FacingFuture TPN 1-14-08
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Transcript of FacingFuture TPN 1-14-08
Facing the Future
Our Moment in History
Jim FournierJanuary 14, 2008
Tipping Points
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 2
Three Big Ideas – in 30 min• A new Meta-Narrative about our Time.
• Climate Change as a far more serious but more rapidly solvable challenge.
• Catalyzing greater collective global intelligence through the Internet.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 3
A new meta-narrative, an attempt to radically reframe the story that we tell ourselves about reality.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 4
A Synthesis of Two Apparently Contradictory World Views
• We are on a Collision Course with Global Catastrophe (Limits to Growth)
• The Market & Technology will solve everything (The Market is God)
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 5
In Most Arguments Both Sides Are Right in What They Affirm and Wrong in What They Deny
John Stuart Mill
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 6
The Global Trajectory?
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 7
Planetary Crises;Evolutionary Drivers:
1. Population 2. Peak Oil3. Global Warming 4. Resource Exhaustion 5. Economic Turmoil
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 8
Long-Term Population Growth
Global Population: Milestones, Hopes, and Concerns Vaclav Smil, PhD http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V5N2Smil.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 9
Peak Population?
http://hydro.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/GW/data/global/ciesin-sres/
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 10
Population S-Curve
http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/summer95/fig1.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 11
Population J-Curve?
http://www.beyondpeak.com/scenarios/stanton3.gif
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 12
Peak Oil
http://www.peakoil.org
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 13
The Green Party View
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 14
Global Energy Use Per Person Has Actually Stopped Growing
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/biomass/ background%20info.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 15
But the Population has Not, and thus CO2 is Still Growing
http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/publications/ap2000/Action_Plan_2000.htm
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 16
1000 years of Atmospheric CO2 level and Temperature
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/millenniumCO2.htm
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 17
CO2, Methane and Temperature over the last 160,000 years
http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/gases/images/meth_temp.gif
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 18
Actual Arctic Sea Ice
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 19
Overall Consumption Is Still Growing
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/kerr_02.htm
Natural Resources
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 20
Ecological Footprints Combine Many Factors, But We Should Focus More on Key Biological Resources:
• Forests• Fisheries• Farmland• Fresh Water
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 21
All Represent Absolute Limits to Population
http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/publications/images/G2R.html_img_10.jpg
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 22
All Put Biodiversity At Risk
http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 23
Global Economic Instability• Debt-based Monetary System• “Faith-based” Fiat Money• 98% of Wealth Held by
Less Than 2% of Population• 95% of Global Economic
Activity Is Speculative• Whole Regions of the World
in Chronic Debt Crisis
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 24
What Are We to Make of the Current Global Situation?
http://www.maa.org/devlin/GordianKnot.jpg
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 25
One Biological Metaphor Is Cancer
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 26
If we do not curtail our destruction of the biosphere, and halt our population growth very soon, not only will we face a die-off of most of the human population, we will foreclose the possibility of a viable world for all future generations.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 27
Will Humanity Turn Out to Be Like a Colony of Mold in a Petri Dish?
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 28
Or Like An Embryo
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 29
Using The White of the Egg to Grow
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 30
A New Form of Complexity?
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 31
Virtually all cultures have some tradition wherein it is understood that for an individual to arrive at a state of greater integration and spiritual realization, that person must first undergo a process of psycho-spiritual death and rebirth.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 32
At the same time, numerouscultures all have prophesies that seem to foretell either, The End of the World, or The Birth of a New World, or both.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 33
Australian Aboriginal
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 34
African Dogon
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 35
Native American
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 36
The Mayan Calendar
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 37
The Kali Yuga
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 38
The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 39
The Christian Apocalypse, Rapture & Second Coming
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 40
Even Karl Marx with his dictum, from each according to his ability
to each according to his need, seems more like a prophetic mystic visionary than an economic theorist.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 41
Teilhard de Chardin’s
Noosphere?© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 42
It would seem plausible that whatever event is being foretold would at once validate all of the prophesies in retrospect, and yet therefore also necessarily turn out to be different than any of their culturally bound interpretations.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 43
What could happen that would at once be sufficient to fulfill our collective psychic experience of the End of the World, while at the same time allowing a New World to be born?
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 44
One event that could fulfill both conditions would be an economic collapse and subsequent transformation of the global monetary system.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 45
But everything we can see suggests that economics will be but one among a multi-dimensional set of discontinuities.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 46
The Shift Point in Time
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 47
For the meta-narrative to be compelling it must at once include the mythic dimension, but it must also embrace and transcend the material and scientific dimensions – for a culture trapped in materialism nothing less will be sufficient.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 48
Reframing the Evolution of Technology In the Context of Biological Evolution
Roger Dean
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 49
Life First Derived Energy from Chemicals in the Primordial Soup
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 50
Until it had Eaten All of the Soup and had to Invent Photosynthesis
http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~tkoop/spring00/blnphotosyn.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 51
Only After the Oxygen Released had Rusted All of the Iron in the Earth’s Crust
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 52
The Oxygen Level Finally Spiked
Causing Spontaneous Combustion,and the First Climate Crisis
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 53
Respiration Took Advantage of All the New High-Energy Oxygen
http://bioweb.wku.edu/courses/BIOL115/Wyatt/Metabolism/Glycolysis2.htm
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 54
Resulting in the Carbon Cycle
http://www.energex.com.au/switched_on/energy_environment/energy_s_html_carboncycle.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 55
The Carbon Cycle Has Remained in Balance Ever Since – Up Until Now
http://www.bom.gov.au/info/climate/change/gallery/images/9.jpg
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 56
Thus, Peak Oil can actually be seen as at least the second energy crisis, and Global Warming as the second atmospheric crisis, in the history of life on Earth.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 57
Renewables are on track to replace fossil fuel within 50 years or less, even at current growth rates.
Solar Wind Biomass
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 58
But the atmospheric CO2 level is already so high that it is driving an accelerating loss of Arctic Sea ice. This could set off an irrecoverable feedback loop long before then, even if we could reduce all CO2 emissions to zero today.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 59
Actual Arctic Sea Ice
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 60
Both geologic storage of CO2, and seeding the ocean with iron to promote algae bloom to remove CO2, are proving unsuccessful in recent scientific tests.
However, there are two little known methods of addressing Climate Change that could allow us to first temporarily reverse the warming, and then gradually remove net CO2 from the atmosphere over decades.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 61
Global Cooling is a geo-engineering scheme wherein a fine mist of sea water would be sprayed up into low-lying ocean clouds to increase their reflectivity. Initial modeling indicates that this could counteract as much as twice the warming so far, and do so by means of small robotic wind powered ships at a total global cost of less than $100M/year.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 62
Biochar is perhaps the only beneficial method of removing net carbon from the atmosphere. By making a portion of waste biomass into agricultural charcoal the process removes net carbon from the atmosphere while increasing soil fertility. If fully deployed globally, biochar might remove all of the net carbon released from burning fossil fuels, within about 50 years.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 63
http://www.biomassec.com
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 64
This allows us to imagine a scenario where Climate Change could prove to be an acute emergency, one that comes to a head within a few years, but one which must be dealt with by implementing both short-term mitigation and long-term solutions that will continue to be deployed over a period of many decades.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 65
What if the crises we see on the horizon are not the beginning of a protracted dark age?
What if the current model of infinitely accelerating growth is also incorrect?
Many events that will be frightening to us may be exactly what must happen to make the leap to a truly sustainable long-term future, but what would that look like?
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 66
Buckminster Fuller First Described Humanity’s Option for Success
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 67
If Global Trends Decelerate,What Looked Like Log Curves and J-Curves May Turn Out to be Bell Curves and S-Curves
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 68
An S-Curve Implies a Future Plateau Characterized by Climax Technology
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 69
The Shift Point in Time
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 70
At the Point of Inflection on the S-Curve the System is:• Changing So Fast That Nothing is Retained
• So Inefficient Nothing Should Be Retained
• First Glimpsing the Potential Future State
• Passing Through the Neck of the Hourglass
• Itself the Global Birth Canal
• Chaotic, Highly Unstable
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 71
As We Pass Through the Neck of the Hourglass There Will BeTwo Key Measures of Success:
• Preservation of Biodiversity
• Achieving Climax Technology
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 72
The Family Tree of Life is the True Measure of Wealth
Tree of Life Web Project http://tolweb.org/tree
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 73
For all of human evolution Nature was something with teeth and claws that could jump out of the dark and eat you. Now, in a single generation that situation has been inverted.Nature is suddenly something fragile that we must protect lest we perish.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 74
We are undergoing a point of inversion in matter and culture. From this point on our technological evolution in matter may be guided by the recognition of the potential for a climax technology, a state of Meta-Nature. A state as harmonious as nature in the coherence of its design, which, like nature, is the realization of a potential already inherent in the puzzle that is matter.
Meta-Nature
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 75
GEOMAN
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 76
Silicon is Like the Next Octave of Carbon
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 77
Photovoltaics Capture Photons in Silicon Just as Photosynthesis Does with Carbon
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 78
From Wood to Hydrogen
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/energytransition.html
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 79
Carbon to Hydrogen Ratio Has Been Evolving in Fossil Fuels• Wood• Peat• Coal• Oil• Natural Gas• Hydrogen
Each has less carbon and more hydrogen until one arrives at pure hydrogen
Hydrogen is the smallest lightest element
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 80
Bucky Balls: Buckminsterfullerene and C60 Based Carbon Nanotubes
Carbon structures based on a geodesic sphere with 60 nodes will provide the ultra strong & ultra light-weight materials that will allow us to achieve the order of magnitude increase in natural resource and energy efficiency that we will need.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 81
Summary of Meta-Nature
• An Octave of Nature
• A Climax Technology
• As Energy Efficient as Nature
• As Material Efficient as Nature
• Not Merely An Imitation of Nature
• A Platonic Potential Inherent in Creation
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 82
The Shift Point in Time
© James L. Fournier
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 83
The Shift must reframe the perception of society, to at once validate everything that has happened to bring us to this point, while at the same time making it self-evident to everyone that we must each now radically change course in the light of this new found perspective.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 84
What can we do that would hasten the most positive outcome?
Where would we find the growing tip of the Noosphere?
The obvious answer is – online.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 85
Facebook & MySpace
http://www.facebook.com http://www.myspace.com
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 86
LinkedIn Tribe
http://www.linkedin.com http://www.tribe.com
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 87
Google Maps & Google Earth
http://maps.google.com http://earth.google.com
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 88
The confluence of online social networks and geospatial mapping offers a unique moment of opportunity for the emergence of a purposeful global social network; the wikipedia philosophy embodied in a truly distributed, decentralized, index, map and matrix based on self-descriptions of all entities engaged in global civil society.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 89
care2.com avazz.org
http://www.care2.com http://www.avazz.org
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 90
WiserEarth.org
www.wiserearth.org
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 91
Each is at best an island, or at worst a walled castle. Each keeps your identity data (and relationship data) inside its own proprietary database.
Like the Internet itself, a truly inter-operable digital identity system must be based on open standards.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 92
searched, crawled, indexed and situated,
both conceptually, and geographically in relation to others within a global matrix of solutions.
Each individual entity needs to be able to:
• Identify itself • Control its own profile• Declare its intention and purpose• Describe its offerings and needs• Tag itself in a manner that allows it to be
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 93
To empower those holding various pieces of the solution to see how they can be most effective, we might create conditions to catalyze a self-organizing online map.
There are, and have been, many efforts to do this that we might partner with, but to be effective one must walk a fine line of supporting, without claiming, the center.
January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 94
© James L. Fournier