Google Earth Visualizes Climate Change Scenarios for COP15

Google Earth has released this Climate Change Intro Tour, ahead of the United Nations’s climate conference in Copenhagen in December (COP15) as part of the Google Earth Outreach program. Below is the 5 minute intro video; you can view these tours on YouTube, or visit http://www.google.com/landing/cop15 to see scenarios including

Climate Projections under a High Emission Scenario

Climate Projections under a Low Emission Scenario

Collaborative Visualization for Collective, Connective and Distributed Intelligence

Bonnie DeVarco, co-founder of NextNowNetwork and one of the NextNow Collaboratory’s info viz gurus is facilitating the first Stanford University’s Media X Vanguard Visualization Collaboratory, “Collaborative Visualization for Collective, Connective and Distributed Intelligence:  Structured Data, Synthetic Minds–Visualizing the Dynamics of Knowledge” at Stanford this week.

Below is a description of the event.  We plan to post some key insights from the meeting after its conclusion. You can also visit Bonnie’s blog, Scale Independent Thought, for her deep reflections on the topic, and the Spaces and Places exhibit, created to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how best to track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale, at Stanford’s Wallenberg Hall until December 31, 2009.

“I agree with Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann that the synthesizing mind will be the most valued mind in our century.”
Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future

Jeffrey Heer, Bonnie DeVarco, Katy Borner

The communication technologies we are creating today will be driven by a new generation of multidisciplinary thinkers, knowledge workers, global problem solvers and a more mobile, distributed workforce than ever before.  Our new generation has been raised on the Internet, game technologies, mobile landscapes, and new forms of social media as we progress into a knowledge economy that is altering our institutional and organizational practices.  The profusion of data and digital information at our fingertips requires new ways to support communication and collaborative sensemaking. In this emergent landscape, the role of visualization technologies to support synthetic perspectives is becoming increasingly valuable. Deep mapping of emergent science paradigms offer satellite views of humanity’s knowledge.  Lightweight visual knowledge systems for public data sharing have evolved to support access to the broader range of information we need to collectively address the world’s most pressing problems.  Open data hubs now support the social construction of knowledge in our digital and physical environments. At the same time, cyberinfrastructures offer us new tools for policy making and decision support in the academic, business and public sector.

This experience will bring together visualization vanguards from the leading edge of science mapping, collaborative visual sensemaking, social network analysis and the emerging semantic web.  Surrounded by the Places & Spaces: Mapping Science Exhibition at Wallenberg Hall and dynamic maps from Stanford’s Spatial History Project and the Human-Computer Interaction Lab, visual thinkers from four departments on campus, designers and special guests will share a series of case studies of their work to gain a synthetic perspective on the future of visualization for connective intelligence. New cyberinfrastructures of scholarly data, network analysis and visualization tools will be presented along with novel approaches to data sharing from the social semantic web. The Shape of Thought mural process will support visual brainstorming and documentation throughout the workshop to create a realtime “map” to the new territories presented.  Discussions will center around:

• the optimum user interface design approaches for collaboration and access between institutions, disciplines, academia and the general public
• richer visualization approaches to navigate and synthesize large bodies of networked data

The goal is to catalyze multi-institutional research projects that activate the convergence of new visualization approaches and design tools for distributed knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Facilitated by Jeffrey Heer, Bonnie DeVarco, Katy Borner and assisted by others.

State of the World Forum Launches in Brazil: 2020 By 2050

SEE END OF POST FOR EVENT LIVE BROADCAST LINKS

NextNow Collaboratory is an organizational partner of State of the World Forum, launching the global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign today in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  This Forum marks the first time people will be coming together from around the world at this scale to strategize plans of action to reduce carbon emissions globally by 80% by 2020 (instead of 2050, widely accepted by governments but acknowledged by scientists as “too late”) not just through a change in behavior (which can be difficult to sustain) but by re-aligning our relationship to ourselves and to our values, to each other, to Earth and to Life itself.  It also marks the first time a major media company launches a national public education campaign on global warming intended to mobilize a nation to take action– from stopping clear-cutting of the Amazon to creating sustainable lifestyles.

Over 200 scientists, political leaders, business executives, academics, civil society activists and artists from 20 nations and across Brazil are in attendance.  But this initiative is about everyone becoming a climate leader, because that’s what it will take. We’re all part of this movement to build a future in alignment with our most deeply-held values, with the natural systems of Earth and all Life.  Increase your awareness by visiting the State of the World Forum 2020 Climate Leadership Media and Resources page, and join us for the next Forum in Washington D.C. February 28 – March 3, 2010.

Below is the press release for this historic meeting in Belo Horizonte:

PRESS RELEASE
August 4, 2009

Globo TV launches unprecedented national public education ads on global warming to support the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign

The Globo Organization, the largest media company in Brazil and the fourth largest in the world, will premiere its national public education ads to support the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign at the State of the World Forum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil August 4 – 7, 2009. The aim is to educate the public about the escalating dangers of global warming and to encourage “climate leadership” in reducing carbon emissions and developing sustainable lifestyles.

This action is unprecedented and marks the first time anywhere in the world when a major media company has taken up the issue of global warming and begun a sustained public educational effort in support of a national mobilization on global warming. “We are delighted at this demonstration of climate leadership,” said Jim Garrison, President of the State of the World Forum. “ We believe it will serve as a model for other major companies to join Globo and begin to educate their constituencies about the escalating crisis of global warming.”

Albert Alcouloumbre, Director of Planning and Social Programs at Globo, said, “We consider our support for the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign to be part of our responsibility to our viewers. Globo has a long history of social responsibility going back to the founder Roberto Marinho, and we are proud of this tradition.”

Ricardo Young, President of the Ethos Institute, said, “Brazil is ready for a national 2020 mobilization on this critical issue.”

The Globo ads support the launch of a global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign and a Brazil 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign in Belo Horizonte August 4 – 7, when scientists, government leaders, business executives and civil society activists from around the world and Brazil will meet to begin planning 2020 campaigns.

Says Garrison: “The urgency of global warming mandates that each and every one of us become climate leaders. For the first time in our lives, indeed for the first time in history, all of us must take responsibility for our climate, whether at the individual, community, company, institution, state, or national level. We are all responsible for global warming. We must all share in the leadership required to solve it, for nothing less than the fate of human civilization is at stake. The crisis is that stark, the choice is that clear, the leadership required is that urgent.”

At the heart of the Climate Leadership Campaign and the purpose of the Belo Horizonte conference is resolving the contradiction between what our governments are negotiating and what our scientists are asserting about the accelerating pace of global warming. Our governments are negotiating as if the world has another forty years to solve global warming. The Copenhagen negotiations call for an 80% reduction of CO2 by 2050.  But the more our scientists know, the more urgent the crisis becomes and the more urgently we must act. The current world situation with regard to climate change is worse than the worst cast scenario of the IPCC in its 2007 Report.

It is for these reasons that when he accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri said “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Thousands of scientists around the world agree. Lester Brown, who will keynote the Belo Horizonte Forum, states “The situation is so urgent it has come down to mobilizing to save civilization.”

Says Garrison:  “Climate leadership must be based on what is scientifically urgent, not on what is politically expedient. Thus our strategic intention and call is a very simple one: ‘2050 by 2020.’ What our governments are negotiating for 2050 must be accomplished by 2020 and we must all be prepared to demonstrate the climate leadership required to accomplish this.”

For further information: Leandro Grandi at FSB Communications at leandro.grandi@fsb.com.br or Jim Garrison at jgarrison@worldforum.org

For further information on the State of the World Forum in Belo Horizonte:
http://brasil2020.com.br

For further information on the State of the World Forum:
http://worldforum.org

TO WATCH LIVE BROADCASTS OF THE BELO HORIZONTE STATE OF THE WORLD FORUM:

6:00- 8:00 PM EST ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 4

9:00 AM- 5:00 PM EST ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Ecological Creditor Nation Brazil Mobilizes: State of the World Forum moves to February 2010 (Washington, D.C.) and August 2010 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

In February, NextNow Collab helped launch the Ecological Creditor Nation Summit initiated by the Global Footprint Network.  Brazil is one of the approximately 20% of nations studied that maintains Ecological Creditor status.  Now NextNow Collab partner State of the World Forum is moving its Washington D.C. conference from November 2009 to February, 2010, largely due to the extensive involvement of Brazil, which is launching a Brazil 2020 campaign in partnership with the Forum in August 2009–the developments of which will go far in informing the subsequent Forum in Washington, D.C.– and which we plan to attend.  All of these efforts combined act to energize the emerging global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  We’re really excited by these developments and inspired by Brazil’s commitment.

Below is the announcement from Jim Garrison as it appears on the State of the World Forum website.

Dear Friends of the State of the World Forum,

We want to inform you that the upcoming State of the World Forum has been rescheduled from November 12-14, 2009 to February 28 – March 3, 2010. This has come about due to the extraordinary success of our endeavors and the fact that what was originally an intent to convene a conference has morphed into a global strategy to develop a 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  Allow me to explain.

A year ago, we decided to convene the 2009 State of the World Forum in November 2009 to address the escalating crisis of global warming.  We decided to do so using an integral framework, a perspective that was unique to the debate and which would allow for very synergistic cross sectoral dialogue. In early March of this year, I was invited down to Brazil to give some lectures on climate change and to speak about the integral approach we were taking on the issue.  What took place can only be described as phenomenal.  Each place I went, the response was not only an affirmation of the urgency of the crisis global warming represents but a willingness to begin working to develop a national mobilization in Brazil to support our efforts to mobilize action by 2020. Similar responses have been forthcoming in Australia, Holland, and Mexico and from a range of organizations and companies around the world.

To make a long story very short, four months later, we are launching a global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign as well as launching a national Brazil 2020 campaign in Belo Horizonte, Brazil August 4 – 7 with over a hundred international specialists in climate change and several hundred activists from all over Brazil.  The decision has also been made to convene the 2010 State of the World Forum in Rio de Janeiro August 30 – September 3, 2010.  The emergence of a global strategy and such dynamic movement in Brazil has necessitated a reframing of the 2009 State of the World Forum in Washington.

There are four main reasons we are changing the date:

1) By moving to the 2010 February 28 – March date we will have much more space available to us at the Washington Hilton hotel to accommodate more people and to design a more interactive event with more breakout rooms.

2) The new dates for the Washington Forum will place this event equidistance between the two other Forums, giving us the opportunity to respond to the developments from Belo Horizonte in August 4 -7, 2009 and incorporate the work from Washington February 28 – March 3, 2010 into the Rio Forum August 30 – September 3, 2010.  This Phase One plan is in keeping with our overall orientation as a  global Campaign as opposed to a single event.  Our intent is to convene State of the World Forums in major cities worldwide over the next ten years, through 2020, as we building support for our 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.

3) We have recently established an important partnership with Globo TV, the largest media company in Brazil and South America, and are in the process of developing programming ideas, including the production of at least one special in conjunction with the Washington Forum.  This gives us the opportunity to create other global television distribution deals and give the rescheduled Forum world-wide exposure.  The new February dates will give us the time necessary to make these arrangements.

4) The new dates will place the conference in Washington at a time when the Congress is in session, thus providing us with an opportunity to involve members of Congress in the Forum and include some lobbying activity concerning the overall Forum 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  As you may know, the United States is essentially acting like a failed state in the climate change domain and so there is a serious and urgent need for further education and lobbying in the Congress.

We sincerely hope that you appreciate the logic of our need to reschedule the Forum and that this change of dates has not inconvenienced you in any way.

We would invite you to peruse our website, which as been transformed from featuring an event to describing an entire global strategy: http://www.worldforum.org/

The urgency of global warming mandates that each and every one of us become climate leaders. For the first time in our lives, indeed for the first time in history, all of us must take responsibility for our climate, whether at the individual, community, company, institution, state, or national level. We are all responsible for global warming. We must all share in the leadership required to solve it, for nothing less than the fate of human civilization is at stake. The crisis is that stark, the choice is that clear, the leadership required is that urgent.

If we rise to this challenge, if we take climate leadership, we will generate climate justice and climate prosperity because it is precisely our capacity to solve our greatest crisis that affords us our greatest opportunities for growth within the context of sustainability and alignment with natural systems.

NextNow Collab Visualization Expert Bonnie DeVarco at Stanford Media X May 18, 2009

Bonnie DeVarco, co-founder of NextNowNetwork and the collaboratory’s visualization technology guru has worked with Dr. Katy Börner, Elisha F. Hardy and others to co-create an experience at Stanford that inspires cross-disciplinary discussion on how best to track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale. The exhibit tour and discussion will be at Stanford’s Media X on May 18; the exhibit remains until December 31, 2009.

The Stanford Press Release and a description of Bonnie’s discussion follows.  Also see Bonnie’s blog, Scale Independent Thought, for her deep reflections on the topic.

Click to enlarge. Science Related Wikipedian Activity map featured in the Third Iteration of Places & Spaces by Bruce W. Herr II, Todd Holloway, Katy Börner, Elisha F. Hardy, Kevin Boyack (2007). Image courtesy www.abeautifulwww.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 8, 2009
Contact: Martha Russell, Associate Director, Media X at Stanford University: 650-723-1616.  martha.russell@stanford.edu

Art And Technology Of Science Visualizations Celebrated On May 18th At Wallenberg Hall By Media X At Stanford University

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA, May 8, 2009 — Media X at Stanford University is pleased to announce that the broadly praised international exhibition, Places & Spaces – Mapping Science, will be exhibited in Wallenberg Hall from April 20 to December 31, 2009 with a seminar, an opening reception, discussion and tour on Monday May 18th from 4 pm to 6:30 pm.

Places & Spaces highlights the rapidly growing genre of science maps based on large scale data sets. “The art, science and understanding of visualization technologies and their application have enabled new insights about complex issues to be shared with broad communities,” states Media X Executive Director Charles House.  “This new exhibit has turned Wallenberg Hall into a gallery setting that complements the world class visualization work on the Stanford campus in campus labs such as the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCI) and the Spatial History Project.” http://hci.stanford.edu/people/  http://spatialhistory.stanford.edu/

Curated by Dr. Katy Börner, director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at Indiana University and her colleague, Elisha F. Hardy, Places & Spaces was created to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how best to track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale.  According to Börner “This exhibit introduces people to the power of maps to navigate physical spaces as well as abstract spaces of our collective scholarly knowledge.”

The exhibition has two components. The physical component allows close visual inspection through high-quality prints. The online counterpart at http://scimaps.org/ provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of why these maps work.

Each year 10 new maps are added, which will result in 100 maps total by 2014. Marking its fifth year traveling around the world, the 40 maps will be joined by the “Fifth Iteration” of the Places & Spaces exhibit. Media X at Stanford University is proud to sponsor and debut 10 new maps based on this year’s theme, “Science Maps for Science Policy Makers,” on May 18.

Media X will host a reception and tour of the Places & Spaces exhibition in Wallenberg Hall from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, immediately following a seminar on Visualization Convergence for Collective, Connective and Distributed Intelligence by Bonnie DeVarco, Media X Distinguished Visiting Scholar.  The seminar is part of the 2009 Media X Sun Microsystems Spring Seminar Series, http://mediax.stanford.edu/spring09_seminar_series.html.  Both the seminar and the reception are open to the Stanford academic community and the general public.

The reception will include a description by Stanford Computer Science Assistant Professor Jeffrey Heer of new visualization initiatives underway at Stanford, and his graduate students will present excerpts of their exciting new work in data visualization in a featured poster session.

Live teleconferences with Dr. Börner and several of the mapmakers themselves will introduce the new iteration, “Science Maps for Science Policy Makers.” The physical exhibit is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:00 am until 8:00 pm. The full schedule of Media X Spring Seminars and workshops offered in the Summer Institute at Wallenberg Hall can be seen here:
http://mediax.stanford.edu/WSI/schedule.html

Relevant Web URLs:
•    Media X http://mediax.stanford.edu
•    Places & Spaces Exhibition http://www.scimaps.org

About Media X
Media X is a membership program of the HSTAR Institute – Human Sciences Technology Advanced Research – at Stanford University. Programs and activities of Media X bridge academic and industrial research at the intersection of people and information technologies. The Wallenberg Learning Center is the premiere international teaching facility on the Stanford campus. Housed in the Main Quad, it is equipped with multiple high-tech classrooms and lecture halls.

Directions to Wallenberg Hall: http://wallenberg.stanford.edu/top/location.html

Visualization Convergence for Collective, Connective, and Distributed  Intelligence
Bonnie DeVarco

Today’s leading edge information and  geographic visualization technologies are rapidly becoming  instruments for connective intelligence on the World Wide Web.  People can now easily travel around Earth and through space on their  computers and mobile devices with the ubiquitous tool Google Earth.  At the same time, new data visualization tools allow us  to travel through the patterns of shared knowledge and scholarship using new mapping methods that are both pragmatic and  illuminating.  Whether tracking and predicting epidemics,  making national policy decisions, or identifying emerging scientific  paradigms, these new maps and visualization methodologies are  effective tools for clear thinking and collective action.   Bonnie will survey the recent history of these tools, their networks  of users, and their current state-of-practice.  She will also  present and discuss new trends, showing how these technologies are  converging and amplifying their importance for global communication  and collaboration.

Update and Save the Date: State of the World Forum in Washington D.C.

NextNow Collab is joined by Club of Budapest, CSR Wire, Earth Policy Institute, EnlightenNext, EthicalMarkets, Friends of the Earth, GaiaSoft, Integral Institute, New York Open Center, Ode Magazine, Pachamama Alliance, Presidential Climate Action Project, Resilient Cities Initiative and a growing host of others in partnering to convene the 2009 State of the World Forum.  This is the launch of a 10-year plan of committed action to transform our economy, our world, and ourselves in relation to each other and the natural world.  To register, visit the website; to explore collaboration, please contact me at cwelssatnextnowdotnet.  Watch for our announcement in the upcoming issue of NextNow Collab partner Imaging Notes:

This SWF announcement will appear in the upcoming issue of NextNow Collab partner Imaging Notes

NNC and 2009 State of the World Forum in Washington, D.C. Nov. 12-14

“Gaia’s main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, over-population, or resource depletion. Gaia’s main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement … about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot reign in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons.” – Ken Wilber

NextNow Collab is collaborating with The 2009 State of the World Forum to inspire a global network of people and organizations committed to transforming the way we live.  Global challenges are both too systemic and too personal to be left to government and business alone; it really is time for each of us to “be the change.”  (Sorry; it’s well-worn but nothing says it better.)

The 2009 State of the World Forum will vision and launch a 10-year plan to make more sustainable both our economies and our lives by 2020, including through

• Using Ken Wilber’s Integral Framework as our “operating system,” allowing for organizing knowledge and action plans that recognize personal and cultural values, resulting in truly empowered action
• Debuting Version 4.0 of Lester Brown’s Plan B
• Drawing inspiration from action-oriented, forward-thinking organizations such as the Presidential Climate Action Project, Apollo Alliance (who gave a powerful presentation at Social Venture Network conference in October), Friends of the Earth, Global Urban Development and many others
• Leveraging the concept of “social artistry,” as embraced by the United Nations Development Programme, towards creating real leadership for social change
• Releasing the latest data supporting the rise of the “new progressives,” a culturally creative worldwide demographic reflecting global values
• Demonstrating new technologies that enable us to envision, and participate in, sustainable systems.

NextNower’s that will be in the Washington, D.C. area and wish to collaborate please contact NextNow Collab.

Ken Wilber's Integral Framework

Featured speakers include:

Ray Anderson, Founder and CEO, Interface Inc. www.interfaceglobal.com Esperide Ananas, International Coordinator, Federation of Damanhur, Italy, founded in 1975. Damanhur  is a U.N. agency award-winning sustainable society numbering 1,000 citizens; it is a member of G.E.N.; and an active supporter of the Earth Charter Initiative.   www.damanhur.org Bill Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project; Project Director and Senior Consultant, National Leadership Summits for a Sustainable America; and former Director, Department of Energy, Central Regional Office. www.natcapsolutions.org Barrett C. Brown, Co-Director, Integral Sustainability Center, organizational consultant, author, and specialist in leadership development for global environmental and social sustainability. www.integrallife.com Lester Brown, Founder, Earth Policy Institute, World Watch Institute, author of numerous books, including Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. www.earth-policy.org Brian Castelli, Executive Vice President for Programs and Development, Alliance to Save Energy. www.ase.org Michael Cox, Chair, Executive Committee, California Student Sustainability Coalition. www.sustainabilitycoalition.org Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Chair, Integral Theory Department, John F. Kennedy University; Executive Editor, Journal of Integral Theory and Practice; co-author, Integral Ecology. www.integralinstitute.org Morel Fourman, Founder, Gaiasoft; author Managing in the New Economy – Performance Management Habits; and The Book of Personal and Global Transformation. www.mindofmany.com Vasilis M. Fthenakis, Senior Scientist, Head, National Photovoltaic Environmental Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Director, Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Earth and Environmental Engineering Department, Columbia University www.bnl.gov Jim Garrison, President and Chairman of Wisdom University, a graduate academic institution that explores both ancient wisdom traditions and the wisdom culture shaping our future today. He is also founder and president of State of the World Forum, a San Francisco based non-profit institution with a global network of leaders dedicated to developing a more sustainable global civilization. Richard Hames, Distinguished University Professor, Founding Director, Asian Foresight Institute, Dhurakij Pundit University, Bangkok, Thailand www.richardhames.com Marilyn Hamilton, Founder, Integral City Meshworks Inc.; author, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligence for the Human Hive. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Adjunct Professor, Department of Earth and Earth Sciences Division, Columbia University. www.giss.nasa.gov Johannes Heimrath, Executive Director, Club of Budapest. www.johannesheimrath.de Jean Houston, mythologist, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, long regarded as one of the principal founders of the human potential movement; author of 19 published books, including The Possible Human, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, The Passion of Isis and Osiris, and Jump Time. www.jeanhouston.org Ross Jackson, Founder and Chairman, Gaia Trust, a Danish foundation which since 1987 has supported over 300 sustainability products in over 40 countries, especially in the ecovillage movement. He is also a major shareholder in the Urtekram International, the largest organic wholesaler in Scandinavia. Jurriaan Kamp, President, Editor-in-Chief, Ode Magazine www.odemagazine.com Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer/Group Manager, Thermal Systems Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory www.nrel.gov Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder/artist of the International Cheemah and Mari Monument Projects, which are dedicated to environmental sustainability, cultural diversity and societal transformation. www.ospreyoriellelake.com Ervin Laszlo, President, The Club of Budapest; Founder and University Chancellor, The Institute at GlobalShift University. www.clubofbudapest.org Pierre-Yves Longaretti, Theoretical astrophysicist, Astrophysics Laboratory of Grenoble, France. http://www-laog.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr/~pyl/ Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; focuses on transforming the hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and several other sectors toward advanced resource productivity. He has authored or co-authored twenty-nine books and hundreds of papers, and consulted for scores of industries and governments worldwide. www.rmi.org Hunter Lovins, President and Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions. She is currently a founding Professor of Business at Presidio School of Management, one of the first accredited programs offering an MBA in Sustainable Management. www.hunterlovins.com David Martin, Executive Chairman, M∙CAM, Fellow, Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. www.m-cam.com Peter Merry, Founding partner of Engage! InterAct; Chair of the Board of the Center for Human Emergence; author, Evolutionary Leadership. www.engage.nl Caroline Myss, Author of five New York Times bestselling books, including Sacred Contracts, The Interior Castle, The Anatomy of the Spirit; founder, Caroline Myss Education Institute. www.myss.com Karen O’Brien, Chair, Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project Professor, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo  http://www.iss.uio.no/instituttet/ansatte/karenob.xml Mary Otto-Chang, Consultant, UNICEF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Children and Climate Change; UN Secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2003-2007); UN Development Program, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (2000-2003).  UNICEF and UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2007); Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Director, Tata Energy Research Institute; author of over twenty books and numerous articles on ecology, climate change and technology.  www.climatescience.gov Sandra Postel, Director, Global Water Policy Project and Center for the Environment at Mount Holyoke College.  www.globalwaterpolicy.org James Quilligan, Economic development policy advisor and writer for many international politicians and leaders, including Pierre Trudeau, François Mitterand, Jimmy Carter, Edward Heath, Julius Nyerere, Olof Palme, Willy Brandt, Tony Blair, and His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal.  www.global-negotiations.org Sally Ranney, CEO, StillWater Preservation LLC. www.stillwaterpreservation.com Paul Ray, Sociologist; Director, Institute of the Emerging Wisdom Culture, Wisdom University; author, The Cultural Creatives.  www.wisdomuniversity.org Jerome Ringo, Chairman, Apollo Alliance; Associate Research Scholar “ Yale University; former Chairman, World Wildlife Fund.  www.jeromeringo.com Rustum Roy, Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State Emeritus; Professor of Science Technology and Society Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University www.rustumroy.com Robb Smith, CEO, Integral Institute; Chairman, CEO and co-founder, Integral Life. www.integrallife.com Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche; Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. www.cosmosandpsyche.com Marc Weiss, Founder and CEO of Global Urban Development. www.globalurban.org Herman Wijffels, Member, Office of the Executive Director, World Bank, representing Armenia, Bosnia and Herzengovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine; former Chairman of Rabobank; Chairman, Economic and Social Council of the Netherlands. www.clubofbudapest.org Ken Wilber, Author of 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, he is the most widely translated academic writer in the United States. Ken is the internationally acknowledged originator of Integral Theory and co-founder of Integral Life.  www.kenwilber.com Michael Zimmerman, Director, Center for Humanities and the Arts, and Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder; co-author, Integral Ecology.  www.colorado.edu Ken Zweibel, former Program Leader for the Thin Film Photovoltaic Partnership Program, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and is often credited with the success of thin film photovoltaics in the U.S. Zweibel also cofounded a thin film CdTe PV start-up, PrimeStar Solar and became the founding Director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University. He has written two books on photovoltaics and co-authored a Scientific American article (January 2008) on solar energy as a solution to climate change. solar.gwu.edu

Digital Earth and Re-Engineering for Green (Imaging Notes/Foresman)

We missed a few, but here’s the latest Imaging Notes commentary from NextNower and NextNow Collab/ISDE5 team lead Tim Foresman, courtesy of NextNower and Imaging Notes publisher Myrna Yoo of Blueline Publishing (thank you, Myrna!):

Infrastructure Stimulus: Green Economy and Green Jobs

A new era is upon us, with palpable tension for 2009.

Citizens in Washington and around the country appear to have focused, finally, on seriously working our way out of the mess we have gotten into. And what a mess it is. Al Gore’s message on global warming is now being accepted as reality by most citizens at a time of competing crises and economic implosions that simply boggle the mind. Our saving grace appears to be that intelligent leadership, under the Obama administration, is ready to take charge and tackle the litany of challenges and issues facing our nation and the world.

Spatial data and decision support systems will serve a crucial role in re-engineering a green and sustainable society.

Rome was not built in a day, but it was built by engineers. And we can expect to see a lot of green and sustainable engineering projects at state and local levels working to rebuild America while providing new impetus for the creation of green-collar jobs. Aligning and funding The Green Jobs Act (passed in 2007) with the Infrastructure Stimulus Package, and perhaps tying mortgage refinancing schemes with energy conservation retrofits, would help to educate, empower, and engage a whole generation of young citizens, leading them into productive green collar careers.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you read Van Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy, along with a series of reports by the Center for American Progress (www.americanprogress.org), to delve more deeply into the economics involved in creating a blueprint for green-engineering our way out of city decay and social pathos. Positive thinking for the New Year: The good news is that the remote sensing and GIS communities recognize the credible and crucial roles they must play in this new era of green hope.

Green engineering encompasses a wide range of civil engineering and public works operations. Improved building codes for new construction seen in U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org) and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards are often viewed as the poster children for green buildings. However, significant work is required immediately to retrofit existing homes and other buildings for energy conservation to save money and reduce energy loads from fossil-fuel-driven electric grids (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1 Satellite imagery-based spatial information system used for inventory and field survey assessments for Waynesburg, Pennsylvania (courtesy of JMT).

Over two decades, research and operational experience have proven that remote sensing with infrared scanners is a cost-effective approach to assessing thermal losses in residential and industrial facilities. Integrating thermal loss imagery with GIS parcel and district databases can be used to investigate energy audits and to assess options for engaging industry and homeowners with conservation and retrofitting campaigns. Retrofitting campaigns will require large labor pools of caulking and insulation workers, as well as people trained in solar panel installation.

Currently, energy audits are being conducted throughout the state of Maryland and the City of Baltimore using utility billing information combined with computational models and selected onsite instrumentation. Spatial data information systems and aerial measurements can provide a more meaningful and quantitative approach to energy audit initiatives.

Transportation is another green engineering domain that has a document history of applied remote sensing and GIS technology. The challenge is to accelerate the use of spatial data and information systems to help design and re-define environmentally sound and sustainable transportation systems. Bikeways and pedestrian pathways, given short shrift in the past, are increasingly being considered serious options for reducing CO2-polluting car miles and for promoting healthy and sustainable lifestyles in urban centers. The $4-dollar-a-gallon experiment in the summer of 2008 demonstrated a significant and continued increase in ridership on mass transit buses and trains.Increased application of aerial coverage and spatial analysis is required to work with the planners and communit-ies to find new alternatives for moving the masses. From impervious surface assessment to hydraulics to National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) reporting, transportation engineers and planners require more remote sensing and better integrated spatial database systems to do their jobs more effectively.

Figure 2 VAIO field data collection recorders for house-to-house survey and inventory (courtesy of JMT).

Tree planting, biological corridors, waste water and water systems, landscape architecture, airports and harbor construction, wetlands protection, and community planning are all components of the new green engineering enterprise philosophy that is required to design and construct a healthier and more sustainable world around us. Remote sensing and GIS are paramount for both creating and integrating the spatial information technology framework for engineers.

Importantly, these spatial technologies are critical for engaging decision-makers and other citizens in visualizing and comprehending the scope and magnitude of green engineering operations. Citizen support is mandatory to maintain comprehensive infrastructure re-building. Scientific visualization, using remote sensing and GIS, was credited by Maryland’s Governor Glendening for the historic passage of the Smart Growth legislation. We know it works. Now is the time for this community to unabashedly promote spatial technology for the new green engineering revolution. President Obama’s Infrastructure Stimulus package will require nothing less to succeed.

Increased application of aerial coverage and spatial analysis is required to work with the planners and communit-ies to find new alternatives for moving the masses. From impervious surface assessment to hydraulics to National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) reporting, transportation engineers and planners require more remote sensing and better integrated spatial database systems to do their jobs more effectively.

Tree planting, biological corridors, waste water and water systems, landscape architecture, airports and harbor construction, wetlands protection, and community planning are all components of the new green engineering enterprise philosophy that is required to design and construct a healthier and more sustainable world around us. Remote sensing and GIS are paramount for both creating and integrating the spatial information technology framework for engineers.

Importantly, these spatial technologies are critical for engaging decision-makers and other citizens in visualizing and comprehending the scope and magnitude of green engineering operations. Citizen support is mandatory to maintain comprehensive infrastructure re-building. Scientific visualization, using remote sensing and GIS, was credited by Maryland’s Governor Glendening for the historic passage of the Smart Growth legislation. We know it works. Now is the time for this community to unabashedly promote spatial technology for the new green engineering revolution. President Obama’s Infrastructure Stimulus package will require nothing less to succeed.

Imaging Notes: Political Footprints on the Planet

This is the quarterly editorial by NextNow member Tim Foresman in Imaging Notes, a premier Digital Earth publication.  Many thanks to Myrna Yoo, NextNow member, collaborator on ISDE5 and Publisher of Imaging Notes.

Timothy W. Foresman, Ph.D., is President of the International Centre for Remote Sensing Education. He has been director of United Nations Environment Programme’s Division of Early Warning and Assessment (Nairobi, Kenya) and national program manager for NASA’s Digital Earth (Washington, D.C.). He is editor of The History of Geographic Information Systems, 1998, Prentice Hall. Dr. Foresman was the Director-General for the 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth (www.isde5.org) and is author of the children’s book, The Last Little Polar Bear:  A Global Change Adventure Story.

“A new administration will be upon us after the results are tallied for the November presidential elections.  One way or another, the seating arrangements in the U.S. government will change, and a new set of political party affiliates will become entrenched for a four-year tour of duty at the helm of one of the world’s most influential nations. In pondering this peaceful transfer of power, one of the U.S.A.’s most civilized behaviors, we might reflect on the impact of the 44th presidential election on the earth, and the current conditions and trajectories of that impact.

Those who are acute observers of the state of the planet will undoubtedly agree that regardless of who the victor is, the political footprint will be measurable and will affect us all. We might easily be distracted by economic chaos and Wall Street chicanery, or by military adventurism or by obdurate Russian leaders who appear to be singing ‘It’s a rainy night in Georgia’ while casting kerosene onto the international bonfire of vanities.  However, the bottom line on preserving our biodiversity and coping with climate change remains paramount for our survival as a civilized species.

The old axiom that all politics is local is an apt focus for the fact that all environmental impacts are also local to someone, albeit shared with the rest of us one way or another. Therefore, we might take the opportunity to look at the two major political parties and—with careful attention to objectivity and non-partisanship—differentiate which policies, as espoused by the campaign platforms and Web pages, will likely leave the greatest ecological footprints in the coming years.

Energy Policy

Both parties’ proclivities are to salve the citizens’ fears of higher energy prices with a clever mix of more domestic oil drilling combined with increased nuclear energy, a minimum level of conservation, and investment into alternatives or renewables. While the McCain team has led the charge to ‘drill now,’ the Obama team has acquiesced to that strategy and also has offered the strategic oil reserve to further lower gas prices: blatant political pandering by both camps as they seek to protect the voting public from increased gasoline prices.

The oil industry’s geophysicist, Dr. M. King Hubbert, calculated almost fifty years ago the fact that peak oil usage would impact the nation and world about right now. Experts increasingly accept the reality that we are heading on the down slope of this finite resource. Domestic oil drilling will not yield the results being claimed by both parties. We are running out of oil and the gas pump prices will continue to rise, while neither political candidate is willing to broadcast this new reality. Continued burning of oil will further damage our severely polluted atmosphere and exacerbate global warming. Neither campaign is willing to place this issue against the stark reality of citizens’ behaviors and chart a 180-degree shift in national policy that would demonstrate real change and real international leadership. Pain at the pump will be a legacy until renewables alter the equation.

The other hot topic endorsed by both campaigns is clean-coal technology. This is neither cheap nor truly clean. Mountain-top removal is but one startling dimension of any ambitious coal energy policy. Solar, hydroelectric, tidal electric, wind, non-cereal biomass, and geothermal are requisite priorities for an energy policy that does not further damage the Earth.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

Parity on the issue of climate change among the political campaigns is a given. Senator McCain has been a student of climate change science for over a decade and Senator Obama has been consistent in his aligned opinions. The two sides to the coin are (1) reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and (2) adaptation strategies for the impacts of global warming. Timely action on (1) may reduce the costly actions necessary for (2). Two quotes below highlight the critical nature of this issue and the stated urgency required to begin addressing our national and global challenges. Unfortunately, neither campaign appears ready to place the urgency of this issue front and center before the voting public, especially with our collective habit of watching feel-good news and entertainment.

‘There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change if strong collective action starts now.’ – Stern Review, ‘The Economics of Climate Change,’ 2006.

‘Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change course through leadership at all levels of society.  There is no more time for delay.’ – Sigma Xi and United Nations Foundation Report, ‘Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable,’ 2007.

McCain’s camp suggests that a ‘cap and trade system would encompass electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business, and industrial business – sectors responsible for just below 90 percent of all emissions. The cap-and-trade system would allow for the gradual reduction of emissions [emphasis added].’ Their goal for 2050 is 60% below 1990 levels (66% below 2005 levels).

Obama’s camp suggests that they will ‘implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.’ Neither campaign represents fast-track action. Neither camp appears to embrace the concept of ‘urgency’ on this topic, and both are inclined to follow the cap-and-trade system that was used for acid rain reduction to protect sensitive lakes and historic statues. Urgency would imply the kind of attention that paramedics face when deciding whether to stop bleeding or assist breathing on an accident victim. And because all aspects of urgent action are intricately tied to economic, social, and environmental dimensions of governance and international trade, it is unlikely that any political actions will be categorized as urgent. Meanwhile, the victim still lies on the ground.

Space Technology Program

What emphasis is being placed on our capacity for Earth observation at a time of climate change, biodiversity loss, over-fishing, and other impacts? McCain’s campaign offers to ‘ensure that space exploration is top priority and that the U.S. remains a leader,” to “maintain infrastructure investments in Earth-monitoring satellites and support systems.’  Earth-monitoring satellites will compete with missions to the Moon and to Mars, as space exploration is top dog for these space enthusiasts. This does not bode well for Landsat data continuity missions.

Obama’s campaign articulates a comprehensive space exploration agenda, but it too holds no safety net for the competition between space explorers and Earth monitors and is loaded in favor of space exploration.  Perhaps star gazers for both parties should join the rest of us to look at what is happening beneath their feet. After 50 years, NASA and the nation should figure out that Mission to Planet Earth is still the best idea it has ever had.

A host of other areas could, and should, be examined to see if Spaceship Earth will receive the kind of care and maintenance it must have to successfully continue our journey through the cosmos. These areas include: green jobs, smart growth, transportation, international treaties (e.g., Law of the Sea and Kyoto), U.N. support, economics/trade, weapons sales, and population control. For everyone’s benefit, let us hope that real change for the better does occur from the party that takes over leadership of the U.S. and that the winner accepts the challenge of saving the planet in an urgent and collaborative manner.’ –Tim Foresman

Imaging Notes / Fall 2008 / www.imagingnotes.com

Digital Earth and Social-Environmental Justice

Summer 2008 Volume 23 No. 2

Thanks to Myrna Yoo, NextNow member, collaborator with NNC on ISDE5 and Publisher of Imaging Notes, tonight’s post is an advance online posting of “Earth Scope,” Tim Foresman’s column in the Summer issue.

The column references what for me was one of the most emotional presentations during ISDE5 on mountaintop mining in the Appalachian Mountains, and on how digital earth technologies create shifts in awareness, facilitate collaboration and fortify communities pursuing social-environmental transformation.

Also check out The International Journal of Digital Earth, concerned with a wide range of interests, but the principal topics are: Digital Earth Framework, Digital Earth Applications, Digital Earth Architecture and Standards, Digital Earth and Earth System, Geoinformatics, Geo-spatial Science, Mobile Mapping System, Visualization and Numerical Simulation, Visible and Microwave Earth Observation, Data Fusion and Integration Algorithm, Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence, Data Processing, Earth System and Global Databases, Remote Sensing – GIS – GPS, Global Environmental Change, Discrete Global Grids. Click here for full aims and scopes.

ARTICLE:  Appalachian Voices and Satellite Eyes:  Winning Tools for Social-Environmental Justice

If you aren’t tuned in to the spectacular mass decapitation of 470 summits along the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, you are really missing out on one of the most dramatic changes in the American landscape . The coal industry has determined that this action is necessary to access the underlying coal.  Unfortunately, accompanying this shearing off of the rough mountainous topography are the fantastic losses of endemic and remnant ecosystems that have survived along these rugged terrains since long before the arrival of European settlers. And to add further injury to insult and injury, the mountain top mass is shoveled into the mountain drainage ravines and stream beds. Since 1985, according to scientists investigating this social-ecological blitzkrieg, 1200 miles of streams have been irreparably harmed, inflicting excessive pollution from waterborne toxins impacting both human and environmental health (EPA, 2003). Not since Manhattan was paved over to create New York City has an American landscape shifted so radically, but this devastation has occurred in a much shorter period of time. The image of a single mountain top removal area at the West Virginia Hobet Mine Complex transposed as a red overlay over N.Y.C. provides a hint at the aerial magnitude of the coal industries’ ecological footprint.

This red area is the actual size of the Hobet Mine Complex, overlaid on a satellite image of New York City to show the magnitude.

A Cry In The Wilderness

Appalachian Voices (www.appvoices.org) is an organization whose members are crying in the wilderness – real Americans with real concerns about the rampant destruction by the coal industry of their treasured natural resources and their impacted communities. This David-versus-Goliath challenge has been blessed with the advent of remote sensing and its prowess on the Internet with Google Earth visualization platforms, where it is a layer within Global Awareness on all versions of Google Earth. The sling that is rocking the coal industry is the audacity of the puny locals to use satellite imagery of the landscape desecration to stir up the affected population. “In the beginning, we used to take people up in airplanes to show them what is going on just over the next ridge,” says Mary Anne Hitt, Appalachian Voices founder. “People were shocked at the magnitude. But now, we simply use satellites, remote sensing, and virtual globes to get the message out and let our neighbors view these ravaged mountains. The proof is in the image. A 3-D view has really transformed this issue and that wakes people right up. This is one of the most powerful tools ever for our effort.” This visualized villainy of the Appalachian landscape has raised a clarion call to action as area residents see one mountain top after another sliced off to quench the country’s insatiable appetite for coal in the generation of electricity. Appalachian Voices and increasing numbers of collaborating groups and individuals have banded together to find solace and strength in their common cause for sanity while working to define a sustainable path for the future.

This diagram shows the clear link between poverty and strip mining in the area.

Making the Connections

Environmental justice and a host of social-economic-environmental issues are intertwined with the Mountain-Top Removal (MTR) saga. When we turn on the lights in McLean, Virginia, we are supporting the coal industry pipeline and providing the finances for MTR. “We show people how they are connected to MTR,” explains Mary Anne Hitt. “Using the virtual globe technologies, we can show the connection of mining operations to the delivery of electricity into people’s homes.” And assessing the links to social-economics for these areas being bulldozed over is another requirement to ensure environmental justice to the poorest of our citizens.

The energy deciders held secret meetings in the White House from 2001 and launched a new set of liberal policies for MTR. Whether they will ever have to explain their actions to the citizens of ravaged landscapes is a political question (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008). But it is increasingly important that all citizens become educated as to the direct and indirect impacts that MTR is having throughout the Appalachians. It is everyone’s business to become concerned with the connections we all have to the policies and lifestyles that result in the horrific desecration of our precious natural resources.

Remote Sensing Contributions

Appalachian Voices does not have a staff of scientists with expertise in remote sensing, landscape ecology, or other critical disciplines that are needed in the MTR drama. What better class project or Master’s thesis could there be than to focus on one of the many areas that have been destroyed, or better yet, to pre-position the imagery and environmental analysis to head off further losses? Hitt points out, “We are going to be doing a lot of looking at mountains that are standing but threatened. We need modelers to help us look at the spread of MTR and modelers to study the extent of pollution along rivers and communities. We are working with Sky Truth and would certainly welcome help from the remote sensing community.”

This red area is the actual size of the Hobet Mine Complex, overlaid on a satellite image of New York City to show the magnitude.

John Amos’ team at Sky Truth (www.skytruth.org), led by Dr. David J. Campagna (Adjunct Professor in West Virginia University’s Remote Sensing Lab in the Department of Geology and Geography), has been a pioneering partner in helping Hitt and her colleagues assess and communicate the disturbing images of mountain destruction.  “We are working to determine and map the areas most likely to be mined in the near
future,” explains Amos. “We are launching the Web-based Adopt-A-Mountain tool to enable average citizens to help us with ground-truth and field verification prior to the destruction,” he adds, “and are looking for talented GIS and remote sensing professionals.”

It would appear that these true heroes of America’s landscape could use a lot of help. It seems patently unfair to place the continued battle against MTR on their shoulders alone. I wonder what our talented and capable remote sensing community can do to help this chorus of Appalachian Voices.

Timothy W. Foresman, Ph.D., is President of the International Centre for Remote Sensing Education. He
has been director of United Nations Environment Programme’s Division of Early Warning and Assessment (Nairobi, Kenya) and national program manager for NASA’s Digital Earth (Washington, D.C.). He is editor of The History of Geographic Information Systems, 1998, Prentice Hall. Dr. Foresman was the Director-General for the 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth (www.isde5.org) and is author of the children’s book, The Last Little Polar Bear:  A Global Change Adventure Story.

References:

EPA, 2003.  Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Mountaintop Mining.  III.K-47.May 2003

Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008.  Mining Agency Buries Streams and Science.  http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/mountaintop-mining.html