visual communication and ecological literacy | ecolabs | j.boehnert
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Slideshow presented at ECREA, the European Communications Conference, Hamburg October 2010TRANSCRIPT
Ecological Literacy
www.eco-labs.org
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social- psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982
Why? ContextPresently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
What? Systems, Networks, Values Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with complexity and think in terms of systems to address current ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful tools to help with this learning process.
How? Transformational LearningThe value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice based design work.
ReferencesFritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the ecological sustainable systems of nature.
Fritjof Capra, 2003
Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT SustainabilityContent and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodatedinto existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR SustainabilityAdditional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE EducationCapacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
[email protected] | [email protected] poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
GOODDESIGN
The Visual Communication of Ecological LiteracyJody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
1. Climate Change
"The Game Plan" slideset release 1.0, March 13 2008 43
A1BA1TA1FIA2B1B2IS92a
Scenarios
21002000190018001700
-0.5
0.0
-1.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
A1B - Rapid growth, balanced energy sources.
A1T - Rapid growth, new, non-carbon, technology.
A1FI - Rapid growth, fossil fuel intensive.
A2 - High energy consumption, rapid population growth.
B1 - Environmentally and socially conscious global approach.
B2 - Environmental preservation and local solutions.
IS92a - "Business as usual" IPCC.
Recent temperature changes
Bars show the range in year 2100 produced by several scenarios.
Models vs. ScenariosTemperature Choice
GLOBAL STEP 2
Tem
pera
ture
Ris
e, d
egre
es C
elsi
us
Year
Climate Safety. PIRC
2. Resource Depletion
Springer-Verlag. The New Scientist.
Earth’s Natural Wealth: an Audit. The New Scientist
The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006
3.Peak Oil
The Oil CrunchSecuring the UK’s energy futureFirst report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)
The Oil Crunch. The UK Industry Taskforce
on Peak Oil and Energy Security.
Living Planet Report 2006. WWF
4.Biodiversity
4.Water
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social- psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982
Why? ContextPresently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
What? Systems, Networks, Values Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with complexity and think in terms of systems to address current ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful tools to help with this learning process.
How? Transformational LearningThe value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice based design work.
ReferencesFritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the ecological sustainable systems of nature.
Fritjof Capra, 2003
Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT SustainabilityContent and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodatedinto existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR SustainabilityAdditional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE EducationCapacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
[email protected] | [email protected] poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
GOODDESIGN
The Visual Communication of Ecological LiteracyJody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Problems as symptoms of systemic failure, rather than random errors requiring fixes.
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
GOODDESIGN
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Ecological Literacy
shift from mechanistic metaphor and paradigm
towards an ecological metaphor and paradigm
Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009
How? Transformational LearningThe value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice based design work.
Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT SustainabilityContent and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodatedinto existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR SustainabilityAdditional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE EducationCapacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
Put simply, the case against the dominant Western
worldview is that it is no longer constitutes an adequate
model of reality - particularly ecological reality. The map
is wrong, and moreover, we commonly confuse the map
(worldview) for the territory (reality).
Sterling, 1993
An emerging ecological whole systems paradgim
70s - Meadows, Bateson
80s - Capra, Harman, Clark
90s - Orr, Laszlo, Hawkins, Kortean, Berman+
00s - Sterling, 100s+
An emerging ecological (relational/systemic) paradigm
presents a sane and hopeful evolutionary pathway,
necessary to the conditions we now face, with the power
to transcend the disintegrative effects of modernism
and the disempowering relativism of deconstructive
postmodernism.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
Seeing differently
We can’t solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
www.eco-labs.orghttp://teach-in.ning.com
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC