Averting a Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown

From InterSciWiki

1 Reasons for Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown
2 Multiplicative Effects
3 Averting a Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown
4 What kinds of people have started to think through these steps and do them?
5 Institutional Response
6 Conversational response
7 Appropriate technology
8 Collapse
9 A Proposal from The Harrison Studio
10 A Proposal from Douglas R. White
11 Links

[edit] Reasons for Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown

For graphical climate data see http://www.globalwarmingart.com/. The history channel sells a $25 DVD, "Mega Disasters: Mega Freeze" at http://store.aetv.com/html/product/add_to_cart.jhtml?_DARGS=/html/product/index.jhtml

See the editorial reviews for The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth (Paperback) by Tim Flannery, also for Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert.

In addition to some of the well-known aspects of greenhouse effect, global warming, climate change and earth's "colossal" carbon dioxide pollution problem discussed in these books, or listed below, plans for a community wiki site on these topics include practices and the material strata embodied in these problems, hence (1) Ecological and human "polycultural being in a monocultural world" and (2) "Complex interactions in the finite calculus of materiality." These projects are undertaken with ecological designers of The Harrison (Complexity) Studios.

[edit] Level 1: Human Activity

Global clearing of forests (reducing atmospheric oxygen), global pollution of particulates (settling on glaciers and icecaps), global industrial e.g., coal, energy inefficiency in housing, and agricultural release of CO₂ as well as pastoral release of methane...

are but three of many factors producing effects at the next level.

[edit] Level 2: Climate

Global warming (e.g., caused by greater CO₂ and methane concentrations trapping heat in the lower atmosphere) Keeling curve for rise in carbon dioxide
The clearing of forests for "green revolution" agriculture based on fertilizers reduces ability to sequester carbon through absorption of carbon as humus back into the earth.
Melting of glaciers and icecaps (due to particulates absorbing surface heat in cold regions) 2005 study p.946, for example: "A generalized retreat of glaciers has been documented in the central Chilean Andes. This can be a consequence of the impact of recent changes in atmospheric variables such as temperature and precipitation. Analysis of the available weather station data indicates a surface warming of 1.3ºC since the 1960s." Thats a huge change.
Melting of tundra with massive release of methane into the atmosphere. (Current estimates per year: the impact on global warming is equivalent to that of the the total yearly American CO₂ release into the atmosphere).
Acidification of the oceans (caused by processes whereby air pollution – mainly ammonia, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides – is converted into acid substances) depletes the sea life that help to sequester CO₂ at the ocean bottom.
Human influences on the nitrogen cycle can lead to decrease in biodiversity - species dieoff, as can increased nitrogen flux caused by enhanced hydrological cycles caused by global warming. See first 13 slides of talk by Larri Li

These warming effects are multiplicative (e.g., CO₂ as a trigger for water vapor) and produce effects at the next level.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_on_averting_climate_crisis.html

[edit] Level 3: Water and Oceans

Drying up of rivers fed by glaciers (decline in glacial runoffs)
Drying of interior land masses - with less transpiration dryness reduces rain, producing drought
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation Thermohaline circulation' supporting warm North Atlantic currents interrupted by glacial melt, pumping fresh water into North Atlantic, with lesser density, having the effect of sinking the denser Gulf waters more quickly so that the warm currents do not reach the north.
Major continental regions (e.g., midwest grain basket) undergo long term and recurrent drought, massively reducing work food supply
Depopulation of marine life on coral reefs (due to warming)
Warming increases the intensity of El Niño, and tropical storm incubation producing major increases in hurricanes and typhoons*Rising oceans (due to melting and heat expansion of water)
See Jon Gertner's October 20, 2007 The Future Is Drying Up.
These climate effects are multiplicative and produce effects in turn at the next level.
Scientific American Feb 2008, Robin Bell: The Unquiet Ice - Conditions for slippage of the polar icecaps began in 2001, nonlinear increase of melted water under the icecaps. Slippage into the ocean would cause a 200 foot rise in sea level. Digital - full - edition of the article

Conversation on shrinkage and growth

[edit] Level 4: Populations

Mass dehydration and starvation inland due to lack of potable waters and agricultural nutrients
Mass displacement of populations in the littoral areas close to the oceans where 8/10ths of our cities are located, and 80+% of human populations.

These population effects are multiplicative and produce effects at the next level.

[edit] Level 5: Dieoff

Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown: How humans are affected
Mass species dieoff
Science writer (somewhere I learned that each 1°F planetary warming equals 1 million atomic bomb blasts) Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet Mark Lynas: (Hardcover) National Geographic

[edit] Level 0: Human Cognition and Beliefs

Rather than discuss beliefs with "whole-earth costs" -- unsustainable beliefs that operate at a scale of consequences that satisfy the condition of destructive effects for the planet -- that might no longer be rational in the present circumstances, we might consider how the massive downside risks that we face in planetary interdependencies can be considered within a framework of polycultural beliefs.

[edit] Multiplicative Effects

The ecological and sustainability effects are multiplicative. Currently, trends in each of these levels and areas are being extrapolated linearly in the popular press and as reported in scientific journals. To begin to inventory all the nonlinear and multiplicative effects, simply Google: NonLinearity + "Global warming".

The multiplicative effects at each level accelerate the rates of change at each level, successively, and again multiplicatively.

For the August 2007 blog alert as to nonlinear effects see: Nicholas D. Kristoff "The Big Melt".

This will precipitate a runaway massive planetary-systems breakdown far sooner than expected. How can this be avoided?

initial maps of multiple interacting elements and lobbyist attacks

Science Writer Fred Pearce: With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

For both fundamental climate science and a more standard American-business and policy response stressing engineering solutions, see Dan Schrag Ulam Lectures

[edit] Averting a Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown

Define and study planetary holocost: The cost of beliefs that when put into operation at a sufficiently large scale have the effect of planetary degradation and massive destruction of all species of its inhabitants.
Understand and work on a global scale the holocost beliefs that create "Runaway Massive Planetary-Systems Breakdown" and avoid preventative remedies to planetary holocaust.
Massive industrial investment in carbon sinks to reduce CO₂ emissions.
Replacement of forest clearing with forest replenishment worldwide. Tropical forests produce (60%?) of the planetary oxygen.
Suppression of all particulate emission that creates melting.
Cessation of the breakup of arctic ice and industrialization/extraction of the arctic and antarctic.
Conversion to manufacturing processes in which all elements of manufacture are recyclable.
Total substitution of renewable energy for fossil energy
As populations at the littorals of the ocean are resettled upland:

Conversion to energy efficient housing (e.g., Buckminster Fuller energy design)
Conversion to predominant self-sustainability in the local habitat
Conversion to energy efficient manufacturing processes
Conversion to energy efficient transport processes

[edit] What kinds of people have started to think through these steps and do them?

Stability domains group ~~~~ initial page by Doug White 12:15, 11 August 2007 (PDT) & The Harrison Studio 08-11-07, later altered in conversational drift. See: Public Culture and Sustainable Practices: Peninsula Europe from an ecodiversity perspective, posing questions to Complexity Scientists 2007. Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison. Structure and Dynamics: eJournal of Anthropological and Related Sciences 2(3):article 3

ESRI eco conservation e.g., Charles Convis

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, (2005) Synthesis Report and other documents. Island Press Washington, D.C.

some people that are involved in the fight against global warming

San Diego Mayoral Candidate Steve Francis

[edit] Institutional Response

Climate Change GIS Special Program - ESRI and GIS are having an enormous impact

Training programs for clean energy futures - Wellstone Action

United Nations millennium development goals

Twine sematic web is tracking global climate change and polar ice melt

Rockridge Institute: Comparing Climate Proposals

The International Collegium see Conference on Complexity & Politics: In the Face of the Looming Disaster sponsored by the Collegium International and the Complex Systems Society

GapMinder world data and presentations

Focus the Nation - Global Sustainability --- UCOP Sustainability

http://www.ess.uci.edu/~prather/

National Geographic: Recycling

National Geographic: Preserving our Planet

[edit] Conversational response

Conversation on shrinkage and growth

Conversation on reciprocity

Conversation on cohesive force

Economic Issues of the Day

[edit] Appropriate technology

MIT researchers split water to solve energy problem

Distributed renewable energy debate

Global climate change tracked by GIS

100 Ways to Save The Environment

Cities

[edit] Collapse

Energy collapse, massive food shortage

Environmental stress threatens global security, UCI study finds

[edit] A Proposal from The Harrison Studio

Peninsular Europe, by Harrison Studio, and the role of ecological art, iconography, reconceptualizing, reshaping and reorganizing our human and ecological practices on continental, planetary, and grounded local scales.