This was for the workshop I conducted at a WIDE Project Camp just 3 days before 3.11 that hit Japan.

1. Solar Rays Mainly petroleum as the stock
Heat
Civilization
Redirection of
Resources Energy Flow
Control
Waste
Natural Generate
Reproduction
Information Flow
Board Workshop, WIDE Camp 2011 Spring
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS
∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age ∼
Kenji Saito
Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University
ks91@sfc.wide.ad.jp
Twitter: ks91020
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.1/37

2. “You never change things by fighting the existing
reality. To change something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete”
— Buckminster Fuller
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.2/37

3. Brief History of Near Past and Future
(from an imaginary japanimation
“Industrial Society Girl Madoka ⋆ Magica”)
Episode 1 “Some petroleum may have been left. . .”
Episode 2 “Economic growth is a lot of fun”
Episode 3 “I am no longer afraid of peak oil”
Episode 4 “Did you know peal coal and peak uranium?”
Episode 5 “No way we can live with 1.4kW per capita”
Episode 6 “This is absolutely wrong”
Episode 7 “Can you face the next civilization?”
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.3/37

4. Part I: Rasing Questions
Pale Blue Dot
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.4/37

5. Grasping Problems
Something stays invisible if you dive into the
problems
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.”
(Fuller)
You have to push the problems away when you think
about them
If you keep distance with the problems and express them
in an appropriate manner, a solution will present itself
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.5/37

6. Grasping Problems
Something stays invisible if you dive into the
problems
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.”
(Fuller)
You have to push the problems away when you think
about them
If you keep distance with the problems and express them
in an appropriate manner, a solution will present itself
Today, Earth has problems
How far do we have to push the problems away?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.5/37

7. How about “as far as the orbit of Saturn”?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.6/37

8. PALE BLUE DOT
Photograph by the
suggestion by Carl Sagan
In February 1990, Voyager
1 looked back Earth when
it left the ecliptic plane of
the solar system
Where’s Earth?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.7/37

9. PALE BLUE DOT
Photograph by the
suggestion by Carl Sagan
In February 1990, Voyager
1 looked back Earth when
WE ARE HERE
it left the ecliptic plane of
the solar system
Where’s Earth?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.7/37

10. PALE BLUE DOT
Speech by Sagan
“On it, everyone you love,
everyone you know,
everyone you ever heard
WE ARE HERE of, every human being who
ever was, lived out their
lives”
YouTube video
http://bit.ly/9PApWV
(full speech)
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.8/37

11. Photograph of Earth Taken by Cassini, 2006
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.9/37

12. Photograph of Earth Taken by Cassini, 2006
Our Spaceship EARTH
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.9/37

13. Photograph of Earth Taken by Cassini, 2006
Our Spaceship EARTH
What are the sources of energy that enable us to live on the
spaceship Earth?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.9/37

14. Energy, Economy, Environment
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.10/37

15. Unit System Review
1J (joule) = 1Ws (about 2.78 × 10−7 kWh)
Unit of energy, work or heat
Work done in applying force of 1N through a distance of 1m
1kg · m2 · s−2
Work done when a small apple falls for 1m on Earth
1kJ amounts to 1 search at Google, 1MJ melts 3kg of ice
1W (watt) = 1J/s
Unit of power or rate of energy conversion
A human body consumes about 100W
(1 Google search in 10 seconds)
Operation Yashima (TV version) required 160GW
(in reality, close to 300GW)
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.11/37

16. To Grasp the Scale
Energy accumulation by phytoplankton:
About 62.7TW
A study claims that its 1%, 630GW, is used by fish
and marine mammals to stir the oceanic water to
affect the climate on Earth
Energy accumulation by whole plants:
About 120TW?
About 50% of oxygen is generated by
phytoplankton
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.12/37

17. Energy Budget of Earth
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

18. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
174PW
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

19. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
Tidal:
174PW about 3TW/0.002%
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

20. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
Tidal:
174PW about 3TW/0.002%
Geothermal:
about 23TW/0.013%
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

21. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
Tidal:
174PW about 3TW/0.002%
Geothermal:
about 23TW/0.013%
Fossil fuel:
about 13TW/0.007%
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

22. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
Tidal:
174PW about 3TW/0.002%
Geothermal:
about 23TW/0.013%
Fossil fuel:
about 13TW/0.007%
Solar radiation:
about 174PW/100%
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

23. Energy Budget of Earth
The whole energy entering
Earth’s atmosphere is about
174PW
Tidal:
174PW 174PW about 3TW/0.002%
Geothermal:
about 23TW/0.013%
Fossil fuel:
about 13TW/0.007%
Solar radiation:
about 174PW/100%
30% is immediately reflected,
70% is absorbed and then
reradiated as infrared
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.13/37

24. The Whole Picture of Civilization
Civilization consumes about
12.5∼18TW (huge)
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
U.S.: about 3.4TW
Heat (11kW/capita)
Humanosphere Japan: about 700GW
(5.5kW/capita)
Redirection of
Energy Flow
Natural Reproduction
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.14/37

25. The Whole Picture of Civilization
Civilization consumes about
12.5∼18TW (huge)
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
U.S.: about 3.4TW
Heat (11kW/capita)
Humanosphere Japan: about 700GW
(5.5kW/capita)
From Holocene to
Anthropocene
Redirection of
Energy Flow
Natural Reproduction
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.14/37

26. The Whole Picture of Civilization
Civilization consumes about
12.5∼18TW (huge)
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
U.S.: about 3.4TW
Heat (11kW/capita)
Humanosphere Japan: about 700GW
(5.5kW/capita)
From Holocene to
Anthropocene
Redirection of
Energy Flow
We control energy flow to
make information flow
Generate
Natural Reproduction
Information Flow
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.14/37

27. The Whole Picture of Civilization
Civilization consumes about
12.5∼18TW (huge)
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
U.S.: about 3.4TW
Heat
(11kW/capita)
Humanosphere Japan: about 700GW
(5.5kW/capita)
From Holocene to
Anthropocene
Redirection of
Energy Flow
We control energy flow to
Control make information flow
Generate
Natural Reproduction That information flow controls
Information Flow
energy flow
Grandeur waste and violence
caused by monetary economy
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.14/37

28. The Whole Picture of Civilization
Civilization consumes about
12.5∼18TW (huge)
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
U.S.: about 3.4TW
Heat
(11kW/capita)
Humanosphere Japan: about 700GW
(5.5kW/capita)
From Holocene to
Anthropocene
Redirection of
Energy Flow
We control energy flow to
Control make information flow
Generate
Natural Reproduction That information flow controls
Information Flow
energy flow
Grandeur waste and violence
caused by monetary economy
That wouldn’t last long
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.14/37

29. Peak Oil/Coal/Uranium. . .
Peak Oil
Point of time when the world
production of oil peaks, after
which it enters terminal decline
Economy must decline
afterward
We have already entered
peak oil age
IEA has announced that
production of crude oil has
probably peaked in 2006
In the first half of this century,
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5177 all major energy resources
will hit their production peaks
Civilization today will come to
an end before we retire
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.15/37

30. The Big Picture
Solar Energy Mostly oil as its stock in the 20th cent.
Heat
Humanosphere
Redirection of
Energy Flow
Control
Generate
Natural Reproduction
Information Flow
All problems of energy, economy and environment are caused by
how we design information flow, in particular, flow of money
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.16/37

31. Part II: Proposing a Solution
Earth-Scale Operating System
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.17/37

32. Viewpoint Towards the Essence of Problems and Solution
To make a sustainable civilization, we need to
change our society to consume less energy
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.18/37

33. Viewpoint Towards the Essence of Problems and Solution
To make a sustainable civilization, we need to
change our society to consume less energy
Something is needed that coordinates our activities
to share resources and energy in a wasteless
manner
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.18/37

34. Viewpoint Towards the Essence of Problems and Solution
To make a sustainable civilization, we need to
change our society to consume less energy
Something is needed that coordinates our activities
to share resources and energy in a wasteless
manner
An operating system!
An OS for a computing system is a basic software that
coordinates use of resources on computers
Likewise, with an OS to coordinate use of resource and
energy in the scale of Earth, our next civilization may
become able to sustain low level of energy consumption
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.18/37

35. An operating system (OS) for the life-support system of the
spaceship Earth to function
Non-violence and peaceful resistance against the nature
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.19/37

36. Earth-Scale OS
Present Near Future
Human Users Human
Economy Applications Human Economy
Financial System OS Earth-Scale OS
Benefits Marketing and
Exploitation in Return Innovation
Poor People, Nature, Life Forms and Children
Earth and Biodiversity Hardware Earth and Biodiversity
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.20/37

37. Goal Depicted as a Science Fiction
“NEO IN WONDERLAND —
A Tale of Money That
Changed Our Future”
Genre:
“Sci-Fi Monetary Fantasy”
Technology to entirely
change monetary system
Which creates a drama
Free English version
http://grsj.jp/neo.pdf
(CC-BY-SA 3.0)
This is a plan
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.21/37

38. Related Work
Sustainable computing
Rather is a field related to computing’s impact on the
environment
Instead, Earth-Scale OS pursues computing’s
contributions to sustainability of societies
Moreover, it is designed not only as a computing system but also as a
societal system
Micro or smart grid
System to accommodate electricity
Earth-Scale OS deals with accommodation and sharing
of resources and energy on Earth in general
Platforms for Goodness (Jun Mural et.al.; proposal from G1 Summit)
A service infrastructure of Earth-Scale OS
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.22/37

39. Part III: Investigation
Let’s think about it together
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.23/37

40. What is the Goal of Lowering Energy Consumption?
Let a necessary and sufficient rate of energy
consumption for human beings to sustain civilization
be 10TW
This might not be low enough, but quite lower than
today’s rate
Dividing this value by the world population today, we
obtain the energy budget per capita
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.24/37

41. What is the Goal of Lowering Energy Consumption?
Let a necessary and sufficient rate of energy
consumption for human beings to sustain civilization
be 10TW
This might not be low enough, but quite lower than
today’s rate
Dividing this value by the world population today, we
obtain the energy budget per capita
Which is about 1.4kW
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.24/37

42. Related Work – 2000-Watt Society (Switzerland)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000-watt_society
Movement to lower energy consumption in industrial
countries down to 2kW per capita by 2050
The value must have been obtained by dividing
today’s consumption by the world population
Switzerland is a 5kW society today, was a 2kW
society in 1960s
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.25/37

43. What does 1.4kW per Capita Mean to US?
Today, Japan’s energy consumption is about 700GW
About 5.5kW per capita
To realize a 1.4kW society, we need to reduce energy
consumption down to 1 4
At the same time, if we focus on household
situations, many houses may have already been
consuming under 1.4kW per person
Rather, we need to reduce energy consumption in
social infrastructure, including transportation and
other industries
What can be automated, and what can be social rules?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.26/37

44. Requirements for Earth-Scale OS
1. Accounting of material/energy circulation and
matching demands with supplies
2. Large-scale distributed storage for abstracting on
networks all resources on Earth
3. Publicness as a social infrastructure
4. Resilience to be highly reliable
5. Emergence for being ready for additional resource
managements
6. Open source for sharing and maintaining
knowledge
7. Mechanisms to act on human rules including
changing laws
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.27/37

45. Principles
Earth-Scale OS should be based on P2P (Peer-to-Peer)
technologies
P2P does away with central controls, making it possible to
enhance the scale of wanted services without preparing
dedicated infrastructure
P2P is expected to contribute to Earth-Scale OS’s
realization of requirements 3∼5, and to realize requirements
1∼2 with high reliability
Propel local-production, local-consumption P2P, a
strengthened concept of P2P
In addition to technological design decisions, a framework is
needed for supporting necessary policy proposals to occur
from Earth-Scale OS to realize requirement 7
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.28/37

46. Functions and Layers
- User interfaces - Accounting and
Shell accommodating
- Programming with
glue-languages - Electronizing drafts in real
Extension terms used in Kamakura-era
- Searching nearby
entities
- Browsing Electronic
Exchange
nearby Drafts
entities
- Matching demands Rendezvous
and supplies
Reputation - Grading entities
- Locating entities - Assuring correctness
and their copies Location,
Routing and - Visualizing reputations
- Tracking Sensing
entities and their copies Identification - Loose identification
with names and IDs
- Accessing, messaging
and driving entities - Sustaining entities
Base System
- Sensing entities - Producers/products
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.29/37

47. Summary So Far
Civilization today will come to an end before we retire
Resources and energy will never be depleted, but
be difficult to use
Forced increase in consumption will degrade
biodiversity and other environmental well-beings
Towards next civilization that is sustainable, pursuing
non-violence and peaceful resistance against the
nature, utilizing energy budget from the Sun
Earth-Scale OS as one of the platforms
Part of it is a new monetary system
Which may protect ourselves from incoming
confusions
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.30/37

48. Is it possible?
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.31/37

49. “. . .we may discover how it may be accomplished by
our own directly-seized initiative, undertaken and
sustained without any further authority than that of
our function in universe, where the most ideal is the
most realistically practical.”
— Buckminster Fuller
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.32/37

50. Part IV: Workshop
Let’s make it together
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.33/37

51. Platforms for Goodness
Jun Murai et. al.; a proposal from G1 Summit
Effort to make sensory information from many layers
of (privately owned) infrastructures publicly available
as platforms to host various applications
Weathernews (climate prediction with wisdom of crowd)
Internet Cars
Observation of human movements by NTT docomo
Sensory information from Kuroneko Yamato
. . . and so on
Fights against regulations
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.34/37

52. Efforts by Weathernews
Predict climates by analyzing reports from paying
members
“In conventional weather forecasts, we have
out-sourced information that is coherent to our
lives. . . We would like ourselves to sense changes
surrounding our bodies by ourselves”
“We need platforms made out of connected clouds
that enable us to decide by ourselves. . . Things
would go wrong when we start to think that one
single complete platform is needed”
— Tomohiro Ishibashi, Director, Weathernews
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.35/37

53. To Map Weathernews’ Efforts on Functions and Layers
- User interfaces - Accounting and
Shell accommodating
- Programming with
glue-languages - Electronizing drafts in real
Extension terms used in Kamakura-era
- Searching nearby
entities
- Browsing Electronic
Exchange
nearby Drafts
entities
- Matching demands Rendezvous
and supplies
Reputation - Grading entities
- Locating entities - Assuring correctness
and their copies Location,
Routing and - Visualizing reputations
- Tracking Sensing
entities and their copies Identification - Loose identification
with names and IDs
- Accessing, messaging
and driving entities - Sustaining entities
Base System
- Sensing entities - Producers/products
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.36/37

54. Workshop Subjects
1) Design a platform to collect climate information
that everyone sees, hears and feels individually
2) Connect the inputs from the platform to the
following outputs
a) Visualization of Earthly environment
b) Mitigation of natural disasters
c) Control of energy
Towards Realization of Earth-Scale OS ∼ Information Infrastructure for Post-Peak Oil/Coal Age – p.37/37