Hubbard, D. W. (2007). How to measure anything: Finding the value of 'intangibles' in business

 Although the author of this book worked as a management consultant for Coopers and Lybrand, he confronted the problem faced by managers in the public and private sectors, valuing anything that appears to elude measurement, "such as the value of quality, employee morale, or the economic impact of cleaner water" (p. xi). The consequences of this inability affect the occurrence of errors, appropriation of resources, and the effectiveness of decisions.

To define his terms, Hubbard explained measurement as "'error reduction', . . . a central theme of this book" (p. 17). Hubbard further defined measurement as "a set of observations that reduce uncertainty where the result is expressed as a quantity" (p. 21). Claude Shannon, an American electrical engineer, promulgated "a mathematical definition of information as the amount of uncertainty reduction in a signal, which he discussed in terms of the 'entropy' removed by a signal" (p. 22). Therefore, the measurement process entails the reduction of uncertainty by the degrees of refinement of a quantified range of amounts. According to Hubbard, Stanley Smith Stevens described the qualitative nature of measurement by clarifying the differences between nominal and ordinal measurements.

The chapter titles in the section, "Before you measure", map the first phase of reducing uncertainty and the measurement process, "Clarifying the measurement problem; Calibrated estimates, how much do you know now; Measuring risk: Introduction to the Monte Carlo Simulation; Measuring the value of information. Section III, "Measurement Methods", specifies the objective, empirical approaches to engage in measurement. Hubbard begins by describing the decomposition of components of a problem or question into their elemental parts, a task familiar to all scientific and academic researchers. Secondary sources supply additional information of previous investigations and methods of analysis of the same or similar problems.
When engaging in measurement, Hubbard stressed the importance of matching measurement cost with information value, "we need to know the Expected Value of Information not the Expected Value of Perfect Information" (p. 93). Throughout the book he advocated "the Rule of Five" . . . There is a 93% chance that the median of a population is between the smallest and largest values in any random sample of five from that population" (pp. 23-24). Furthermore, Hubbard viewed measurement as an iterative process, testing multiple types of observation, sampling sizes, experiments, and instruments.

Hubbard illustrated his argument with numerous examples from the public and private sector, for which he consulted.


Hubbard, D. W. (2007). How to measure anything: Finding the value of "intangibles" in business. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Accounting for Climate Change : The first rigorous approach to ESG reporting by Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna ((November-December 2021)

 Responding to the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, Kaplan and Ramanna critiqued the current protocol on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and proposed a new method of reporting. The authors acknowledged the desire for 200 CEOs of the Business Roundtable to improve environmental reporting, including the environmental reporting in their ESG "environmental, social, and governance" reports. 

Citing the shortcomings of the ESG reports, which fail to connect company profits to the ESG findings and to integrate the goals of ESG, the authors reported that the reports received public criticism of "greenwashing" and contained auditor validation by citing "no evidence of misreporting". Since most companies use the GHG protocol, the authors analyzed the discrepancies and errors within the Protocol and suggested means of improvement. The flaws involved "the same emissions are reported multiple times by different companies, while some entities entirely ignore emissions from their supply and distribution chains" (p. 2). To remedy these errors, the authors suggested employing these tools: data gathered by environmental engineers, data accumulated by financial and accounting records, and blockchain technologies. 

Errors in the GHG protocol derive from the nature of three measurements designated in its guidance: "Scope 1: Direct emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by a company, such as its production and transportation equipment. Scope 2: emissions at facilities that generate electricity bought and consumed by the company. Scope3: Emissions from upstream operations in a company's supply chain and from downstream activities by the company's customers and end-use consumers. For companies that emit large amounts of GHG, computing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions should result from the energy used during operations and accounted for by the company" (p. 3). According to the authors, Scope 3 complicated the accounting and measuring process. "Scope 3 emissions are the fatal flaw in the GHG reporting. The protocol's creators included them to encourage companies to exert influence over emissions that they don't control directly" (p. 3). 

Water Finance and Management Volume 9:1 2024 Washington Report, 2024 National Regulatory Outlook for Water PFAS & Lead and Copper Rule pp. 16 - 17

 Two major regulations that water utilities face, PFAS and Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI), impose a financial burden on all United States water utilities. Found in our drinking water, PFAS, per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances, are chemical compounds that contain fluorine, carbon, and hydrogen, elements that breakdown very slowly. Fire retardant foam and other products have these compounds that seep into the public drinking water. The federal government has proposed a deadline for compliance of three years, December of 2027 and ten years for LCRI. The EPA estimates the cost to conform to the regulations at $2.87 and $4.8 billion a year. 

The end of the public comment period for LCRI occurred on February 5 of this year. For PFAS, the government has a deadline of September 2024 for the Office of Management and Budget to finalize and publish in the Federal Register. Water utilities voice concern about the timeline for compliance and the cost, two major projects with insufficient time and funding. 

https://waterfm.com/inflationary-pressures-ease-for-u-s-water-utilities-regulatory-policy-looms-large-in-2024/

The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future Peter Gleick New York: Public Affairs 2023

Quoting Pindar, Water is the best of all things, the author starts his book. As the title indicates, Gleick  divided the history of water into three historical periods, which he claims existed with the formation of planet Earth.  The first period, from Earth's beginning to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the ice age's completion and prior to the pre-industrial and pre-urban age. 

The 17th and 18th centuries marked the beginning of the second age, when urbanization of human populations increased. To manage water,

"we learned to manipulate the natural hydrologic cycle for our benefit; unlock the biological, chemical, and physical properties of water; created the tools to take advantage of our new scientific understandings; and replumbed the entire planet" (p. 3). The Black Death, poor sanitation systems, and disease promoted a scientific approach to water. The major  dams, aqueducts, transmountain diversions, canals, and irrigation systems, potable water distribution systems, levees, storm water systems are products of this age. Simultaneously, we dumped the byproducts of the age, waste, pollution "pollutants like mercury, lead, pesticides, and complex agricultural and industrial chemicals" (p. 4).  Fires on rivers caused by industrial waste--the Cuyahoga in Ohio in 1969, the River Rouge in Michigan, the Meiyu River in Wenjzhou in China in 2014, and in 2015 the Ballandur Lake in Bangalore, India. In addition to having to remove chemicals and waste, liquid and solid, from water, we faced during the second period water depletion of rivers and aquifers, wetlands, streams, and forests. With a fixed water resource on the planet, contention grows between regions, nations, and geographies. To illustrate this, the author noted, "violence over water in lands along the Tigris and Euphrates has never really stopped as the rivers and political powers there have waxed and waned" (p. 75). 

The third age, according to Gleick, consists of our future actions. "where we address the growing failures surrounding us and make the technological and social transition to sustainability" (p. 6). Faced with droughts, flooding, drastically changing climate, and scientists increased understanding of weather patterns and improved forecasts, what choices and what decisions confront us? Scientists have warned that greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere will become trapped with resulting consequences to the climate. The author contended that, contrary to common perception, humans are not running out of water, "In the early decades of the twenty-first century, total human withdrawals of water were around 4,000 cubic kilometers per year, out of a global freshwater stock estimated to be as much as 35 million cubic kilometers. The worries about water must be about something else. And, of course, they are: water problems are problems of time, space, money, and institutions" (p. 214-215). To distinguish the types of water available to humans, the author divided the natural resource into three categories: peak renewable water, peak nonrenewable water, and peak ecological water. Peak renewable water consists of water engaged in the hydrologic cycle and its recharge and replenishment of itself. In contrast, peak nonrenewable water refers to ground water, a resource subject to depletion. The last, peak ecological water, "is the idea that every measure of water taken from a natural ecosystem has either a societal or economic benefit, depending on what it is used for, and a cost to the ecology of the river or watershed" (p. 217). 

 

For the third age of water, the author promotes five principles. The first reiterates the United Nations goal of water for all as a right, satisfying fundamental basic human needs for health and sanitation. The second, acknowledging the real value of water to humans and the environment. Third, protect the ecosystems that determine the quality and quantity of water resources. Next, improve the efficient use of water, making it more productive. Fifth, utilize more effectively, all water varieties, wastewater, gray water, and storm water.   

Elemental : How Five Elements Changed Earth's Past and Will Shape Our Future Stephen Porder Princeton University Press 2023

 Earth has experienced evolutionary changes, as described by Darwin, and revolutionary changes. This book claims to examine the latter, ""world-changing events--events precipitated by life itself" (p. 1).  Fortunately, these biological changes occur infrequently, once in a billion year time span. What connects each of the changes are the five basic elements, common to all cells: "hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), the author's fundamental elements of life. The elements also generate warmth, except phosphorus, in our atmosphere. The book migrated from the first phase, the time of the "single-celled cyanobacteria" (p.3), to the land plants created two billion years later, and finally, the so-called "Anthropocene", the current era of human domination of the environment. As you can guess, this exploration lead to the question and title of Chapter 4: "How We Know What We Know about Climate Change" (p. 79). 

To answer the preceding question, the author started with a common assertion. The author claimed, "Humans are causing climate change by burning fossil fuels" (p. 80). Obviously, this statement articulated a cause and effect relationship, and what the author called "attribution" and not merely denotes a trend. What derived from the assertion and attribution, "human emissions of green house gases are causing the climate change we see today" (p. 80). As a scientist, the author must build his case.   He defined his terms. Climate, "the long-term (decadal) average of weather in a place" (p. 80), provided the reader with a standard measurement for climate, with the variables of temperature and rainfall. He cited the decades of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s and their temperature increases, with rainfall data, as proof of a trend.  The author continued his investigation by citing the scientific discoveries and documentation to substantiate his claim.   

This statement the author puts forth as a given:"we know greenhouse gases play a big role in driving climate and we know human combustion of fossil fuels has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the play a big role in driving climate and we know human combustion of fossil fuels has increased the concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere by almost 40 percent" (p. 81). To prove this requires a simulation of the earth via a computer, the hypothetical "Planet B" (p.84). Scientists have engaged in experiments about climate measurements since the 1890s, beginning with chemist Svante Arrhenius, a Swede, concerned about a reoccurring ice age. Arrhenius' paper, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" noted that "burning fossil fuels will increase the amount of CO2 in the air" (p. 85) and that and increase of CO2 results in an increase in temperature.  

Water : Asia's New Battleground Brahma Chellany Georgetown University Press Washington DC 2011

 For those unfamiliar with the Asian water reality, the author began by communicating the basic facts: Asia houses three-fifths of the human population, it "has less freshwater per capita than any other continent" (p. 1), the continent as a whole manages its water less efficiently and productively and has a declining per capita water availability rate. Additionally, it has rivers that flow into the most countries, making agreements more complex. What complicates reaching peaceful agreements on water issues stem from the lack of "an Asian security architecture" (p. 2) and existing riparian disputes. By analyzing the water issues of the region, the author focused on water's security implications. Aquifers and rivers that cross borders get special attention, such as the al-Disi, and the Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Salween, Indus, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates, Irtysh-Illy, and the Amur. Tibet plays a key role "as Asia's water repository, water supplier, and rainmaker, thereby underscoring the centrality of the Tibetan  Plateau on the Asian water map" (p. 2).                                                                                                                                                                                Areas of recent security conflict in Asia have water as one of the primary causes. Kashmir, the Golan Heights and the West Bank, Arunachal Pradesh, Kyrgyzstan's Fergana Valley and Turkey's Kurdish southeast region all have water implications.  

Chapter 1 provided a general overview of the Asian water reality. Chapter 2 covered "the securitization of water at a time when Asia is beginning to confront serious constraints on natural resources" (p. 5). Chapter 3 delved into the importance of the Tibetan Plateau on Asian water supply. Chapter 4 explained in depth the "international political and environmental implications of the Chinese plans to divert the Brahmaputra River's waters, including by building the world's biggest dam next to a disputed, heavily militarized border with India" (p. 5). Chapters 5 and 6 uncovered the political actions and maneuvers that countries engage in to influence or manage water disputes. The discussion presented case studies of China, India, and Israel to support its conclusions. The final chapter, Chapter 7 Asia's Challenge Forestalling Bloodletting over Water, itemized the author's suggestions for circumventing military conflict over water. He listed in the appendixes the agreements between states after colonization and his potential solutions. 

Coaxing Water Out of the Middle East's Clouds New York Times August 29, 2022 Alissa J. Rubin

Living in the drought-stricken West, residents have heard planes flying overhead to cloud seed--either to prevent rain or to produce it. The articles author, Alissa J. Rubin, defined cloud seeding as "injecting chemicals into clouds to try to force precipitation" (p. A1). According to my understanding, cloud seeding can also prevent precipitation.  Within the Denver area, the cloud seeding planes constitute a familiar sound. This article in the New York Times, August 29, 2022, explained the extension of the technology of cloud seeding throughout the Middle East, faced with even less rainfall due to climate change. The article also disclosed the changing nature of "water wars" between nations. According to the article, Brig. General Gholam Reza Jalali stated in 2018, "Both Israel and another country are working to make Iranian clouds not rain" (p. A1). The country, United Arab Emirates,  with the most developed cloud seeding operation, according to the article, has pilots on standby to cloud seed when opportune conditions prevail. The country relies on two cloud seeding methods, "the traditional material made of silver iodide and a newly patented substance developed at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi that uses nanotechnology that researchers there say is better adapted to the hot, dry conditions in the Persian Gulf" (p. A14). 

Others remain skeptical about the science. Rubin revealed that "Israel, a pioneer in cloud seeding halted its program in 2021 after 50 years because it seemed to yield at best only marginal gains in precipitation" (A14). Other issues include the amount of water produced, evaporation of the water prior to reaching earth, and the movement of the water to areas not intended or desired. 

The United Arab Emirates appear undeterred.  "Despite the difficulties of gathering data on the efficacy of cloud seeding, Mr. Al Mandous said the emirates' methods were yielding at least a 5 percent increase in rain annually--and almost certainly far more" (p. A14). Other smaller countries that have cloud seeding programs include Morocco, Ethiopia, and Iran. Of the major powers, "China has the most ambitious program worldwide, with the aim of either stimulating rain or halting hail across half the country" (p. A14).