It was interesting on the news tonight to hear veiled suggestions from airlines that planes should be flying anyway in Europe, despite more volcanic ash being emitted by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Also significant was the description of the volcano as “erratic”, as if the drive to make nature amenable to human convenience were unlimited.
Two things strike me about the aftermath of these events.
First, unforeseen interruptions to highly complex systems demonstrate their fragility and lack of resilience. Risk culture, in late modernity, is partly a way of trying to contain such disturbances, and manage them.
Secondly, with peak oil and climate change both looming on the horizon, Eyjafjallajökull makes us reflect on what a world with less air travel might look like.
In that context, I wanted to recommend a very interesting post by Victoria Johnson at the New Economics Foundation:
While the aviation industry morns losses in revenue of over £130 million each day, and discussions emerge about the potential government bailout for an already struggling industry, perhaps this is yet again, a symptom of a system that is on the brink of collapse.
Last week, leading science journal Nature published a paper (subscription required) which highlighted the vulnerability of highly interdependent infrastructure, and argued that we need to consider more ‘mutually dependent’ network properties if we are to design resilient systems. But not only should these systems be resilient, they also need to be low carbon and ensure that societal adaptive capacity is enhanced – so as a species, we are better equipped to deal with the next 50 years of climate change we already committed to.
Our ability to predict the future is limited by a number of factors. Models are limited representations of reality, constrained by our understanding of a complex system and computational power. And, while they may provide information on possible future outcomes, they are not a crystal ball. Second, against the background of larger-scale and long-term trends are ‘surprises’, such as extreme events, tipping points and unknown unknowns. This means that adaptation of society needs to recognise that while some actions can be planned for, the best option is to increase system resilience and reduce vulnerability.
As they say, go read the whole thing.
It seems the planes are going to be flying. Hopefully the worst that happens is a big fat maintenance bill for the airlines.
And never mind flying humans around – what about air freight? Fresh asparagus and emergency kidneys. And serious gov and corporate shit that has to be hand delivered in a hurry. And airports are major trading centres in their own right.
There are all sorts of ripple effects here that extend beyond stranded tourists.
However -
“unforeseen interruptions to highly complex systems demonstrate their fragility and lack of resilience.”
- is not quite right. Humans are superb improvisers. Why, even as we type the Royal Navy is being mobilized for Dunkirk V.2.
The mise en scène is all too familiar. Under a darkening pall of a sky, the beaches of Europe lie empty, dotted only by the remnants of a retreating army – empty Evian bottles and Quick! wrappers – as the RN et al churns back across the channel carrying beaten yet unbowed Brits laden with up to 3,200 cigarettes, 90 litres of wine and 10 litres of spirits to face HM Revenue and Customs.
But funniest of all is that no one beyond a half million Icelanders – broke from their own financial eruption – can properly pronounce the name of the cause of this sudden eco-economic explosion.
Even though JG Ballard remains dead, I bet he’s still chuckling away at this wonderfully unexpected 21st century eyjafuckup.
Ditto what Nabakov said, from a slightly different direction. The early C20th predictions of the awesome power of bombers to knock-out cities and countries were partly based on the presumed fragility and interdependence of modern industrial civilisation. Didn’t turn out to be quite that easy, because people do improvise, get by, make do — the Blitz spirit and all that (which wasn’t confined to London or even Britain). On the other hand, making preparations beforehand helps a lot. And that resilience works only up to a point, and where that point is is difficult to say until you get there.
I heard on the radio the other day that a third of “traded goods”, whatever that might mean, are carried by air.
“…partly based on the presumed fragility and interdependence of modern industrial civilisation…because people do improvise, get by, make do”
Exhibit A: The British Spitfire shadow factory system.
Exhibit B. The startling casualties and lack of success of the 8th Air Force’s Schweinfurt raids.
Not many major first world industrial nations have been bombed extensively since then but if it did happen now I bet this internet e-generation would even better at distributed, open source industrial production.
Shit, over a decade the USAF dropped more bomb tonnage on Indochine than everyone did to eachother in WW2. That didn’t quite work out the way they thought.
Probably about the only bombing campaign that even achieved barely half of its strategic objectives was SuperLeMaytress over Japan.
Also Brett, where’s the book (with tasty photos – “Gotha cockpit circa 1918. Note early barometer to left of flight engineer’s dog”") spun off from your thesis?
Kim, it’s funny how egotistical humankind react when they are confronted with the fact that they don’t control as much of the world as they thought they did. Seeing the anger on the faces of some people whose travel plans had been upset was instructive.
As you say, with peak oil and global warming, humans are destined for more disappointments and alterations to their inflated egos.
I wonder how long it will take for the supply of Italian kiwi fruit to dry up here in Oz? Though maybe they come via the sea.
If you doubt how much freight is moved by air, watch planes being loaded and unloaded. The passenger bags are thrown out of the hold then the conveyor belt is set up and box after box of freight comes out of the hold down the conveyor belt where it is carefully stacked onto trailers before its taken off the tarmac. A Virgin flight into Tullamarine had just over a trailer of passenger baggage and 2 complete trailers of cargo.
It might get worse before it gets better, with the second volcano likely to blow. And, how long could this go on for? In the past similar climatically impacting events have lasted at least two years. One wonders what governments and airlines might do if this becomes a temporarily permanent event? It will slow down the pace of life considerably. We might all have to get used to travelling by sea.
The 9am news stated the first plane has just landed in Europe, from Vancouver.
Well to be fair, Nabakov and Brett, a lot of the Blitz spirit involved compromises that would be utterly unthinkable in today’s political economy ie. the militarisation of entire labour forces, the subjection of even-then complex markets to rationing and central control, evacuation en masse of children, the acceptance of a certain (large) number of civilian deaths. You couldn’t do those now even if they were technologically feasible. It’s the political rather than the technological change since the 40s that’s reduced the scope for improvisation and I give you as case C: the bureaucratic response to Hurricane Katrina—modern cities’ government cultures work against, rather than for, resilience.
And there’s a decent argument that city bombing did destroy British prewar society; if you look at Attlee’s radically egalitarian and successful election platform, and the rapid decline in the political power of the elites of the 1920s and 1930s.
Also John Robb!
It’s a stretch to call “improvisation” the massive regimentation and bureaucratisation of life in the belligerent nations of WWII.
Whole populations were lied to, conscripted, and herded like cattle.
These days, folks are just lied to, and very incompetently at that.
Until regimes concoct some believable lies all the rest is impossible.
Where have all the expert liars gone?
Katz, the lie, widely believed, that we in Australia should remain in the pocket of America is proof that expert liars still exist.
America, since Vietnam, has been almost continuously involved in starting wars, funding wars, organizing coups, supporting dictators, etc, and is responsible for making and selling most of the world’s armaments.
Why does Australia want to be allied with the world’s principal warmonger and dragged into its wars?
We’d be better to become neutral, like Switzerland.
P.S. Hopefully the ash from Iceland will continue and disrupt the killing in the Middle East by the U.S. Air Force.
joe2 @ 7, I did hear on the radio that the supply by air of mangoes from Ghana had been disrupted. Apparently it amounts to 1% of their GDP.
Also fresh flowers from Kenya, of course.
Some of the Southern European airports are open, but I’m not sure about Italy.
Just heard that we are only losing $54,000 a day in airlifted food not going to Europe. Includes meat, apparently.
But we have good refrigeration capacity and it is thought that all the goods will go eventually when our customers seek to renew stocks.
Ian Plimer has said that the volcano eruption will be good for agriculture long term, by providing extra quantities of the beneficial trace gas CO2 for the atmosphere.
That’s a relief!
Airlines can fly whenever it is safe to fly, and as long as ‘safe to fly’ is not determined and defined by the airlines, that should go fine.
News reports tended to focus on people ‘stranded’ at airports, when in fact they had the option of:
1. getting a train (it’s Europe! There are trains everywhere!)
2. hiring a car (take the scenic route, no one expects you home on time anyway). If you’re feeling entrepreneurial, hire a minibus and sell the seats.
3. staying where they are and enjoying an extended break
The people with sufficient initiative to do this aren’t a news story, since journalists won’t find them hanging around at airports, waiting to be told what to do.
The problem as I understand it is not the eruption per se, but the fine ash being produced. This fine ash travels further and intereferes more readily with heavy flying machinery. This fine ash is in part caused by lava meeting water (or water ice) immediately at the surface. As the water ice around the volcano is melted away this effect should lessen to the extent where it will be safe to fly even if the eruption continues.
Bugger, Brian, we always go for the Ghanaian mango. The Queensland variety being a bit common for our tastes, you understand.
More seriously, there is a real problem in balancing up the need for export revenue to poor countries and crazy travel distances, especially when a product can be sourced locally.
It is not as if we consumers get a choice. You do not see, in my supermarkets anyway, competition between NZ/VIC kiwi fruit. It is all Italian or nothing.
Freight for critical components and general hi tech stuff out of Europe and the UK is essential for what is left for some of our high tech industries.
I suspect that if it were not for the high speed trains and ferries the situation in Europe would be dire indeed.
The stranding of passengers is one thing , the stranding of essential stuff is another, it can bring entire industries to a stop.
A good take on the situation is here, note that it seems that a number of factors have to coincide before an ash eruption has serious consequences.
http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/some-reflections-on-eyjafjallajoekull.html
Huggy
“Just heard that we are only losing $54,000 a day in airlifted food not going to Europe. Includes meat, apparently.”
Most likely that stuff will also end up on our supermarket/ market shelves. Thinks.. Now what fresh, cheap, gourmet food, previously bound for Europe will I be able to pick up at Vic market next Sat morning?
Thought scrapped. If only that volcano was closer to Japan airspace.
From helpful hints department:
“Eyja” is the Icelandic word for island. “Fjalla” means mountain. “Jokull” is glacier. Got that…. Eyjafjallajökull. Completelyfukinsimple.
From Kim’s link – “pronounced aya-feeyapla-yurkul”. Roly Sussex, the local language guru who comes on local radio once a week, gave us the full deal and pronounced it beautifully. Of course, I couldn’t remember.
Liam, such compromises might well be unthinkable in today’s political climate, but then again they might not be in tomorrow’s political and natural climate — just as the regimentation and coordination of whole populations that Katz refers to was unfeasible in peacetime Britain. Only when war came near did that begin to change. Desperate times call for desperate measures: people put up with things they wouldn’t ordinarily, and work out ways around hardships which would once have been considered an impossible imposition. Whether they were lied to or not, as Katz suggests for the wartime belligerents (with a degree of terminological inexactitude; people weren’t lied to about everything, all the time, not even in Nazi Germany) is beside the point, which is that people believed that sacrifices were necessary. So it’s not *just* about regimentation (of which there was plenty): nobody forced motorboat owners to go to Dunkirk, after all. (Which is only a symbolic example: the vast majority of Allied soldiers were rescued by the big ships, not the little ones.)
Nabs: I’m working on a book manuscript and am in contact with an interested (but currently non-committal) publisher. I can’t promise any canine aircrew photos though!
It is rash to lie injudiciously. Even the Nazis understood that. To turn Churchill’s aphorism on its head, successful lies require a bodyguard of truth.
The myth of the realm-saving role of the “little boats” is a cute example of a successful lie. It’s leading attribute is that it was a lie that everyone wanted to believe.
Getting back to the linked article, it is interesting that in considering interlocking networks they say that distributed networks may be even more vulnerable than centralised ones.
I’ve been reading Clive Hamilton’s Requiem for a species (reviews here and here.) The shorter Hamilton is that Copenhagen was our last chance and we blew it. But when the situation is impossible we must take the next step.
What got us into the mess was the foundational concepts and values of modernity. Whether we take urgent enough action to avoid disaster or whether disaster befalls, we are going to have to revisit those concepts and values.
So you would expect that ways of relating to each other and to nature will have to change. Also institutions built on those concepts and values will have to change*. Neither Hamilton nor anyone else really understands how. It’s a project for the future. But BAU is not an option. Business will not be usual, whatever we do.
But near the top of the list, as always, I think, is to reclaim democracy by getting big money out of politics.
*Indeed, one of his most interesting sections is on self-construal. How we construe ourselves and hence what we in fact are needs to be revisited.
“It’s the political rather than the technological change since the 40s that’s reduced the scope for improvisation and I give you as case C: the bureaucratic response to Hurricane Katrina—modern cities’ government cultures work against, rather than for, resilience.
And there’s a decent argument that city bombing did destroy British prewar society; if you look at Attlee’s radically egalitarian and successful election platform, and the rapid decline in the political power of the elites of the 1920s and 1930s.
Also John Robb!” – Liam
And also … fire fighting in Victoria …
A plane is a complex system that has inbuilt structural vulnerabilities. By definition. To work effectively it becomes one of a swarm of planes in a highly complex system of regulated movement. Given the economic environment that has evolved around planes, they become fundamental for modern global trade (its a feedback loop), and that global trade is the basis of a whole lot of other networks and complex systems.
The amount of resilience that system has is dependent on how much it can continue to function with no or minimal air travel. There’s probably more inherent resilience there than we would credit, but some of the systems, such as the Kenyan fresh flower trade to Europe are completely dependent on the planes and therefore they lack their own resilience.
Nabs, didn’t the Schweinfurt raids actually lead to decentralisation and an increased resilience (with a slight loss in production?) Production was distributed or dispersed instead of remaining centralised. Thus it was less vulnerable to an allied attack.
So in that case german industry decentralised to increase its resilience in response to an environmental change.
The real question is whether the same sort of response is possible for many economic practices dependent on global trade via aircraft, specifically either to or from Europe (at the moment).
These days we have smaller stockpiles, just in time delivery and globally sourced products, in many cases they are dependent on quick international travel, at the moment the only option is air travel AFAIK. IMO that would be closer to cutting off germany’s oil supply in ww2. Thats the sort of importance the resource (quick access to Europe for your products) has for some.
Jules @25: “IMO that would be closer to cutting off germany’s oil supply in ww2.”
Errm, I believe Royal Dutch Shell has some skeletons rattling in their closet in this regard…
Hasn’t anyone ever wondered how the Luftwaffe kept flying and their tanks kept rolling over Europe, given that Germany didn’t have any oilfields?
The Anne Frank house seems to be a bit of a Dutch anomaly for that period. All the more remarkable, considering what was normal practice elsewhere in the country.
Returning to the theme of your post, Jules, perhaps we should be seriously thinking about your points in more detail for the future? Oil reserves are depleting rapidly, at the same time as China is making more cars every year than the US.
Supplies down, Demand up. Crunch, sometime this decade. Guess what form of transport guzzles fuel in large quantities?
I wouldn’t recommend postponning that grand overseas adventure for too long…
Brian @24: “Getting back to the linked article, it is interesting that in considering interlocking networks they say that distributed networks may be even more vulnerable than centralised ones.”
It is interesting to consider this concept in the light of the GFC. Was it the more interlocked networks, or the more distributed/dispersed networks, that suffered the most?
Prior to the GFC, the received financial/economic wisdom was that when America sneezed, Australia caught the flu. Furthermore, if the developed world (US and EU) hit a bump in the road, then the developing world (including China) would be gone for all money… Well, they got that right then, didn’t they?
Hope those finance and economics lecturers in the business schools have rewritten their lecture notes?
Incidentally, wasn’t the internet originally designed for distributed control, deliberately, so that it would be impossible to take the whole system down?
I’d rather be arguing for distributed control, with as many Plan B nodal connections as possible. Increased flexibility of response, to reduce risk in a crisis. Multinodal and multimodal operation.
Such as was indeed implemented by the more imaginative stranded passengers in Europe. More power to them!
The journos should tell those stories too, and not just the helpless ones. Gives us all renewed faith in humanities ability to adapt to a crisis. We might be needing all the resilience we can find in the future.
Elise, for those with plenty of dosh, there was a Moscow taxi driver offering to take people anywhere in Europe for $1400 plus fuel. I did also hear of another taxi trip that cost $5000. There was also the case of some who attended a ‘major economies’ conference in Washington via video conference. None of that particularly original.
I did note that the characteristics of the distributed networks were not described. Obviously where bits can drop out and the rest still operates is good.
This is fascinating. Elise, please do enlighten us. Where did Royal Dutch Shell get the oil and how did they import it into Germany to keep the Luftwaffe flying after the Dutch ports were cut off in April 1940 and more particularly after their principal oilfields, in what were then their East Indies, were seized by the Japanese in early 1942?
Was it through the Suez Canal (controlled by the British throughout WW2) into the Mediterranean (effectively a British lake for most of that war) or was it across Russia over the Trans-Siberian Railway?
I had thought that the Germans got their oil from Ploiesti in Romania. But obviously there is another story to be told. Please tell it.
The issue is not so much the complexity of the system but how this complexity allows the world to operate much closer to its limit. So, at least in the developed world local droughts or other crisis don’t result in starvation because food can be transported in. However, as a result of this reduced risk of starvation we have increased the size of our population. We have also become more dependent on the movement of food over long distances while running down local stores of essential goods.
However, what we have really achieved as a result of this added complexity is reduced the risk of localized starvation while increasing the risk of a massive, world wide famine that could be triggered by a quite localized crisis. The GFC is a good example of how actions designed to reduce the risks of a local problem can create a situation where a quite localized problem can lead to a worldwide crisis.
Globalization, just in time management and modern technology replaces localized risks with the risk of major system collapse. It is sobering to think about what would happen if we had another Carrington Event. Such an event would destroy the transformers on large AC power distribution systems. Loss of power would….
The problem is that free markets encourage us to ignore low probability risks.
John D, we had a look at the Carrington event a few days before that FuturePundit person. At least I referred to the New Scientist article the week before. It would be real fun:
But who would make them and how with all the infrastructure useless?
It would blow us clear into the dark ages. The real problem is that it could actually happen.
On a slightly less drastic note, volcanic activity in Iceland may be entering a more active phase.
At the same time, climate change could be exacerbating the situation.
Julian Hunt agrees: