[Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research:

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear FIS colleages,

Before assimilating the last exchanges (I have been on a trip), I have a 
few pending comments on self-organization and monetary resilience.

In some of the papers (links) Bob sent us, strong emphasis is put on 
"self-organization of complex flow systems sharing common patterns of 
behavior. Similar energy-flow concepts and analysis methods would apply 
to economic systems as well as natural ones..."  As the ongoing 
discussion shows, that view can be more or less OK, but... The network 
and subsequent IT analysis becomes appropriate for eco-systemic flows, 
but in my opinion it obscures a fundamental trait of eco-nomic flows: 
that they are guided and anticipated by a superimposed structure of 
information flows. So there are two flows compounded, and each one is 
endowed with a specific fluency, velocity, friction, etc. radically 
different. Handling prices of goods or trading shares in a stock market 
is far away from circulating the physical goods or from the physical and 
human structures of a company... Unfortunately the info-structure of 
economy is not satisfactorily solved yet (at least in my opinion), 
except the partial classical equilibrium approaches and some diminishing 
returns and other nonlinear approaches. Presumably, a more complete 
vision cannot be articulated yet.

Anyhow, Lietaer's application (in the paper with Goerner and Ulanowicz) 
of Bob's ecological criteria on resilience to the economic crisis looks 
enormously interesting. Some of the thinking lines of Nikhil could 
dovetail. The underlying problem is (at least in my opinion) how to give 
voice to Nature, not only evaluating the value of human work done to 
extract the raw matter or to collect it, but also the caring work with 
no immediate return.  Who may represent Nature herself and her interests 
in the human monetary market? Analyzing the currency monopoly of our 
times, and the present financial crisis, the main alternative seems to 
be increasing the financial resilience by adding different types of 
currencies. The Swiss B2B complementary currency is mentioned in the 
papers (other local, regional, and sectorial cases also exist, and the 
Internet may strongly facilitate such experiences). In this line, an 
ecologically based currency or eco-coin ("ecos") could pick the 
voluntary work done by individuals --not extracting for nature, but 
working for her preservation and care. ONGs could certify the work 
properly done. Ecos could be a symbol of voluntary work done and also a 
personal prestige and moral reward for Nature "lovers". Quite many new 
people could be attracted to devote their voluntary work to the direct 
stewardess of Nature (and not to political-ideological green activism) 
being compensated by ecos. The international clout of these ecos-coins 
could be considerable... and the certification could be reasonably 
organized in a very ample scale. The present consciousness and fear of 
climatic change would ad social urgency and further potential 
importance...  --Bob, could this "eco" idea may have any sense?

All the best--Pedro

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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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