When we look at the world from the south, from a directon YOU have been trained to think is now "upside down", we see that one continent dominates your view, spread out like a cap on the sphere . It is neither America nor "greater Europe" or Russia, nor any of the overpopulated human-run countries below the equator. It is the fifth largest of the seven continents in terms of landmass. It is a land that never had empires or any civilization as far as we know, but is filled with upright bipedal beings, walking around in vast colonies, defending their children from storms and predators and, these days, from ozone depletion and the worst ravages of climate change. The creatures who never built an empire are the Emperor Penguins, and the continent it is Antarctica.
"The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice."
Antarctica is a great place to start a course about the effects of climate change on a spherical planet that really has no particular directions - no real north or south or east or west -- these are, of course, human constructs. But it does lie at one of the magnetic and axial rotation poles and that carries with it its own profound implications, implications that make it a particular source of concern for climate change, or what we prefer to call "climate disruption".
You see, for millions of years now the "South Pole" has been a climate regulator.
DELIVERABLES:
"Augment our reality, augment our environment".
To excel in this course we need to observe and apply two fundamental concepts:
First, there is no such place as "THE environment". There are only overlapping places that we can refer to as "My environment", "YOUR environment", "OUR Environment", "THEIR ENVIRONMENT" , "His, Her, Its" Environment. We exist in "Environments". Plural. "Environment" comes to us from Latin via the French "Environ" which means "that which surrounds". The earth and its land and water and biological and atmospheric masses and volumes and the climate their interactions cause surround us. One could call the sum total of all those micro-environments "THE" environment, but the definite article THE is misapplied because there is nothing DEFINITE about these dynamic systems, which exist in a state of constant flux to which you are both observer and participant.
To participate in this course your assignment, your "mission" (should you choose to accept it) is to augment and add value to the representations of those environments that affect our global climate and help "bring to life" the 100 best "DRAWDOWN" solutions from your readings and class lectures. In previous classes those representations and your augmentation of them have been overwhelmingly text based with some use of graphs and plots and picture images.
Today we have technologies to much more faithfully represent the environmental reality we exist in and to much more impactfully augment it with our ideas and contributions.
The WAY that you augment the environments provided in the course is a matter of interest, judgement and effectiveness. Augmentations are always "added value" and your goal in this class is to add value to the material presented in class so that others can better understand and assimilate and apply the messages, techniques and technologies discussed.
In many cases you may want to add value by adding images, by adding video content, by adding animations, but the "out loudest" way to speak your favorite solutions is to augment reality with annotated animated and 3D content -- this is the way we make the material manifest for others so as to have the biggest impact.
You will doubtless get more creative as you continue through the course, so right out the gate let's tell you how to do it:
You will visit several virtual environments related to the climate change geographies around the world we are discussing and then you will "come home" and visit the virtual PCGS campus simulation and the virtual Rosebud Continuum Sustainability Education Field Center where we really are bringing the the drawdown solutions home.
Around the simulated PCGS building and Rosebud property we have created a gallery of drawdown posterboards and Sustainable Development Goal posterboards and Planetary Boundary posterboards that you would normally see as a "slideshow" or powerpoint presentation in a traditional classroom. In our virtual worlds they are arranged in spatial geography as they would be in a scientific expo poster session or a museum exhibit.
Your job is to BRING THEM TO LIFE by placing in front of them and around them the contextual information that augments their message and explains it and makes it tangible.
You will find "3d assets" and kits of some of the objects (technologies, animals, plants, landscape features, damaged environments, signs explaining the issue) in the "gamified VR environments" and your goal will be to place and arrange them as a museum curator would when creating an interactive exhibit.
In some cases you will note that the proper objects are NOT available. These lacunae are a sad testimony to the priorities of people in a world where we you can easily find digital recreations of every type of sports car and fashion accessory, but not all the vital sustainability technologies we need to heal our relationship with the earth. It will then become your mission to find them, or, failing that, CREATE them so that ultimately we have a complete suite of augmented reality assets to ensure that everything we are studying has a representation in the simulacra we are using to better learn about Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.
The more challenging creative tasks are rewarded, of course, by more points.
Ultimately you may feel empowered to create your OWN simulated environments to personalize and expand the impact of our Climate Disruption Adaptation and Mitigation solutions!
Hopefully, with your help, we can actually affect the outside world, turning the tide against the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and literally save civilization on this planet!
Today's thought after reading about the new interpretation of the famous Marshmallow Test:There is a reason to be pessimistic that inheritors of the Western European Imperialist mindset of " I want more" will ever change for the better.Think back to when the European settlers arrived in the "new" (to them) world, how the indigenous inhabitants were APPALLED by how they would "shit in their drinking water" while any sensible native American would defecate in the woods like the Bear and let the myriad lifeforms on the forest floor quickly assimilate all the nutrients into more food producing goodness. Did the "white man" learn from the locals so that they could really have "more" abundance in the long term? No, he just built bigger, more elaborate and energy intensive systems to concentrate the shit using more fresh water and moving it to other people's environments, the habitats of people the conquerors didn't care about. Why? Because while it gave him smaller yields in the long run (metabolic rift) these ecologically barbaric practices actually gave him MORE PRESTIGE among his peers and authorities in the short run. Think back to when the Chinese encountered the European mercantile mercenaries, how appalled they were at how bad the white people SMELLED, strangely proclaiming they were ordained by God while stinking to the high heavens, the stench barely masked by the overuse of scented soaps and perfumes and other unctions because the Europeans couldn't fathom the idea that regular bathing in pure water while maintaining a healthy microbiome of living organisms on the skin and in the creases of our bodies transforms the odorous into the nice. Why did they do that? Prestige among their high ranking members for whom expensive perfumes indicated wealth. Bathing was too simple.And for the Europeans it was always about war and killing -- kill the enemy for your greater glory. whether it is another ethnic group or the microbes in and on our bodies, or the animals and plants with whom we share ecology, our solution was always "kill first, ask questions later". Think to how bizarre it seemed to most indigenous people that the "white man" would always try to sell them on "comfort" and "efficiency" and "a life of leisure" while enslaving them and forcing them to work harder than ever before, but now for others rather than themselves. The carrot they would dangle was always that "if you adopt our wonderful system of civilization you will be able to spend your time in an air conditioned room, sheltered from the rain and the sun and any physical discomforts, with food and water available at the chime of a bell or the press or a button, and finally relax, retire, sit in a hammock all day drinking alcohol infused flavored waters". To most of our ancestors that was a weird concept, since you weren't going to impress the village chieftans that way, or any revered elders, or your mother in law, or your father, much less your ancestors. Your children wouldn't look at you with pride if you became slothful and indulgent so there was no prestige in the tribe there. And those who passed the ancient Marshmallow Tests, refraining from eating the berries we found as we gathered or the antelope we killed right after the hunt, patiently and hungrily waiting until we got home to the hut or cave that night to SHARE with others, KNEW that the joys in life could be better appreciate by spending all day meaningfully, patiently hunting and fishing and gathering and playing with our children and observing and learning so that at the end of a meaningful day we could catch a cool breeze at just the right moment, catch the rays of the setting sun infusing the world with dramatic color, retire to the comfort of our spouses and families with the satisfaction of a day well lived. To most indigenous peoples the European enticement of constant cornucopia representing a self indulgent and shallow life of perpetual orgasm with no foreplay, no anticipation, no transient or prolonged but voluntarily HEROIC discomfort on the way to satisfaction or epiphany. The Europeans created misery while promising that every moment could be eternal bliss, while most of our ancestors had long ago worked out a rhythm that allowed us to appreciate the flower that finally blossomed right on time, the tree that fruited in season, the ending of the frost hardened nights, the dawning of a new day after a dark night, the rainbow after a storm, the awakening of spring. I understand better now why so many many many peoples around the world "stayed primitive" (in the eyes of their conquerors and seducers), fleeing from the zealous missionaries, secular and religious, with their message of "civilization is yours if you can get it". I understand why they would prefer to go deeper in the jungles and the deserts and the tundra and ice floes and take their chances with the elements, having long ago acquired enough technology to produce those sublime moments, those orgasmic instances after the long and often frustrating courtship with Nature. They understood ecology enough to know the joyous times would always be there because ecosystems co-evolved with them to provide those rewards. They needed no mad rush to "constant comfort" because the sweet rewards that nature provided with our cooperation, spreading seeds, influencing where and how trees grew and animals moved, were so so delicious and mind blowingly satisfying. The European's seductive offers of instant gratification were seen as childish and foolish indulgences that robbed life of its real pleasures and meaning.I understand that now. Sadly NOW when the co-evolutionary ecosystem alliances have unraveled and climate changes and biodiversity losses and habitat degradation and pollution have broken the complex interconnections of the marvelous system that ran for generations with the reliability of a Swiss watch. I understand it now when the system is so broken that our children may never understand how easy it was to live on social approbation while waiting for the almost guaranteed plant harvest or animal migration or spawning or fruiting and the almost always forthcoming rains and breezes and regular seasons. Now all our children see are fires and hurricanes and floods and diseases and droughts and crop failures and there is nobody praising them for their patience -- prestige comes from "hoard as much as you can because all we have now is uncertainty to look forward too. Get as much as you can while you can, and see if you can arrange for more -- that is what we praise you for."And wasn't it Einstein who said, "you can't solve a problem with the same mentality that created it?"We inheritors of the locustian colonialist mindset will probably never get sustainability right, because we keep insisting it comes from better technologies to get more creature comforts, that it comes from greater mastery of the world... greater forms of food storage, and energy storage and other mantras of ACCUMULATION if only... and comes from "improving our efficiency." If only we could earn more profit to invest more into the production of more, using less, so we can use more of less to still get more, and get it now and have it for later, have our cake and eat it too and then still have it.This is why I doubt we are qualified to teach sustainability much less to live it. We inherited a mindset that equated the pursuit of happiness with mere pleasure instead of profound epiphany. No wonder we are still in free fall, flapping our wings uselessly and thinking we won't hit rock bottom.To get to heaven we have to make our peace with the jazz of life and ride its crescendos like surfers do that last triumphant wave at sunset, not counting the sheer number of waves we caught as success or lamenting the hot days when the sea was quiet, but telling our children of those wonderful moments that made all the struggles and the waiting worth it and gave life its zest.If the new interpretations of the failed "Marshmallow Test" are correct (and I think they are) the real reward from "delayed gratification" isn't that you get MORE marshmallows by being patient, it is that you get SOCIAL REWARDS and prestige (love and admiration) for showing your mettle. And the lesson is: we must create a society that rewards us with honor and love and admiration for showing our honor and love and patience and care and stewardship. Only then can we avoid the sugar laden marshmallows altogether, and begin to enjoy both the FAST AND THE FEAST.
Today's thought after reading about the new interpretation of the famous Marshmallow Test:
There is a reason to be pessimistic that inheritors of the Western European Imperialist mindset of " I want more" will ever change for the better.
Think back to when the European settlers arrived in the "new" (to them) world, how the indigenous inhabitants were APPALLED by how they would "shit in their drinking water" while any sensible native American would defecate in the woods like the Bear and let the myriad lifeforms on the forest floor quickly assimilate all the nutrients into more food producing goodness. Did the "white man" learn from the locals so that they could really have "more" abundance in the long term? No, he just built bigger, more elaborate and energy intensive systems to concentrate the shit using more fresh water and moving it to other people's environments, the habitats of people the conquerors didn't care about. Why? Because while it gave him smaller yields in the long run (metabolic rift) these ecologically barbaric practices actually gave him MORE PRESTIGE among his peers and authorities in the short run.
Think back to when the Chinese encountered the European mercantile mercenaries, how appalled they were at how bad the white people SMELLED, strangely proclaiming they were ordained by God while stinking to the high heavens, the stench barely masked by the overuse of scented soaps and perfumes and other unctions because the Europeans couldn't fathom the idea that regular bathing in pure water while maintaining a healthy microbiome of living organisms on the skin and in the creases of our bodies transforms the odorous into the nice. Why did they do that? Prestige among their high ranking members for whom expensive perfumes indicated wealth. Bathing was too simple.
And for the Europeans it was always about war and killing -- kill the enemy for your greater glory. whether it is another ethnic group or the microbes in and on our bodies, or the animals and plants with whom we share ecology, our solution was always "kill first, ask questions later".
Think to how bizarre it seemed to most indigenous people that the "white man" would always try to sell them on "comfort" and "efficiency" and "a life of leisure" while enslaving them and forcing them to work harder than ever before, but now for others rather than themselves. The carrot they would dangle was always that "if you adopt our wonderful system of civilization you will be able to spend your time in an air conditioned room, sheltered from the rain and the sun and any physical discomforts, with food and water available at the chime of a bell or the press or a button, and finally relax, retire, sit in a hammock all day drinking alcohol infused flavored waters". To most of our ancestors that was a weird concept, since you weren't going to impress the village chieftans that way, or any revered elders, or your mother in law, or your father, much less your ancestors. Your children wouldn't look at you with pride if you became slothful and indulgent so there was no prestige in the tribe there. And those who passed the ancient Marshmallow Tests, refraining from eating the berries we found as we gathered or the antelope we killed right after the hunt, patiently and hungrily waiting until we got home to the hut or cave that night to SHARE with others, KNEW that the joys in life could be better appreciate by spending all day meaningfully, patiently hunting and fishing and gathering and playing with our children and observing and learning so that at the end of a meaningful day we could catch a cool breeze at just the right moment, catch the rays of the setting sun infusing the world with dramatic color, retire to the comfort of our spouses and families with the satisfaction of a day well lived.
To most indigenous peoples the European enticement of constant cornucopia representing a self indulgent and shallow life of perpetual orgasm with no foreplay, no anticipation, no transient or prolonged but voluntarily HEROIC discomfort on the way to satisfaction or epiphany. The Europeans created misery while promising that every moment could be eternal bliss, while most of our ancestors had long ago worked out a rhythm that allowed us to appreciate the flower that finally blossomed right on time, the tree that fruited in season, the ending of the frost hardened nights, the dawning of a new day after a dark night, the rainbow after a storm, the awakening of spring.
I understand better now why so many many many peoples around the world "stayed primitive" (in the eyes of their conquerors and seducers), fleeing from the zealous missionaries, secular and religious, with their message of "civilization is yours if you can get it". I understand why they would prefer to go deeper in the jungles and the deserts and the tundra and ice floes and take their chances with the elements, having long ago acquired enough technology to produce those sublime moments, those orgasmic instances after the long and often frustrating courtship with Nature.
They understood ecology enough to know the joyous times would always be there because ecosystems co-evolved with them to provide those rewards. They needed no mad rush to "constant comfort" because the sweet rewards that nature provided with our cooperation, spreading seeds, influencing where and how trees grew and animals moved, were so so delicious and mind blowingly satisfying. The European's seductive offers of instant gratification were seen as childish and foolish indulgences that robbed life of its real pleasures and meaning.
I understand that now. Sadly NOW when the co-evolutionary ecosystem alliances have unraveled and climate changes and biodiversity losses and habitat degradation and pollution have broken the complex interconnections of the marvelous system that ran for generations with the reliability of a Swiss watch. I understand it now when the system is so broken that our children may never understand how easy it was to live on social approbation while waiting for the almost guaranteed plant harvest or animal migration or spawning or fruiting and the almost always forthcoming rains and breezes and regular seasons. Now all our children see are fires and hurricanes and floods and diseases and droughts and crop failures and there is nobody praising them for their patience -- prestige comes from "hoard as much as you can because all we have now is uncertainty to look forward too. Get as much as you can while you can, and see if you can arrange for more -- that is what we praise you for."
And wasn't it Einstein who said, "you can't solve a problem with the same mentality that created it?"
We inheritors of the locustian colonialist mindset will probably never get sustainability right, because we keep insisting it comes from better technologies to get more creature comforts, that it comes from greater mastery of the world... greater forms of food storage, and energy storage and other mantras of ACCUMULATION if only... and comes from "improving our efficiency." If only we could earn more profit to invest more into the production of more, using less, so we can use more of less to still get more, and get it now and have it for later, have our cake and eat it too and then still have it.
This is why I doubt we are qualified to teach sustainability much less to live it. We inherited a mindset that equated the pursuit of happiness with mere pleasure instead of profound epiphany.
No wonder we are still in free fall, flapping our wings uselessly and thinking we won't hit rock bottom.
To get to heaven we have to make our peace with the jazz of life and ride its crescendos like surfers do that last triumphant wave at sunset, not counting the sheer number of waves we caught as success or lamenting the hot days when the sea was quiet, but telling our children of those wonderful moments that made all the struggles and the waiting worth it and gave life its zest.
If the new interpretations of the failed "Marshmallow Test" are correct (and I think they are) the real reward from "delayed gratification" isn't that you get MORE marshmallows by being patient, it is that you get SOCIAL REWARDS and prestige (love and admiration) for showing your mettle. And the lesson is: we must create a society that rewards us with honor and love and admiration for showing our honor and love and patience and care and stewardship. Only then can we avoid the sugar laden marshmallows altogether, and begin to enjoy both the FAST AND THE FEAST.
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