charles consult blog

I received a notice from one of my Linkedin connections about a organization that he belonged to that planted trees in developing nations.

He wrote about it in a condensed form on the website justmeans.com.  I read the entry and did a little research on my own.

The Stern Report

I started with the Stern Report (executive summary).  Stern was an MP that wrote a report on the economics of weather and climate change.  He summarizes scientific models on global warming and the climate change associated with them and concludes that action is needed to counteract the negative effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  The counteraction should take the form of reforestation (among other ways) and the systematic reforestation of 15% of the agricultural potential of the earth’s surface.

Although there has been some critical reactions to some of the assumptions and conclusions, it seemed to me to be a good place to start looking at the subject matter.

Bottom line – reforestation

It seems to come down to planting trees, the business of land use, and technical verification of contracts and obligations, and away from “business as usual” practices.  When I scan the terrain, there are global treaty initiatives (Kyoto, Copenhagen, EU,), and national organizations (both regulatory and commercial).   So there are several ways of making money and coordinating services.

My experience as an international lawyer suggest to me that reforestation will be on a almost ad hoc, or at least jurisdiction by jurisdiction level.  Reforestation – one country at a time.

Its now about the money

Money for projects can be financed via the selling of carbon credits.  If the project has a predictable and measurable carbon offset (one offset is one ton of CO2), and this can be verified via one of the several verification organizations, then projects can be initiated and paid for.

More about tree planting and reforestation:

The bottom line is that programs are being created to provide income to families in developing nations, with the expectation that a family can produce 600 – 1000 trees and gain an annual income of up to $2000 per year.  This would do a lot to both alleviate poverty and democratize societies.  Check out the FAQ on tree-credits.org.

On the other end, those companies and individuals using corporate social responsibility business model will benefit in the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit.

I have a friend and associate that, like many, is a martial arts instructor.  I have a lot of respect for him, a mutual respect that we share through training and competing in the 80s.  He has evolved over the years and would like to reflect his knowledge in a school he has rebuilt.

He asked me to read and comment on the substance of his training method.  I thought I should share with you my reflections.  His primary idea is one of total personal protection.  The course contains core training and then special topics.  These topics include: Threat Recognition, Angles of Attack, Positional Superiority, as well as other core topics.

The core elements and specific lesson topics are very well put together.  They are clear, concise, and easy to remember.  This is import because, most people have more to do than just think about self defense.

I thought I would reflect on one topic:

Threat Recognition – the idea is simple enough, you need to know when something is a threat to you (as well as being able to identify friend from foe).  I believe it also  I believe however, that this is not as easy as one might first imagine.  Obvious threats – ones requiring direct action, such as a fist coming at you, are easy to distinguish.  But, the better you are at self defense, the better you are at identifying threats before they become manifest as an actual attack.  This requires both knowledge of people, and knowledge of ons self (and one’s own internal biases and fears.  The penultimate tragedy is thinking that somebody is you enemy, that is really your friend (the ultimate tragedy is not recognizing people that mean harm).

Most of the other core concepts are straightforward as a matter of building a knowledge base of what you can use, and what works.

He was happy to read these comments.  I wonder how he will integrate these reflections in his teachings?

He’s at http://www.practicalprotectionconcepts.com.