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The Integrated Water, Energy, Nutrient Nexus (iWENN) Mngmt Protocol by iWENN

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Perry Grossman

May 5, 2016
02:56

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Dear iWENN

Thanks for submitting this proposal. As you acknowledge it is an early proposal.  I think this proposal could be interesting; but I am having trouble fully understanding it.

  1. I am a bit surprised by the initial estimate of human extinction chances being greater than the chances of dying in a car crash. Could you explain more about those numbers?

  2. I think you could restructure it with a summary upfront. It takes time to get the main point. Text, rather than an image at the beginning would be helpful.

  3. I think you could provide more references. I did some background research. It was interesting to learn more about the Stern Report, and its supporters and critics. I looked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review

  4. It would be great if you could provide a summary for this section: “What actions do you propose?”

  5. It would be great if you could fill out the other information:

    1. What are the proposal’s costs?

    2. Time line

    3. Related proposals

    4. References

  6. FYI, a relevant story I just saw: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/resettling-the-first-american-climate-refugees.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Perry


Michael Hayes

May 13, 2016
06:56

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Hi Parry,

I do apologize for the fragmented nature of the early draft. I'm the type of author which does the work out in the open as opposed to polishing the work off line. In some ways I'm doing this open development work of the proposal to possibly attract comments on the contents and proposal developemnt...such as you have kindly provided.

The subjects of most Colab challenges are so broad that condensing a synergistic STEM-socio-economic-policy focus as well as a means to effectively communicate that focus and on so many levels is not undemanding. In short, during the development stage I typically throw certain aspects of what I wish to communicate against the wall and see what sticks.

Thank you for interest in the draft and the link. Yes, we are already seeing climate migration yet the political actors are using language which avoids the larger implications of having a high proportion of humans living in coastal zones. The Stern Report clearly states that is far more logical to spend, what is truly vast sums of wealth, on mitigation and adaptation as opposed to putting of the work until the point of no return.

It is my position that finding highly synergistic ways to attract the needed investments, of trillions$, is our greatest challenge. The STEM is available for both mitigation and adaptation yet the investment community needs to be able to feel that their investments are as productive as non-"green" investments. That translates, in general, finding highly synergistic concepts which can show strong promise of >8% annual return on the investments. 

The second challenge is reducing the vast amount of available information down to the bare bones so as to communicate clarity of vision which can attract the broadest potential shareholders. No investor wishes to be the only one to take on such a large investment risk (no one investor has the amount needed).

Please stay in touch and let me know your thoughts.

Best regards,

Michael