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Building Sustainable Future Needs More Than Science, Experts Say
VANCOUVER - Contrary to popular belief, humans have failed to address the earth's worsening emergencies of climate change, species' extinction and resource overconsumption not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of imagination, social scientists and artists say.
At a conference for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) here in Vancouver, British Columbia, experts argued that the path to a truly sustainable future is through the muddy waters of emotions, values, ethics, and most importantly, imagination.
Humans' perceptions of reality are filtered by personal experiences and values, said David Maggs, a concert pianist and PhD student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
As a result, the education and communication paradigm of "if we only knew better, we'd do better" is not working, Maggs told attendees at the world's largest general science meeting. "We don't live in the real world, but live only in the world we imagine."
"We live in our heads. We live in storyland," agreed John Robinson of UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability.
"When we talk about sustainability we are talking about the future, how things could be. This is the landscape of imagination," Robinson told IPS. "If we can't imagine a better world we won't get it."
This imagining will be complex and difficult. Sustainability encompasses far more than just scientific facts – it also incorporates the idea of how we relate to nature and to ourselves, he said.
"We haven't yet grasped the depth of changes that are coming."
Because human decisions and behavior are the result of ethics, values and emotion, and because sustainability directly involves our values and ethical concerns, science alone is insufficient to make decisions about sustainability, said Thomas Dietz, assistant vice president for environmental research at Michigan State University.
Information plays a much smaller role than we like to think, Dietz explained. In order to truly address big issues like climate change or sustainability, we need to talk at a society-wide scale about our values and reach mutual understanding about the values needed for sustainability.
"When we talk about sustainability we are talking about the future, how things could be. This is the landscape of imagination... If we can't imagine a better world we won't get it." --John Robinson of UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability
"However, we don't like to talk about our values or feelings, because it threatens our personal identity."
Engaging the public
Treating nature as an object, separate and distinct from us, is part of the problem, said Sacha Kagan, sociologist at Leuphana University in Germany. The current environmental crisis results from technological thinking and a fear of complexity that science alone cannot help us with, Kagan said.
The objectification of the natural world began during the Age of Enlightenment about 300 years ago. People saw the world and their place in it in very different ways before that, said Robinson.
Today, he said, sustainability will not be achieved without "engaging people in numbers and at levels that have never been done before".
New social media tools like Facebook may help with such a monumental task, as "people certainly don't like to come to public meetings".
Current approaches to help the public understand the implications of climate change, such as graphs or iconic pictures of polar bears, have limitations and are ineffective, said Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in the UK.
"We need to find new ways to think about the future under climate change," said Hulme.
Art could be one such approach, suggested Dietz. It would serve not as propaganda but as a creative way to engage our imaginations. "Art can provoke thinking and actually change people's perceptions of the complex issues associated with sustainability science," he argued.
"When we're considering questions about preserving biodiversity versus creating jobs, art can help us examine our values and have a discussion that's broader than just scientific facts."
It is tempting to believe the arts can help by softening and 'pretty-fying' the message and bringing it to a wider audience, said award-winning photographer Joe Zammit-Lucia.
"We need to go much further to provide a different worldview that can help us re-frame the issues," said Zammit-Lucia.
Society's choices are driven by people's cultural perceptions of reality, which in turn are based on their values and their cultural context, he said. While helpful, scientific knowledge and experts are also part of the problem: by dominating the sustainability discourse, they narrow people's visions of what's possible.
"I also don't buy in the idea we need to make the right decisions. What we need is the right process, ways in which the public can fully participate," he concluded.
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Show AllEvery human being could do a tremendous amount of good for the environment by becoming vegan. The enslavement of animals for food destroys the environment more than any other factor. Animal slavery requires huge amounts of land, which in turn require wars to acquire them. Animal slavery leads to most of our virulent communicable diseases that big pharma "protects" us from with expensive and dangerous vaccines.
Livestock accounts for 8% of human water use, mostly to irrigate feedcrops. Livestock causes massive water, land, and air pollution.
Eating enslaved animals desensitizes the eater to the pain and suffering of others. If you can eat a steak that someone else murdered for you, then you can close your eyes when someone else murders a small Muslim child for you.
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/environment.html
It's true that the modern livestock industry is an abomination for both animal and human, and that human domestication of animals was historically the cause of most endemic and epidemic diseases. But you make a false leap from that problem to the "solution" that we all become vegan, when we are biologically evolved to be omnivores and most healthy when we eat a varied diet. Unfortunately, the human population is far beyond the point where most of us can hunt or gather or grow our own food. But small-scale organic agriculture, and the humane raising of animals for food is a far more realistic and healthy alternative. To suggest that eating what we evolved to eat dehumanizes us and somehow makes us prone to kill children is even too much of a leap for most conscientious vegetarians and vegans.
I would argue that science informs the possibilities to our imaginations. But with science being attacked, our imaginations will not have as many possibilities to ponder: "Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era,'" which emerged from the same conference, yet we get the above babble, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/19/science-scepticism-usdomesticpolicy
The linked item refers to a Union of Concerned Scientists publication, "Heads They Win, Tails We Lose: How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public's Expense," which can be downloaded from this page http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/how-corporations-corrupt-science.html
Yes, science is under attack by the religious right and the corporate propagandists, but this is hardly part of that assault. Quite the contrary, it's scientists themselves acknowledging that science does not tell the full story and is not by itself the answer. In other words, it's scientists maturing and waking up to the limits of their enterprise.
Science can inform our imaginations, and the best science grows out of the imagination, but a paradigm which is almost religiously presumptive that science is the only valid path to knowledge is one that severely limits the scope of imagination - and, ultimately, of knowledge.
Imagine....All the radioactive nuclear crap buried in the 5-mile deep Mariannes Trench....a subduction zone plunging back below the Earth's crust into the semi-molten mantel....where it was before the 1% stupidly mined the ore....then they enriched it to present toxic levels.......for ever out of our lives...gone....fixed.....no more...until the next nut-case, science-challenged fools.....fool us again....
RIGHT NOW.......We must be building Large-scale Solar Thermal Power plants that boil water with molten salt to produce electricity.......Instead We see more crap fission reactors planned in Georgia, China, you name it ..... to boil the same water!!!!!....A Solar Thermal plant.....about 350 Megawatts...(60,000 homes) is about ready to come on line near Ajo, AZ...(and another starting west of Phoenix)....
Imagine ..... Scaled-up individual Solar Thermal plants that will rival the Gigawatt(1,000 megawatts) doomsday reactors(right NOW 100 here 400+ worldwide).....see more at ..... http://besolar.info/Sustainable_Portal_1.htm .... Imagine a poison-free future for all Earth's children.....for even those nay-sayers ......
The gall of Wall Street high-rollers ..... their invested, entrenched dirty energy corporations using the weaselly word "traditional" in the public square of discourse.......when actually using obfuscating language ...... co-mingling nuclear-waste-energy with carbon dioxide-producing-energy....calling them "traditional" ..... what an insult to our bliss......a waste of our time and money, to boot!....i.e.......
Why does Lockheed-Martin ..... a defense contractor want to own the Solar Thermal Power plant going up near Phoenix?.....YES....To make money by selling power back to Arizona Power Service.....for us.....how sweet....Now why not just go crazier and build another doomsday radio-active crap pile?.....Let's think...oh yeah....they can imagine, too.....Through the "Looking Glass"...here we come Alice....wait up!..... Check out the story .... http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/05/22/20090522biz-apssolar0522.html ...... Can it be? .....
[A personal observation] .... So-called Energy experts need to be released back into the wild....like the animals that they have become....[that is if they really migrated with us 99%ers from Africa]. ....They continue to take riskier and more foolish chances to store the mountainous ..... thousands of tons of deadly radioactive waste....scattered everywhere imaginable .......produced each and every year by the 400+ plants in world-wide operation?....(France buries theirs in subduction zones ....it's reported)
Imagine......Human-induced Global Warming that looms in the global forecast as we still spew millions of added tons of carbon dioxide into the thin blue global atmosphere ..... Our children will suffer super storms.....monstrous gale-force winds and lightening.......drought-brought fire maelstroms.......While Solar Thermal can replace these devil's servants' boondoggle....Occupy with Love......Bob
Yet another "science is the answer" screed. The simple message of this article eludes those who believe the orthodoxy of our current cultural religion of scientism.
I agree with this. There is a connection between imagination and solving climate change: people who think they are going to fix global warming are definitely imagining things. There WILL be a sustainable future . . . once 6.5 billion people die, and the reminder are surviving with pre-industrial technology, it will be perfectly sustainable. The planet out-weighs us, we shouldn't have picked a fight with it, because it's going to kick our asses. They say in 100,000 years, earth's climate will return to what it is now. That is only 20 times the entire 5000 year history of humanity so far. Time enough to reflect.
You're being much too optimistic, suggesting that 1.5 billion humans is a sustainable population. Could be, but the last time we lived truly sustainably within the Web-of-Life (at the shift from gatherer-hunter to settled agriculturalists) we were about 4 million.
And, by the way, that shift began about 12,000 years ago and became dominant about 10,000 years ago, and the history of humanity (as opposed to the history of civilization) goes back at least 2.4 million years.
The reality of human existence is the struggle, that's what it is all about. What is the definition of sustainable? To be able to maintain the struggle. Albert Einstein said " The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".
There is a reason that mythological origin stories, like the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, are common in many cultures. Human existence became a struggle only when we chose to leave the original gift economy of nature and extract our livelihoods from nature, separating ourselves from the Web-of-Life. Another true sign of intelligence is recognizing that human life was not anything like what we now know for more than 99% of our existence on this planet.
What we need is to go back to this continent at a time before the white man arrived, and we will, willingly or not. Mother Nature combined with man's worst 1% are joining forces to eliminate us.
"....Restoration addresses the premise that "sustainability" is problematic in the context of an environment that is already depleted. As Paul Hawken [http://www.paulhawken.com/paulhawken_frameset.html] has noted at a yearly Bioneers [http://www.bioneers.org/] Conference, "Sustainability is simply the midpoint between destruction and restoration ......." - more at ....... http://besolar.info/Sustainable_Portal_1.htm ......
So..... Imagine the future economy ........ Imagine a restoration Economy ..... Baybee ... Imagine throwing the bums [Big Monied Interests] out ....bring back what you stole .....or... lock 'em up .....
Mr. US Attorney General ...... Reclaim those trillions of ill-gotten monies back into the US from their hidden off-shore havens ....... and start the Sustainable march back to sanity ...Being our Brothers' and Sisters Keepers ...... Back to Love and Peace .......
Brother and Sister ....all colors .... all sexual orientations ....... and classes ........you elites need to cancel those therapy sessions and come on down to the Occupy Encampment for a soul cleansing ....Wake up Mom....Dad.....Grandpa and Ma .... the wolf is at the door ..... and this ain't no Goldilocks fairytale .....
Spain this Sunday [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/19/spain-protests-labor-reforms_n_1287491.html] ..... let's try to avoid this ..... please ....
Occupy with Love ...... Bob
#Occupy might feed the soul, but it hardly cleanses it of its toxic addictions to a failed paradigm.
With all due respect for Paul Hawken, suggesting that "sustainability is simply the midpoint between destruction and restoration" is to imply that we can "fix" what we've destroyed by a better economy and better technology. This is the same myth - the same paradigm - which caused all the destruction and prevents us from stopping it, and the same hubris which leads us to believe that our clever brains will solve the crises our clever brains created.
The greatest gift of the #Occupy movement is the idea that "we are the 99%", and the worst curse of the movement is that it created the notion of "the 1%" as the enemy outside the gate. "We have found the enemy and it is us" said a much wiser Pogo. As long as we continue to project blame "out there", we cannot discover the answer to our problems - which, as this article suggests, is unconstrained imagination, a "cleansing of the doors of perception", and a re-discovery of essential values.
I don't think your view really takes into account the realities of power in a nation where people like the Koch Brothers, or the Walton heirs (or whoever runs Wal-Mart specifically for them) have their ability to do damage to everyone else massively amplified, while everyone else doesn't exactly fight against them on equal terms (and considering how deep the affectation towards pacifism and lovingkindness goes in a lot of cases, some would prefer that those terms get even worse).
Occupy didn't create the notion of the 1%, but whatever else I might think of it, they certainly articulate it well-and I think it's a point where they're actually far ahead of your particular curve.
Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon (10/9/1940 - 12/8/1980)
All to say, no matter how well attuned ones imagination is, there is still the problem of the secret services and the elite power structure they enforce.
But the secret that "they" don't want you to know is that "they" can't imprison, contain or control your imagination - unless you let them.
Imagine light rail connecting inner-urbanites to their work or to play with their American Family in the [recently restored] scenic Wildlands ....... protected ..... public spaces ....... with real wild genetics returned from near extinction ...... Ever see a real wild Bison?..... Wolves? ....... Return of the Salmon?..... Imagine that WE can do it?....
Imagine your plug-in hybrid bringing you to the light-rail depots ..... recharged at night by the Smart Grid ...... people-funded (government of and by the people - no corrupt monies.... guess who?) ..... with the trillions of re-repatriated monies hoarded off-shore by so-called American companies and deluded (insane?) individuals ....
Imagine a vacation to the protected wildlife corridors.....transported by elevated high speed mag-rail connecting the light rail systems ...... Imagine a real discourse about these important issues ..... outside the purview of the special, entrenched special interests demanding the current status quo .... Ignore the mis-direction ..... Demand Transparency .... Truth to Power...A return to Democracy......
Occupy with Love ....... Bob
humans have failed to address the earth's worsening emergencies of climate change, species' extinction and resource overconsumption"
and you failed to address the most important one, overpopulation.
"the path to a truly sustainable future is through the muddy waters of emotions, values, ethics, and most importantly, imagination." Knowing these limitations of our species provides a useful starting point, but also reminds us that every conception of knowledge, values or morality which exists, because it is not the solution must be part of the problem. And if we are the problem! So what do we do about us?
"For those individuals who can shake off their existing prejudices, imagine outside the cultural box of history, stand against the tides of fashionable thought and spin, who have the moral courage to learn something new and will TEST to confirm a new insight for themselves, an intellectual and moral revolution is already under way, where the 'impossible' becomes inevitable, by the most potent, political, Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take to advance peace, justice, change and progress." http://www.energon.org.uk
Our Sustainability as a life form will take ingenuity, skill and enthusiasm ........Imagination is stiffled in many schools, the private-for -profit and the under-assault public systems .....
Imagine ........ No more political half-truths that the .01% of America's owners promulgate about Universal Public Education ...... Privatization of which, I see, as the wet dream of those who don't work ....... while shunning those who work to live .... in our inherently shared Commonwealth .... Dismantling Public Education is patently a fraud .... a disrespectful scam to enrich the few somemore! ..... And .... more disgracefully ........ Who controls the curricula content? ...... What are the substantive avenues of objection other than personal cash? .... hardly a path that We 99%ers will agree to ........ As a resident of the Commons-held-in-Trust by the 99% ...... I object and will resist .......
Imagine ........ OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS as extensions of We-the-People ...... decisions made outside the purview of the entrenched status quo ....... Schools built by the students' teachers ...... schooled in Solar efficiencies and the Arts and Music ..... Outdoor organic gardens ........ Indoor greenhouses ..... Art Studios and Concert Venues ....... Ethnic Studies and Civics experiences ...... learning objectively to think critically ...... and to question when in doubt ...... International Student Exchanges ...... Language Studies abroad [using new green non-polluting travel] ...... supplanted with virtual social networking communication ......
Imagine this and it will come to pass ......The essence of this Conference......
Occupy With Peace ...... Bob
Imagine
A final compliment to Siouxrose ....... a brilliant encapsulation of the forum ....... spotting the ideologues ........ the narcissist ......the troll .......A Beautiful Mind ..... you have! .....Jah Know ...... Occupy with Love ....BeSolar.info ....