anyone out there on 'sustainable jobs' and cliff dwellings?
My two questions are unrelated.
First off, here's a question on sustainability as it applies to jobs.
In preparing for this weekend's "Grid-tied Solar Photovoltaics" class, I was reminded that sustainability applies to jobs as well as energy practices.
That means that while I've taken advantage of reasonably well-paying jobs, those positions have also come with substantial risk. And going forward, having taken a hit from this economy, I'd be willing to take a job that paid less than past jobs, if I thought that that job was likelier to withstand the economy's vagaries.
I recently covered the wireless telecom sector, parsing the products, markets, financials and technology at companies as diverse as Nokia Corp. (Finnish handset maker, the world's largest) and Apple Inc. (insurgent maker of the iPhone and iPod), from Qualcomm Inc. (innovators in semiconductors for telecom) to Foxconn (Taiwan-based manufacturer for many of these companies). Telecom was one of the last sectors hit by the current recession. But in the past year it has taken a hard hit, with literally hundreds of thousands of layoffs worldwide. And thus I'm out of a job.
Naturally, it has occurred to me that I'd take a job that paid somewhat less, if that job was sustainable -- i.e., not likely to be affected by a downturn. To me that doesn't mean an obvious solution -- or it just a canard? -- of parking my keister in a government job, frankly.
So my question is: is anyone aware of current, pragmatic insights into what constitutes a sustainable job?
I should think the following qualities would be included in such deliberations: that the job focuses on a core value proposition in a growing sector of the economy, that government and/or tax policies are favorable to that growth sector, that technology shifts favor that growth sector, that public sentiment is favorable to that industry.
All these factors were missing from my last professional role. Print-based journalism in the so-called mainstream media has been upended by the proliferation of Web-based alternatives and so-called citizen journalism, so the reporter's traditional role has shrunk. The tendency towards both sensationalism and boring approaches has sent readers off in droves. Newsprint and distribution costs have forced a transition to the Web, around which everyone is struggling to develop a viable business model.
One area I find appealing if elusive: small-scale entrepreneurs with little overhead who have built a loyal client base devoted to their services. Two somewhat disparate examples do reveal that "loyal client bases" have a cyclical need for their services that varies widely. One friend of mine is a small animal veterinarian who specializes in acupuncture and whose clients are devoted to the health of their companion animals. That's a short-cycle need, in that treatments might take place every few weeks or once a month. Another example: another friend who I'd call a "micro-contractor," simply someone with the skills, tools and experience to assist others in making their homes more energy efficient and small aesthetic upgrades. That's a longer cycle, with many clients making periodic upgrades of their homes perhaps once a year.
While both of these individuals appear to be thriving right now, it's hard to discern whether there are vulnerabilities that I'm not seeing. Neither of these people has much overhead, both require a lot of driving to serve clients (exposure to gas prices) and both appear exposed to the vagaries of the general economy -- their clients may cut back on these services when sufficiently pinched.
In any case, it would appear that no job is recession-proof, even among government workers, who can be laid off, furloughed, take pay cuts, etc. And, clearly, a sustainable job has much to do with the company's status (public or private?) and management's philosophy. Large, public companies seeking to please investors and protect their stock price can do so by slashing tens of thousands of jobs to lower overhead and improve the bottomline. Smaller companies, particularly private companies where the cost of rehiring and training are tangible and relate directly to the ability to ramp up once the recession is over, may well choose to cut pay across the board to avoid lay-offs.
Seems akin to investing in general: the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential for the bigger payoff. The smaller the risk, the likelier it is the payoff is modest, although safer.
Just a few thoughts. If any readers have suggestions on source material on this topic, I'd love to hear about it.
The second topic of this blog is another question. It occurred to me, looking at a diagram for a well-designed passive solar building, that perhaps someone has studied the cliffdwellings of the Southwest for optimal use of solar design. I'm particularly interested in the angle and extent of south-facing overhangs that protect a building or cliff dwelling from the high-angled summer sun, yet allow the lower-angle winter sun to directly warm the building or dwelling. While some cliffdwellings' walls -- typically in narrow, pinched caves -- extend from "floor" to "ceiling," others include a high wall, often parted by entryway steps, that would appear to allow winter sun to strike the actual dwellings behind them. This design might well serve both security and passive solar heating needs.
Such a project may well elude my abilities and time, but I'm going to take a few notes on optimal, passive solar design into the backcountry on my next foray and be thinking of this as I explore more cliff dwellings. The fundamental impetus for cliffdwellings, of course, was security against hostile forces. In the Southwest, in the period of about 900 A.D. to 1250 A.D., those hostile forces were likely coming from Chaco Canyon and its inhabitants. But over time, I'm quite sure the peoples once designated the "Anasazi" (I'll use the term to avoid a digression) were able to blend security with optimal design for warmth and light.
The question is: how frequently and how well were security and optimal design combined? And was this knowledge widely held among those in society responsible for selecting a site and performing the exacting masonry involved? Or was this a specialized function, perhaps akin to the apparently specialized function that left pictographs and petroglyphs on canyon walls? Did everyone know how to do this, or did a clan have designated site analysts and builders? (Yes, a question that may be very hard to answer, if it's at all possible to do so.)
Anyone who has come across research on these questions, please share it.
While many ancient/modern analogies lose luster under close examination, it might be telling to analyze the design aspects of the Southwest's cliff dwellings. Much seems to have been lost in modern times. The "Anasazi" had extreme external pressures that in some sense mirror our own -- hostile neighbors and a changing climate. The analogy to our times is that we depend on oil exported by countries whose interests most often conflict with our own -- call them hostile neighbors. And we're in a period of climate change as well. In the 10th through 13th centuries in the Southwest, a relatively benign if arid climate became drier, probably accelerating other forces that led to a massive shift in this region's societies in the mid-13th centuries. (Chaco collapsed and the cliffdwellers descended to the banks of the Rio Grande to found the Pueblo societies known to the colonial Spaniards and even to us today.) Yet we build our modern homes as if completely ignorant about their orientation, we fail to design for our abundant natural resources (mostly sun) and ignore these homes' dependence on energy produced by those whose interests conflict with ours. Understandably, this situation is partly driven by the economics of housing developments and the ability to build as many homes as possible on a given parcel of land. But in the developing world, will that always be the case? This is a global issue now, because China and India have massive numbers of people about to reach the consumer stage that will generate massive amounts of carbon dioxide that drives climate change.
Of course, the conditions that shaped "Anasazi" behavior forced them to adapt lean and mean behaviors -- there were only so many defensible, south-facing caves with proximity to water and game to provide shelter. That limited population growth. But these limits should be recognized in evaluating our own circumstances, because despite the global nature of our culture, much of the conditions and natural resources and forces relevant to modern life in the Southwest have not really changed.
Okay, just a couple thoughts. Please let me know if any resources come to mind on sustainable jobs and/or passive solar design principles as found in cliff dwellings.
First off, here's a question on sustainability as it applies to jobs.
In preparing for this weekend's "Grid-tied Solar Photovoltaics" class, I was reminded that sustainability applies to jobs as well as energy practices.
That means that while I've taken advantage of reasonably well-paying jobs, those positions have also come with substantial risk. And going forward, having taken a hit from this economy, I'd be willing to take a job that paid less than past jobs, if I thought that that job was likelier to withstand the economy's vagaries.
I recently covered the wireless telecom sector, parsing the products, markets, financials and technology at companies as diverse as Nokia Corp. (Finnish handset maker, the world's largest) and Apple Inc. (insurgent maker of the iPhone and iPod), from Qualcomm Inc. (innovators in semiconductors for telecom) to Foxconn (Taiwan-based manufacturer for many of these companies). Telecom was one of the last sectors hit by the current recession. But in the past year it has taken a hard hit, with literally hundreds of thousands of layoffs worldwide. And thus I'm out of a job.
Naturally, it has occurred to me that I'd take a job that paid somewhat less, if that job was sustainable -- i.e., not likely to be affected by a downturn. To me that doesn't mean an obvious solution -- or it just a canard? -- of parking my keister in a government job, frankly.
So my question is: is anyone aware of current, pragmatic insights into what constitutes a sustainable job?
I should think the following qualities would be included in such deliberations: that the job focuses on a core value proposition in a growing sector of the economy, that government and/or tax policies are favorable to that growth sector, that technology shifts favor that growth sector, that public sentiment is favorable to that industry.
All these factors were missing from my last professional role. Print-based journalism in the so-called mainstream media has been upended by the proliferation of Web-based alternatives and so-called citizen journalism, so the reporter's traditional role has shrunk. The tendency towards both sensationalism and boring approaches has sent readers off in droves. Newsprint and distribution costs have forced a transition to the Web, around which everyone is struggling to develop a viable business model.
One area I find appealing if elusive: small-scale entrepreneurs with little overhead who have built a loyal client base devoted to their services. Two somewhat disparate examples do reveal that "loyal client bases" have a cyclical need for their services that varies widely. One friend of mine is a small animal veterinarian who specializes in acupuncture and whose clients are devoted to the health of their companion animals. That's a short-cycle need, in that treatments might take place every few weeks or once a month. Another example: another friend who I'd call a "micro-contractor," simply someone with the skills, tools and experience to assist others in making their homes more energy efficient and small aesthetic upgrades. That's a longer cycle, with many clients making periodic upgrades of their homes perhaps once a year.
While both of these individuals appear to be thriving right now, it's hard to discern whether there are vulnerabilities that I'm not seeing. Neither of these people has much overhead, both require a lot of driving to serve clients (exposure to gas prices) and both appear exposed to the vagaries of the general economy -- their clients may cut back on these services when sufficiently pinched.
In any case, it would appear that no job is recession-proof, even among government workers, who can be laid off, furloughed, take pay cuts, etc. And, clearly, a sustainable job has much to do with the company's status (public or private?) and management's philosophy. Large, public companies seeking to please investors and protect their stock price can do so by slashing tens of thousands of jobs to lower overhead and improve the bottomline. Smaller companies, particularly private companies where the cost of rehiring and training are tangible and relate directly to the ability to ramp up once the recession is over, may well choose to cut pay across the board to avoid lay-offs.
Seems akin to investing in general: the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential for the bigger payoff. The smaller the risk, the likelier it is the payoff is modest, although safer.
Just a few thoughts. If any readers have suggestions on source material on this topic, I'd love to hear about it.
The second topic of this blog is another question. It occurred to me, looking at a diagram for a well-designed passive solar building, that perhaps someone has studied the cliffdwellings of the Southwest for optimal use of solar design. I'm particularly interested in the angle and extent of south-facing overhangs that protect a building or cliff dwelling from the high-angled summer sun, yet allow the lower-angle winter sun to directly warm the building or dwelling. While some cliffdwellings' walls -- typically in narrow, pinched caves -- extend from "floor" to "ceiling," others include a high wall, often parted by entryway steps, that would appear to allow winter sun to strike the actual dwellings behind them. This design might well serve both security and passive solar heating needs.
Such a project may well elude my abilities and time, but I'm going to take a few notes on optimal, passive solar design into the backcountry on my next foray and be thinking of this as I explore more cliff dwellings. The fundamental impetus for cliffdwellings, of course, was security against hostile forces. In the Southwest, in the period of about 900 A.D. to 1250 A.D., those hostile forces were likely coming from Chaco Canyon and its inhabitants. But over time, I'm quite sure the peoples once designated the "Anasazi" (I'll use the term to avoid a digression) were able to blend security with optimal design for warmth and light.
The question is: how frequently and how well were security and optimal design combined? And was this knowledge widely held among those in society responsible for selecting a site and performing the exacting masonry involved? Or was this a specialized function, perhaps akin to the apparently specialized function that left pictographs and petroglyphs on canyon walls? Did everyone know how to do this, or did a clan have designated site analysts and builders? (Yes, a question that may be very hard to answer, if it's at all possible to do so.)
Anyone who has come across research on these questions, please share it.
While many ancient/modern analogies lose luster under close examination, it might be telling to analyze the design aspects of the Southwest's cliff dwellings. Much seems to have been lost in modern times. The "Anasazi" had extreme external pressures that in some sense mirror our own -- hostile neighbors and a changing climate. The analogy to our times is that we depend on oil exported by countries whose interests most often conflict with our own -- call them hostile neighbors. And we're in a period of climate change as well. In the 10th through 13th centuries in the Southwest, a relatively benign if arid climate became drier, probably accelerating other forces that led to a massive shift in this region's societies in the mid-13th centuries. (Chaco collapsed and the cliffdwellers descended to the banks of the Rio Grande to found the Pueblo societies known to the colonial Spaniards and even to us today.) Yet we build our modern homes as if completely ignorant about their orientation, we fail to design for our abundant natural resources (mostly sun) and ignore these homes' dependence on energy produced by those whose interests conflict with ours. Understandably, this situation is partly driven by the economics of housing developments and the ability to build as many homes as possible on a given parcel of land. But in the developing world, will that always be the case? This is a global issue now, because China and India have massive numbers of people about to reach the consumer stage that will generate massive amounts of carbon dioxide that drives climate change.
Of course, the conditions that shaped "Anasazi" behavior forced them to adapt lean and mean behaviors -- there were only so many defensible, south-facing caves with proximity to water and game to provide shelter. That limited population growth. But these limits should be recognized in evaluating our own circumstances, because despite the global nature of our culture, much of the conditions and natural resources and forces relevant to modern life in the Southwest have not really changed.
Okay, just a couple thoughts. Please let me know if any resources come to mind on sustainable jobs and/or passive solar design principles as found in cliff dwellings.
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