Hand In Glove - Externalization and Regulation

Former Regulator Hat On.

Environmental Enforcement Dollars come disproportionately FROM the wealthy. The wealthy are concerned, above all else, about their property value, and their backyards. So you have the most environmental enforcement and regulations - even to the extent of NIMBY vs Solar fields - in wealthy counties. And wealthy countries.

The dirtiest, most polluting industry in the world - gold mining - occurs primarily in the most remote places in the world. That is not because there are no gold deposits in the Hamptons or Westchester County. The gold is in the earth. But gold is expensive because you have to dig up massive amounts of earth to get gold. Moving massive amounts of earth, and treating that earth with cyanide and mercury to concentrate the gold ore, is "best done elsewhere".

Years ago, I blogged about auto repair shops in Manhattan which migrated to Queens because of the land value, and subsequent externalization of repair. In the big picture (like the current election) this creates resentment of the regulator - the property value enforcement negotiator - by the regulated. And this has been flipped as "environmental injustice" by the new home to the dirty repair shop, and as "externalization" when it crosses national boundaries.

Both the "environmental injustice" of motor oil changing repair shops in Queens and the "externalization" of gold mining to the Amazon river basin and Congo rain forest are real, and appealing to liberals and intellectuals. At the same time, the increasing regulation of the Queens auto shop, as property values and regulation extend beyond Manhattan, creates a Trumpy backlash among working class, proud-to-self-describe "grease monkey" culture. Liberals herald Repair, but don't associate with them, culturally. Because repair is something poor people do better, and "elective upgrade" is something associated with wealth. Whether the "property" is real estate, or a flip phone, the trade sends value south, and regulation - north.

Through years of blogging, casting for intellectual swordfish rather than perch, I hope I've created an awareness that our white-guilt is being used, corruptly, to make the environmental enforcement disproportionately affect the man-in-the-middle repair and refurbishing industry. The WORST activity humans do - gold mining, e.g. - is the farthest out of sight, never talked about, never see it described on CBS 60 Minutes. But set up a shop in Guiyu, China, to repurpose gold-bearing chips, sold in competition to Intel or Cisco new chips made with mined gold, and you'll be labelled primitive, polluting, externalized, illegal, and counterfeit.

Money doesn't just "talk", it silences.

Orchestrated Environmental Malpractice. Intellectuals need to wrestle back our demonization and collateral damage, and do it quickly. The world needs Environmentalism 3.0 Personal property value (NIMBY) enforcement is 1.0, decrying the reuse practices of the poor, witnessed white-ly as externalization or fetishization of your guilty elective upgrade is 2.0, we need a global view. Carbon trading is a window, a potential breath of fresh air, but expect it to be controlled by the interests of the wealthy and privileged. Ocean plastic comes from countries poor enough to struggle to collect litter, but with the highest rates of product (gold bearing expecially) reuse and repair. White intellectual, you are being tricked into shredding and destroying a device which Africa's Tech Sector will reuse 3 times longer than you did before your upgrade.

Your guilt has been diagnosed as an "opportunity" by Planned Obsolescence OEMs and Big Shred. "Our Circular Economy" (keep metal in Europe) advocates have created a very, very, very evil charity(if un-self-aware) industrial complex (Basel Action Network, run by Jim Puckett), which is doing nothing good, only harming the poor and the net environment.

A big "racketeering" industry (Certification, R2 or E-Stewards) is privatizing the regulatory functions I'm writing about, and de-democratizing them. All the certifications are "pay to play", there is never an Asian or African tech sector on the Advisory Committees in these groups. They change the "problem" when the 1.0 or 2.0 solutions are exposed as fraudulent ("80% of exported - imported - secondhand product was NEVER waste, and CBS producer Solly Granatstein won't account for his unwitting Koolaid).

They are going to try to make it about "counterfeit" (reused and repurposed expensive equipment) and "data breach" (NO, breached data does NOT come from ANY 5 year old obsolete device, it's an insane conspiracy theory that your 2001 Dell or HP desktop is being "harvested" for data by Geeks in Ghana). It's going to create resentment not of the wealthy interests, who greenwash, but of the regulators, resulting in anti-government votes for executive branch "leaders" who make environmentalists the enemy.

Blog reads are declining, maybe I'm repeating myself. From time to time, I want to know if anyone is aware, does anybody care, does anybody see what I see? (1776 Musical, John Adams, who was "obnoxious and disliked")

Refining the Fair Trade Recycling Mission Statement

"Recycling needs to be materials science, not a belief system. Collecting during bad markets is smart, shows reliable long term supply grid."

Fair Trade Recycling is pro recycling.  But we are not exactly defined as part of "Zero Waste" movements.  We are somewhat resistant to "producer responsibility", at least as a solution for secondhand goods markets - planned obsolescence and right to repair are opposing forces (if producer implies mining and virgin material extraction, we are all ears). If any group has a close affinity to Fair Trade Recycling, it's probably USA's "Net Impact"... young professionals in the business sector who are agents of conscience, making the world better by participating in, rather than reacting to, global markets.  The worst recycling is better than the best mining.

At the same time, while we defend and participate in the overseas recycling and repair and reuse sector, we are confronted with the eventual waste and unplanned obsolescence of goods we once exported.  Our vision is to turn this into an opportunity, a circular economy, rather than reversing course on the international trade which is clearly benefiting standards of living and information and education in emerging markets.

Our primary incentive is to create a transitional economy for Africa's Tech Sector, the reuse and repair markets for used electronics, which we project will face increasing pressure from new affordable devices (seen in Asia in the past decade).  We believe the value of the sector is in the minds and education and ingenuity of the repair market 

The "Tinkerer's Blessing" is the working title of a book I'm writing about development and "savior complex" and "charitable industrial complex".  It's actually very optimistic, a defense of trade and free market activity in Africa, Asia and other emerging markets.  Terry Gou, Simon Lin, Steve Wozniak, etc. were tinkerers very much like the laptop and cell phone repair shop gurus from Tamale and Accra, we want to pitch them as a functional distribution and maintenance market for inevitable growth of solar power models in Africa.

Where will Africa's Wosniak emerge?  Who will monetize the "good enough market" in a way that is scaleable (like Foxconn and Wistron), creative like Apple, and sustainable as Microsoft?

It will probably be in the energy sector.  Which brings us back to Solar power.  Can SolarCity (Elon Musk's transformational solar panel financing scheme) scale solar power in a cash-based economy like urban Africa?  Or do we need other innovative financing models, like cell phone plans, to secure investments?

We will need people.  Africa's Geeks of Color.  Africa's repairers, tinkerers, fixers.  We need to stop arresting the people who buy and sell teledensity equipment in Cairo and Lagos and Accra and Nairobi, we need to silence the charitable industrial complex which defines its goodness in misleading photojournalism depicting Africa as a "victim".  We need to push out of the closet the NGOs who use pictures of African kids at dumps to raise money which is never, ever spent on Africans.

Photojournalism without data journalism jails and fails.  Our mission will outlive me, because it's rooted in the same scientific method and inspired conscience which has made the world's best practices.

- Robin Ingenthron 11/9/2015