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Jim Fournier January 14, 2008 The Global Trajectory?

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Page 1: Global Trajectory

Jim FournierJanuary 14, 2008

The Global Trajectory?

Page 2: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 2

Too Many Big Ideas – in 38 minThis slide was cut in the audio edit.

Click after you read this, and again after slide 2.

Then listen for the mouse clicks on the audio.

The mouse is faint on slide 4, so just change when you feel ready, but you have more time than you think, so remember to breathe.

From slide 7 the number is named in the audio.

Page 3: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 3

A new meta-narrative, an attempt to radically reframe the story that we tell ourselves about reality.

Page 4: Global Trajectory

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)

Page 5: Global Trajectory

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

Page 6: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 6

The Global Trajectory?

Page 7: 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

Page 8: Global Trajectory

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

Page 9: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 9

Peak Population?

http://hydro.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/GW/data/global/ciesin-sres/

Page 10: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 10

Population S-Curve

http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/summer95/fig1.html

Page 11: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 11

Population J-Curve?

http://www.beyondpeak.com/scenarios/stanton3.gif

Page 12: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 12

Peak Oil

http://www.peakoil.org

Page 13: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 13

The Green Party View

Page 14: Global Trajectory

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

Page 15: Global Trajectory

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

Page 16: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 16

1000 years of Atmospheric CO2 level and Temperature

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/millenniumCO2.htm

Page 17: Global Trajectory

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

Page 18: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 18

Actual Arctic Sea Ice

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml

Page 19: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 19

Overall Consumption Is Still Growing

http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/kerr_02.htm

Natural Resources

Page 20: Global Trajectory

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

Page 21: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 21

All Represent Absolute Limits to Population

http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/publications/images/G2R.html_img_10.jpg

Page 22: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 22

All Put Biodiversity At Risk

http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots

Page 23: Global Trajectory

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

Page 24: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 24

What Are We to Make of the Current Global Situation?

http://www.maa.org/devlin/GordianKnot.jpg

Page 25: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 25

One Biological Metaphor Is Cancer

Page 26: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 27: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 27

Will Humanity Turn Out to Be Like a Colony of Mold in a Petri Dish?

Page 28: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 28

Or Like An Embryo

Page 29: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 29

Using The White of the Egg to Grow

Page 30: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 30

A New Form of Complexity?

© James L. Fournier

Page 31: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 32: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 33: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 33

Australian Aboriginal

Page 34: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 34

African Dogon

Page 35: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 35

Native American

Page 36: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 36

The Mayan Calendar

Page 37: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 37

The Kali Yuga

Page 38: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 38

The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

Page 39: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 39

The Christian Apocalypse, Rapture & Second Coming

Page 40: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 41: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 41

Teilhard de Chardin’s

Noosphere?© James L. Fournier

Page 42: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 43: Global Trajectory

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?

Page 44: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 45: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 46: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 46

The Shift Point in Time

© James L. Fournier

Page 47: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 48: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 48

Reframing the Evolution of Technology In the Context of Biological Evolution

Roger Dean

Page 49: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 49

Life First Derived Energy from Chemicals in the Primordial Soup

Page 50: Global Trajectory

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

Page 51: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 51

Only After the Oxygen Released had Rusted All of the Iron in the Earth’s Crust

Page 52: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 52

The Oxygen Level Finally Spiked

Causing Spontaneous Combustion,and the First Climate Crisis

Page 53: Global Trajectory

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

Page 54: Global Trajectory

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

Page 55: Global Trajectory

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

Page 56: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 57: Global Trajectory

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

Page 58: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 59: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 59

Actual Arctic Sea Ice

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml

Page 60: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 61: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 62: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 63: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 63

http://www.biomassec.com

Page 64: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 65: Global Trajectory

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?

Page 66: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 66

Buckminster Fuller First Described Humanity’s Option for Success

Page 67: Global Trajectory

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

Page 68: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 68

An S-Curve Implies a Future Plateau Characterized by Climax Technology

© James L. Fournier

Page 69: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 69

The Shift Point in Time

© James L. Fournier

Page 70: Global Trajectory

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

Page 71: Global Trajectory

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

Page 72: Global Trajectory

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

Page 73: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 74: Global Trajectory

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

Page 75: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 75

GEOMAN

© James L. Fournier

Page 76: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 76

Silicon is Like the Next Octave of Carbon

© James L. Fournier

Page 77: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 77

Photovoltaics Capture Photons in Silicon Just as Photosynthesis Does with Carbon

Page 78: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 78

From Wood to Hydrogen

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/energytransition.html

Page 79: Global Trajectory

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

Page 80: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 81: Global Trajectory

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

Page 82: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 82

The Shift Point in Time

© James L. Fournier

Page 83: Global Trajectory

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.

Page 84: Global Trajectory

January 14, 2008 Tipping Points 84

© James L. Fournier