Since civilization began some 9,000 years ago, humanity's impact on the environment has been accelerating by an autocatalytic process of the mutually-reinforcing variables of surplus, innovation and population. An inflection point in the J-curves of these variables occurred around 1950, so that from that point on, every factor worth measuring has exhibited a troubling skyward trajectory.
As in all natural systems, the environment's responses (in this instance global warming, dwindling land, water, fossil fuels and wild animals, etc.,) signals a resistance to present behaviors. Awareness of these signals and their possible meanings has diffused so thoroughly through Civilization that even the power elite's staunchest apologists (such as George W. Bush) must publicly acknowledge them. We are likely approaching a crisis for the Civilization project. In all its uses (general, medical, psychological), crisis is the term used to indicate a turning point for the system in question, when it becomes clear whether the system will flourish or decline.
Our Environmental Impact is caused by the multiplier effect of Population, Consumption and the Resources/Wastes per amount of Consumption. Globally, voluntary reductions in either population or consumption are unlikely. Therefore, Civilization's response to its predicament revolves around the Resources/Waste factor, and this comes down to a reliance on human ingenuity to power us through: finding new resources, substituting new materials, innovating efficiency.
We'll present our individual and sometimes divergent views on the nature of resources, survival, the future (including the very far future), taking into account the likely, the unlikely, the unthinkable, and even the impossible. And we'll be counting on all present to weave from our threads a conversation that will hopefully become a microcosm of the larger human dialogue.
PRODUCERS: Carleton Schade, Ed Rosenfeld, Seamus Moran
CARLETON SCHADE: What is it that represents the true biography? The graduate degrees, professors studied with, papers written, seminars given, projects completed? The six months one spends in jail, the trek through Ladakh, mushroom's invitation to God, the beatings from a mad step-father, the typhoid of wife and lover in New Delhi, the home birth of a daughter, the night-time life of dreams and nightmares? The answer, of course, is yes, and all the rest as well."
EDWARD ROSENFELD is a writer, editor, publisher and technology consultant. His monthly newsletter, INTELLIGENCE, has been covering advanced computing and communications since 1984. Rosenfeld was a founding editor of Omni magazine. One of his early books, The Book of Highs, focused on altered states of consciousness. His most recent books include three volumes on neural networks, one an oral history of that emerging field in computer systems. He has also published an Oral History of Gestalt Therapy. He and Gerd Stern recently completed the libretto for Psyche and Delia, an opera in ten scenes, based in part on Rosenfeld's screenplay: MK-ULTRA."
SEAMUS MORAN is reluctant to admit that he has done anything of substance in this life, but promises that it was a long time ago and won't happen again. When he was younger and more impressionable, he helped shepherd the Calypso telescope into existence and now works occasionally to save a biodiversity hotspot in the Eastern Arc forests of Africa. His latest
project, a book titled "The Next 10,000 years" is proceeding slowly. He has run a commune, badly; enjoyed a Ph.D. program in mathematics, without finishing; travelled the world, but forgotten most of what he saw and who he met; gave a lecture once, and might do it again, but once a year is enough, because he needs a lot of time to gather new information.
Practiced in the fine arts of sleeping late and shirking responsibilities, he nevertheless occasionally does some obscure consultancy work, and is astonished to discover that people expect something delivered beyond his mere presence at a brainstorming session. Following the Woody Allen principle that half of life is just showing up, he somehow expects half a salary for just showing up, late, unshowered, and unprepared. He promises that in his next incarnation he will do better, and is relieved that in a parallel universe there is a more productive version of himself.