Transcript Planetary Emergency - Northern Kentucky University

Planetary Emergency:
the Carbon Crisis Across the Curriculum
David Orr argues that "we are still educating the young as if there is no planetary
emergency," effectively (and passionately and eloquently) declaring such an
emergency. A year of reflection afforded by my sabbatical devoted to the study of
climate change has convinced me that Orr is correct.
This short presentation will highlight some provocative aspects of global climate
destabilization across the divisions of the university, and call for transdisciplinary
action against our common enemy: ourselves.
Andy Long
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Motivations....
Why speak out now? Why here?
Motivations....
Why speak out now? Why here?
“Faced with much uncertainty about future climate conditions, we can no longer
rely on past experience to guide our decisions. [Adaptation] calls on concepts
such as transdisciplinarity....”
Catherine Ste-Marie, in Chasing Climate Change -- Exploring the Option of Assisted Migration (2011) -- my emphasis
Motivations....
Why speak out now? Why here?
“Faced with much uncertainty about future climate conditions, we can no longer
rely on past experience to guide our decisions. [Adaptation] calls on concepts
such as transdisciplinarity....”
Catherine Ste-Marie, in Chasing Climate Change -- Exploring the Option of Assisted Migration (2011) -- my emphasis
“Armed with the security of tenure and the time to study the world with care,
professors would appear to have a unique opportunity to act as society’s
scouts to signal impending problems.... Yet rarely have members of the
academy succeeded in discovering emerging issues and bringing them vividly to
the attention of the public.”
Derek Bok (1990), former president of Harvard, quoted in David Orr’s Earth in Mind (1994)
Assumptions....
Assumptions....
Assume that the Earth’s resources are infinite.
Assumptions....
Assume that the Earth’s resources arex
infinite.
Yet we don’t act that way:
We act as though we assume that
our atmosphere is infinite
our oceans are infinite
our forests are infinite
our agricultural lands are infinite
our aquifers are infinite
Yet we don’t act that way:
We act as though we assume that
our atmosphere is infinite
our oceans are infinite
our forests are infinite
our agricultural lands are infinite
our aquifers are infinite
They’re not.
Recent News:
Recent News:
If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained
National Geographic, August 19, 2014
We're pumping irreplaceable groundwater to counter the drought. When it's gone, the real crisis begins.
Recent News:
If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained
National Geographic, August 19, 2014
We're pumping irreplaceable groundwater to counter the drought. When it's gone, the real crisis begins.
Canada leads world in forest decline, report says
Edmonton Post, September 4, 2014
...scientists discovered that the pace of decline is accelerating with more than 104 million hectares – about 8.1 per
cent of global undisturbed forests — lost from 2000 to 2013.
If this rate of degradation continues, “business as usual will lead to destruction of most remaining intact forests
this century,” Dr. Nigel Sizer, director of the forest program at the World Resources Institute, said.
Recent News:
If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained
National Geographic, August 19, 2014
We're pumping irreplaceable groundwater to counter the drought. When it's gone, the real crisis begins.
Canada leads world in forest decline, report says
Edmonton Post, September 4, 2014
...scientists discovered that the pace of decline is accelerating with more than 104 million hectares – about 8.1 per
cent of global undisturbed forests — lost from 2000 to 2013.
If this rate of degradation continues, “business as usual will lead to destruction of most remaining intact forests
this century,” Dr. Nigel Sizer, director of the forest program at the World Resources Institute, said.
U.N. Draft Report Lists Unchecked Emissions’ Risks
NYTimes, August 26, 2014
Runaway growth in the emission of greenhouse gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with
the problem, raising the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” over the coming
decades, according to a draft of a major new United Nations report.
So why do we behave so badly?
The Tragedy of the
Commons
The earth, like the sun, like the air,
belongs to everyone — and to no
one. (Edward Abbey)
The Tragedy of the
Commons
"Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure
the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of
the risks from inaction or delayed action is now
overwhelming. The problem of climate change involves a
fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others
by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay.“
Sir Nicholas Stern (2007)
The Tragedy of the
Commons
"Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure
the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of
the risks from inaction or delayed action is now
overwhelming. The problem of climate change involves a
fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others
by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay.“
Sir Nicholas Stern (2007)
The damages have been “externalized”.
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
Extinctions
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
1897
1861
Ocean
Acidification
Global
Warming
Extinctions
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
1897
1861
Ocean
Acidification
Global
Warming
Ocean
Warming
Climate
Change
Extinctions
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
1897
1861
Ocean
Acidification
Global
Warming
Ocean
Warming
Climate
Change
Extinctions
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
Ice
Melt
Permafrost thaw
1897
1861
Clathrate melt
Ocean
Acidification
Global
Warming
Ocean
Warming
Climate
Change
Ocean
Circulation
Disruption
Extinctions
Humans
Atmospheric
Carbon
Pollution
Ice
Melt
Forests
Permafrost thaw
1897
1861
Clathrate melt
Ocean
Acidification
Global
Warming
Ocean
Warming
Aquaculture
Climate
Change
Ocean
Circulation
Disruption
Agriculture
Extinctions
Sea-level Rise
The Carbon Crisis is a
Planetary Emergency
The Carbon Crisis can be illustrated with a
cast of three:
the Keeling Data (“the most important
environmental data set of the 20th century”),
the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Carbon Crisis IS a Planetary Emergency:
Keeling’s
Atmospheric
CO2 Data (and
a model):
Carbon Crisis IS a Planetary Emergency:
Keeling’s
Atmospheric
CO2 Data (and
a model):
The NAS predicts global warming based on CO2
(ppm) in the atmosphere:
Carbon Crisis IS a Planetary Emergency:
Keeling’s
Atmospheric
CO2 Data (and
a model):
The NAS predicts global warming based on CO2
(ppm) in the atmosphere:
The IPCC predicts significant species loss (2030%) if we hit 2 degrees C of warming....
Carbon Crisis IS a Planetary Emergency:
Keeling’s
Atmospheric
CO2 Data (and
a model):
While we don’t
expect infinite growth,
ppm CO2 is expected to
rise until we achieve 4oC
by the end of the century.
The NAS predicts global warming based on CO2
(ppm) in the atmosphere:
The IPCC predicts significant species loss (2030%) if we hit 2 degrees C of warming....
Carbon Crisis IS a Planetary Emergency:
Keeling’s
Atmospheric
CO2 Data (and
a model):
While we don’t
expect infinite growth,
ppm CO2 is expected to
rise until we achieve 4oC
by the end of the century.
The NAS predicts global warming based on CO2
(ppm) in the atmosphere:
At which point the IPCC predicts 40-70% of
species at significant risk of extinction.
So if there’s a
Planetary Emergency,
then we need to ramp up, to go on a war-time
footing -- to begin to seriously battle the foe -which is us.
So if there’s a
Planetary Emergency,
then we need to ramp up, to go on a war-time
footing -- to begin to seriously battle the foe -which is us.
What should we be doing?
What should we be telling our students?
How should education change?
“What is Education For?”
This essay, by David Orr,
leads off the book
Earth in Mind (1994).
Orr argues for a revolution in
education to deal with our assault
upon the Earth:
“The truth is that without significant precautions,
education can equip people merely to be more
effective vandals of the earth.”
David Orr
Author of
Earth in Mind: on Education, Environment, and the Human
Prospect (1994)
Down to the wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (2009)
(and others)
Orr quotes H. G. Wells:
we are in “a race between education and catastrophe.”
Orr Rethinks Education
1.
2.
3.
4.
All education is environmental education.
It is time to establish national goals for ecological
literacy and make these a vital part of the curriculum.
Education is not mastery of subject matter but mastery
of one’s person.
We have to challenge the hubris buried in the hidden
curriculum that says that human domination of nature
is good.
So: What Must We Do?
1. Control Carbon
2. Protect the Global Commons
3. Warn our students
4. Speak truth to power
5. Reform education to bring it back into
harmony with nature.
1. Control Carbon
William Nordhaus is an economist, author of
these two important works. He suggests
“Three Steps for Today”:
2013
1.
We “need to understand and accept the gravity of the impacts of
global warming on the human and natural world.”
2.
“[N]ations must establish policies that raise the price of CO2 and other
greenhouse-gas emissions.”
3.
“[G]overnments and the private sector must intensively pursue lowcarbon, zero-carbon, and even negative-carbon technologies.”
2. Protect the Global Commons
The Kindergarten rule: if you make a mess, clean it up.
It is not okay to foul our community’s air with your carbon.
It is not okay to poison our streams, rivers, and oceans with
your agricultural wastes.
It is not okay for you to destroy virgin old-growth forest and
replace it with a monoculture of pines.
It is not okay to tear the top off of a mountain and dump it into
the streams to tear out the coal while poisoning people.
(and the list goes on).
Demand that we internalize externalities.
3. Warn our Students:
This is the world that your parents and teachers bequeath you:
The sixth mass extinction (sixth in 3.5 billion years) is underway.
Agricultural production is dropping; fish stocks are falling;
meanwhile, a hungry population is rising.
Oceans are warming, rising, and acidifying.
Glaciers and ice caps are melting.
Methane is melting out of our oceans and permafrost.
Deforestation (often for more farmland) proceeds unabated.
Diseases and pests are spreading.
Cheap oil is gone; cheap (clean) water is gone.
4. Speak truth to power
“The global crisis ahead is a direct result of the largest
political failure in history.” Orr, DW (2009)
We need to call out our politicians who refuse to act:
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said “I’m not a scientist” when
asked about climate change. So scientists in Florida wrote
him a letter, and said we’d like to meet with you, and explain
this to you.
Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell ('I don't buy' that climate
is changing. In 1970s 'we were all concerned about the ice
age coming.' -- 3/2014) and Rand Paul (“I don’t think we
really want a commander-in-chief who’s battling climate
change instead of terrorism” -- 9/2014 ) need to be educated.
We need to meet with them, and educate them.
5. Reform Education
We need to confess our failures and agree to
seek ways to get beyond them.
Academic and
Societal Failures
Economic failure (externalization -- there has
been no charge for destroying the commons)
Political failure (failure of governments to act in
spite of the clear warnings of scientists)
Psychological failure (human unwillingness to
sacrifice today for tomorrow’s populations)
Sociological failure (famine in the midst of
plenty, destined to only get worse)
Academic and
Societal Failures
Scientific failure (although the science is
agnostic, and good, on climate; the fault is in our
will to dominate nature, rather than to live as part
of nature.)
Technological failure (We do things because we
can, rather than because we should. We can tear
down mountains, so we do -- for coal, which
destroys our atmosphere, mountain ecosystems,
streams, and poisons us with mercury....)
Academic and
Societal Failures
Agricultural failure (big farming -- “get big or get
out” -- has been a roaring success at delivering
cheap food while destroying soil, forest, rivers,
gulfs, and rural life)
Mathematical failure (linear thinking -- that small
actions lead to small reactions -- and the failure
to reflect on our own models)
Academic and
Societal Failures
Mathematical failure (linear thinking, and the
failure to reflect on our own models)
Let me pick on mathematics a little....
Academic and
Societal Failures
Mathematical failure (linear thinking, and the
failure to reflect on our own models)
Linear thinking: that small changes in behavior lead to small changes in a system
(e.g. the climate system).
Linear thinking denies the existence of tipping points, or actions which seem small,
but which have out-sized impacts. Examples of misplaced linear thinking:
1. That one small step at the Grand Canyon won’t hurt you.
2. That the world can’t change much in a short amount of time.
Suggested change in Mathematics Education: encourage the study of nonlinearity, and focus on model systems that exhibit (surprising) tipping points.
Academic and
Societal Failures
Mathematical failure (linear thinking, and the
failure to reflect on our own models)
Conclusions
“The world has always needed a dangerous professorate and
needs one now more than ever before.
It needs a professorate with ideas that are dangerous to greed,
shortsightedness, indulgence, exploitation, apathy, high-tech
pedantry, and narrowness.”
David Orr, EM (1994), p. 103
Conclusions
“The world has always needed a dangerous professorate and
needs one now more than ever before.
It needs a professorate with ideas that are dangerous to greed,
shortsightedness, indulgence, exploitation, apathy, high-tech
pedantry, and narrowness.”
David Orr, EM (1994), p. 103
We must be that professorate.
Conclusions
“...[U]niversities continue to turn out a large percentage of
graduates who have no clue how their personal prospects
are intertwined with the vital signs of the earth.... Noel Perrin
(1992) believes it to be a failure of leadership: ‘Neither the
trustees nor the administration [of this or any other college or
university] seems to believe that a crisis is coming.’”
EM (1994), p. 126
Conclusions
“...[U]niversities continue to turn out a large percentage of
graduates who have no clue how their personal prospects
are intertwined with the vital signs of the earth.... Noel Perrin
(1992) believes it to be a failure of leadership: ‘Neither the
trustees nor the administration [of this or any other college or
university] seems to believe that a crisis is coming.’”
EM (1994), p. 126
We must convince students that their fates are
intertwined with the vital signs of the earth.
Conclusions
David Orr wrote (in 1994) that “despite decades of talk about
‘interdisciplinary courses’ or ‘transdisciplinary learning’, there
is a strong belief that such talk is just talk.” EM, p. 94
Conclusions
David Orr wrote (in 1994) that “despite decades of talk about
‘interdisciplinary courses’ or ‘transdisciplinary learning’, there
is a strong belief that such talk is just talk.” EM, p. 94
Is this “just talk”? Or will we band together
to educate for a planetary emergency?
Bob Dylan On Climate
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’’
Bob Dylan (1963)
Transdisciplinarity
definition: “connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary
boundaries to create a holistic approach.” (Wikipedia)
While climate change is frequently seen as a problem for hard scientists
(and perhaps merely atmospheric physicists or meteorologists), the
breadth of impacts suggest that global climate destabilization is actually
the business of every discipline.
Hard sciences such as chemistry (ocean acidification), biology (mass
extinction), oceanography (coral bleaching), atmospheric physics
(runaway greenhouse effect), etc. are obviously implicated.
Social sciences are weighing in more heavily with time: economics,
political science, and psychology are disciplines which must be included,
although the arts (e.g. literature -- The Road, by Cormac McCarthy -- or
film and more modern social media) are going to play an important role.
NKU Mission & Values
Our Mission: “As a public comprehensive university located in a major metropolitan area, Northern
Kentucky University delivers innovative, student-centered education and engages in impactful scholarly and
creative endeavors, all of which empower our graduates to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives, while
contributing to the economic, civic, and social vitality of the region.” http://www.nku.edu/about/mission.html
Our Core Values: These are the core values that NKU embraces as we go about our work.
We will promote a culture that fosters and celebrates EXCELLENCE in all that we do.
We will engage in honest, fair, and ethical behavior, with INTEGRITY at the heart of every decision
and action.
Ours will be a community that embraces INCLUSIVENESS, diversity, and global awareness in all
dimensions of our work. (my emphasis)
We will approach our work – how we teach, engage, and serve – with creativity and INNOVATION.
And we will maintain a climate of COLLEGIALITY built on respect and characterized by open
communication and shared responsibility. (my ironic emphasis!:)