Fonseca, Peter J. Fleming, Eckart Zitzler, Kalyanmoy Deb and Lothar Thiele (editors), Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization. Second International Conference, EMO 2003, pp. 448--463, Springer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2632, Faro, Portugal, April 2003 .

34. Alexandros Agapitos and Simon M. Lucas. Evolving a Statistics Class Using Object Oriented Evolutionary Programming, in Marc Ebner, Michael O'Neill, Anikó Ekárt, Leonardo Vanneschi and Anna Isabel Esparcia-Alcázar (editors), Genetic Programming, 10th European Conference, EuroGP 2007, pp. 291--300, Springer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 4445, Valencia, Spain, April 2007 .

35. Alexandros Agapitos, Julian Togelius, and Simon M. Lucas. Multiobjective techniques for the Use of State in Genetic Programming applied to Simulated Car Racing. In 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2007), pp. 1562--1569, IEEE Press, Singapore, September 2007.

36. P. Agarwal and A.M. Raich. Design and optimization of steel trusses using genetic algorithms, parallel computing, and human-computer interaction, Structural Engineering and Mechanics, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 325--337, July 10, 2006 .

37. Akash Agarwal, Frank Pettersson, Arunima Singh, Chang Sun Kong, Henrik Saxén, Krishna Rajan, Shuichi Iwata and Nirupam Chakraborti. Identification and Optimization of AB_2 Phases Using Principal Component Analysis, Evolutionary Neural Nets, and Multiobjective Genetic Algorithms, Materials and Manufacturing Processes, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 274--281, March 2009 .

38. Varun Aggarwal and Una-May O'Reilly. COSMO: A Correlation Sensitive Mutation Operator for Multi-Objective Optimization, in Dirk Thierens et al. (editors), 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007), pp. 741--748, Vol. 1, ACM Press, London, UK, July 2007 .

39. Eleni Aggelogiannaki and Haralarnbos Sarimveis. Simulated annealing algorithm for prioritized multiobjective optimization-implementation in an adaptive model predictive control configuration, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part B--Cybernetics, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 902--915, August 2007 .

40. N. Agrawal, G.P. Rangaiah, A.K. Ray and S.K. Gupta. Multi-Objective Optimization of the Operation of an Industrial Low-Density Polyethylene Tubular Reactor Using Genetic Algorithm and Its Jumping Gene Adaptations, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol. 45, pp. 3182--3199, 2006 .

41. Shubham Agrawal, Yogesh Dashora, Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Young-Jun Son. Interactive Particle Swarm: A Pareto-Adaptive Metaheuristic to Multiobjective Optimization, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A--Systems and Humans, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 258--277, March 2008 .

42. Shubham Agrawal, B.K. Panigrahi and Manoj Kumar Tiwari. Multiobjective Particle Swarm Algorithm with Fuzzy Clustering for Electrical Power Dispatch, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 529--541, October 2008 .

43. Jose Aguilar and Pablo Miranda. Approaches Based on Genetic Algorithms for Multiobjective Optimization Problems, In Wolfgang Banzhaf, Jason Daida, Agoston E. Eiben, Max H. Garzon, Vasant Honavar, Mark Jakiela, and Robert E. Smith, editors, GECCO-99: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, volume 1, pages 3--10, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1999. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

44. Jose Aguilar and Pablo Miranda. Resolution of the Left Ventricle 3D Reconstruction Problem using Approaches based on Genetic Algorithm for Multiobjective Problems, In 1999 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, pages 913--920, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., July 1999. IEEE Service Center.

45. Hernán E. Aguirre, Kiyoshi Tanaka, Tatsuo Sugimura, and Shinjiro Oshita. Halftone Image Generation with Improved Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm. In Eckart Zitzler, Kalyanmoy Deb, Lothar Thiele, Carlos A. Coello Coello, and David Corne, editors, First International Conference on Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization, pages 501-515. Springer-Verlag. Lecture Notes in Computer Science No. 1993, 2001.

46. Hernán Eduardo Aguirre Durán. Generational Parallel Varying Mutation GAs and their Applications, PhD thesis, Shinshu University, Japan, March 2003 (abstract) .

47. Arturo Hernández Aguirre, Salvador Botello Rionda, Carlos A. Coello Coello, Giovanni Lizárraga Lizárraga, and Efrén Mezura Montes. Handling Constraints using Multiobjective Optimization Concepts, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Volume 59, No. 15, pp. 1989--2017, April 2004 .

48. Arturo Hernández Aguirre, Ricardo Salem Zebulum and Carlos A. Coello Coello. Evolutionary Multiobjective Design targeting a Field Programmable Transistor Array, in Ricardo S. Zebulum, David Gwaltney, Gregory Hornby, Didier Keymeulen, Jason Lohn and Adrian Stoica (editors), Proceedings of the 2004 NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware, pp. 199--205, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, California, June 2004 .

49. Hernán E. Aguirre, Masahiko Sato and Kiyoshi Tanaka. Preliminary Study on the Performance of Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms with MNK-Landscapes, in Proceedings of the 2004 RISP International Workshop on Nonlinear Circuits and Signal Processing (NCSP 2004), pp. 315--318, The Research Institute of Signal Processing Japan, Hawaii, USA, March 2004 .

50. Hernán E. Aguirre and Kiyoshi Tanaka. Insights on Properties of Multiobjective MNK-Landscapes, in 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2004), IEEE Service Center, Vol. 1, pp. 196--203, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 2004 .

51. Arturo Hernández Aguirre, Salvador Botello Rionda and Carlos A. Coello Coello. PASSSS: An Implementation of a Novel Diversity Strategy for Handling Constraints, in 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2004), IEEE Service Center, Vol. 1, pp. 403--410, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 2004 .

52. Hernán E. Aguirre and Kiyoshi Tanaka. Effects of Elitism and Population Climbing on Multiobjective MNK-Landscapes, in 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2004), IEEE Service Center, Vol. 1, pp. 449--456, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 2004 .

53. Arturo Hernández Aguirre and Salvador Botello Rionda. Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization of Trusses, in Carlos A. Coello Coello and Gary B. Lamont (editors), Applications of Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms, pp. 201--226, World Scientific, Singapore, 2004.

54. H. Aguirre and K. Tanaka. Random bit climbers on multiobjective MNK-Landscapes: Effects of memory and population climbing, IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics Communications and Computer Sciences, Vol. E88A, No. 1, pp. 334--345, January 2005 .

55. Hernán Aguirre and Kiyoshi Tanaka. Selection, Drift, Recombination, and Mutation in Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms on Scalable MNK-Landscapes, in Carlos A. Coello Coello and Arturo Hernández Aguirre and Eckart Zitzler (editors), Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization. Third International Conference, EMO 2005, pp. 355--369, Springer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 3410, Guanajuato, México, March 2005 .

56. Hernán E. Aguirre and Kiyoshi Tanaka. Working principles, behavior, and performance of MOEAs on MNK-landscapes, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 181, No. 3, pp. 1670--1690, 16 September, 2007 .

57. Hernán Aguirre, Hiroyuki Okazaki, and Yasushi Fuwa. An Evolutionary Multiobjective Approach to Design Highly Non-linear Boolean Functions, in Dirk Thierens et al. (editors), 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007), pp. 749--756, Vol. 1, ACM Press, London, UK, July 2007 .

58. Frank J. Aherne, Neil A. Thacker, and Peter I. Rockett. Optimal Pairwise Geometric Histograms. In Adrian F. Clark, editor, Electronic Proceedings of the Eighth British Machine Vision Conference, BMVC97, University of Essex, United Kingdom, September 1997.

59. Frank J. Aherne, Neil A. Thacker, and Peter I. Rockett. Automatic Parameter Selection for Object Recognition using a Parallel Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP'97), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1296, pages 559-566, Kiel, Germany, September 1997. Springer Verlag.

60. Frank J. Aherne, Neil A. Thacker, and Peter I. Rockett. Optimising Object Recognition Parameters using a Parallel Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm, In Proceedings of the 2nd IEE/IEEE International Conference on Genetic Algorithms in Engineering Systems: Innovations and Applications (GALESIA'97), pages 1-6, Glasgow, Scotland, September 1997. IEE.

61. Chang Wook Ahn. Advances in Evolutionary Algorithms. Theory, Design and Practice, Springer, ISBN 3-540-31758-9, 2006 .

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Reading Hot, Flat and Crowded, I could not help but feel that what is needed is some lateral connections in order to bring these EXCELLENT observations to the general, non reading, non-traveling public.
Would you consider making-with the Obama team, Michael Moore, Al Gore, Ken Burns and Bill Moyers a documentary?
I realize you have done a film- but this information needs to reach the nation as a whole.
Best,
Margaret

I'm half way through Hot, Flat & Crowded and realized that to make all these dreams become a reality .... you need to be the new Oprah.

In a recent NYT column you mentioned "we the people" as a major factor in gaining support for dealing with climate change.

We consider drug, tobacco, alcohol etc. addictions to be physical, whereas our "addiction to oil" is regarded mostly as a figure of speech. However, in many ways this far exceeds most others. Its demand elasticity is closer to glass and Druthers than say, tobacco. The best evidence appears every month in the Times. For years now the top selling vehicle has been a 15 mpg pickup, mostly the F-150. This has been true both when gas prices doubled (July, 2008) and when the unemployment rate doubled (June, 2009), even as total sales dropped--outselling the Prius nearly 3 to 1.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, people strive to satisfy their needs in order of Physiological and Safety, to Belonging, then Esteem, and finally Self-actualization. Physiological and Safety include needs such as food, water, sleep, security of body, employment, property, etc. While Esteem and Self-actualization include needs like morality, creativity, confidence, achievement, etc. One of the biggest downfalls of a recession is that it brings people’s need levels back down to the very basics, thereby ignoring the less immediate needs. In other words, when people lose their jobs, they tend to focus on finding another job to pay for groceries and rent, rather than worrying about their carbon footprint. This is because people’s impact on climate change are among items they will support only when they are seeking to feel better about themselves and their existence. People can only worry about the problems of tomorrow, when they have no problems today.

However, with the market and Mother Nature both hitting the wall together, it provides the opportunity to make Mother Nature part of the market recovery plan. To accomplish this goal, we need charismatic leaders with workable plans to encourage people to believe that we can achieve a great standard of living by working on reducing our carbon footprint. By doing so, not only people are provided with the opportunity to satisfy their basic needs, but also they can feel great knowing they are part of the greatest project ever undertaken by mankind. A movement like that will never fail.

I believe in order to raise someone's living standard you need to teach them the proper problem solving skills. Instead of acting out and using defiant behavior to get what they want and or need. Using certain behavior modification techniques this can be done from an early age when raising kids in order for them to become more productive citizens.