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Jennifer Perron

Jul 14, 2015
09:27

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Dear Michael, Thanks for being one of the first to help kick-off the proposal submission period for the Global Climate Action Plan contest of MIT's Climate CoLab. I'm one of the Fellows for this contest, here to serve as a liaison to the CoLab, answer questions, and provide substantive feedback in an effort to help strengthen proposals. Fellows will also have a role in the evaluative phase of this contest. You already have a quite fully-developed and technical proposal, in which you've combined proposals from the various regional contests. That said, I will note that your proposals for the WENN system are the same in each of the regions; it would greatly strengthen your submissions if you tailored this idea to the geographic scope of each regional contest, and then explained, here, in the global contest, how they fit together comprehensively. This would strengthen your submissions in both the regional and global contests. Additionally you could consider adding some supplemental background and context on the IPCC reports and Representative Concentration Pathways, prior to delving into further details. It will also be important to spell out and define any acronyms used for clarity of presentation. Thank you for your contributions to the CoLab, and looking forward to seeing how you continue to improve upon your proposal in the coming weeks.

Michael Hayes

Aug 4, 2015
05:51

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Hello Jennifer, Your comments and suggestions are in line with a few others I have received via Dustin and Maruf. My response to them is below and I hope you see some logic in my actions. Thank you again for spending your time on this work. Hello Dustin, Again, I'm impressed with your willingness to spend time with developers. If the proposal goes forward, I can spend the time needed to clarify in the ways you are recommending. Also, you may find my remarks to Maruf relevant to many points you have made. In brief, I only can invest so much time on this type of work and I'm trying to find judging panels who 'get-it' at the first round. Once those panels are found, customizing the proposals to their relevant regions can go forward. In example, researching for the customization for say China, when that panel simply shows no interest even in the first round, would be a vast waste of time for me. Yet, if that same panel shows interest in the overall first round effort, then the research time will be worth expending. Also, I am concerned that by developing highly unique proposals for each region we may never see a unified/universal global plan. Below I try to explain how the WENN Protocol is universally adaptable to all regions. Hello Maruf, The WENN Protocol and technology suite is highly relevant to....any....region. As I tried to explain in my writings, the WENN Protocol is an attempt to standardize and coordinate actions across all regions so as to create an equal opportunity for all nations to participate in an advance mitigation and adaptation effort. The technologies being proposed can be used in all sectors (i.e. urban, rural, distant rural and marine environments). Thus, the technology is 'Universal' in its nature and use. The overall protocol is an attempt to bring coordinated funding opportunities to...all..nations, cities and even the smallest communities. The Green Bond market can reach trillions of dollars yet there is a need to bring high levels of coordination to the wide spectrum of issues to insure the best use of the funds and to also insure that the climate change mitigation/adaptation technologies being paid for through the Green Bonds are used to their greatest abilities. Currently, we have many technologies available to help us mitigate and adapt to climate change. What we do not have is a widely coordinated means of funding and managing those critical technologies. The WENN suite of technologies can provide a 'Universal' base upon which coordinated funding and management can be achieved. Without a strong and coordinated 'Universally' coordinated funding and management regimen ...nothing....on the scale needed to aggressively mitigate or adapt to climate change....can...emerge. The problem is too vast for uncoordinated/piecemeal efforts to solve in the time available. The WENN Protocol is an effort to coordinate actions, funding and possibly even mitigation/adaptation governance between all nations, regions and even the smallest villages. The multiple problem sets we currently face (and will face for generations) is so complex and vast that nothing short of a full trans-regional/global scale coordinated effort will prevent the climate disruption which is already baked into the system. Maruf, thank you for your comment and suggestions. I value any opportunity to clarify my work as it is rather complex and...yes...ambitious. Climate change mitigation and adaptation will need both ambitious and even bold ideas and actions. It will also need many important actors willing to step outside their own comfort zone as what we, as a species, are currently and comfortably doing today is simply not working in our collective interests. Warmest wishes, Michael

Michael Hayes

Aug 12, 2015
09:03

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The limited space provided within the CoLab form makes addressing the suggestions and concerns of the Judges extremely difficult within that limited space. Also, the time and effort spent in simply trying to work in such a limited space needs to be better spent. Thus, I've transferred the CoLab format to a Google Doc (link below). This allows for expanded text, better graphics, more complete explanations at multiple levels (i.e. non-technical, policy centric, funding centric and STEM centric etc.). This link will also allow the reader to follow the conceptual development of the U.S. Plan: Chemosynthetic Management of the Water/Energy/Nutrient Nexus (WENN) even after the CoLab competition is complete. The link is below and you may need to copy and paste it into your browser as links to such 'work-arounds' many times become broken. https://docs.google.com/document/d/16xC-3NXB9xCt91IbkanFNX57L_3md0aHv1QldPtHKl0/pub Best regards, Michael