I’ve always been a bit intimidated by juggling. The hand-eye coordination, timing and patience required to fluently handle flying objects are skills I haven’t mastered yet. But last year I realized just how impressive and relevant juggling is when I used it as a frame for viewing global climate change. Climate change is, quite literally, terrifying. As Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Town Initiative said, “if it isn’t scary, then you really haven’t understood it” (Hopkins 2008). Earth is in the processes of rejecting humans and the implications of this process are unsettling, to say the least. Scientists, policy makers, economists– people everywhere are searching for a means of framing climate change that illuminates solutions. Although juggling isn’t the panacea of frames, I found it highlighted a means of learning that falls outside the usual box of problem solving.
When I first began juggling, I found the process fast and complex and felt thoroughly out of control. As I juggled, I noticed that I would toss the balls up and away from my body, always needing to chase after them and never having enough time to catch up. I would lose balance immediately and all balls would end up on the floor. After hours of trying to gain control with quick and desperate movements, I was getting nowhere. I slowed down and focused. I began tossing the balls backwards towards myself, with each movement reevaluating the arch between my hands. As I surrendered my need for control, I unconsciously became part of the system and everything slowed down. I began to see, as well as feel, how slight changes had huge effects on the overall cycle.
Responding and adapting to climate change involves juggling an incredibly large number of complex issues. There is however, a general consensus that we are aiming to create a sustainable human society. Therefore, when applied to climate change, our three main balls might be labeled: ecology, equity, and economy. As climate change moves into the forefront of many conversations, people are realizing the severity of our predicament. The idea that Earth may be completely different within the next century is incomprehensible. It feels like we have no control over the systems and feedback loops we have reflexively initiated and the pressure of time weighs heavily on us as we search for solutions.
We have largely approached climate change with the quick fixes and desperate measures that I used to gain control in my juggling experiment. Individuals, feeling helpless look outside of themselves for solutions and wait for policy makers to guide them. Geoengineering plans, or large-scale technological solutions are being considered for implementation. It seems that on a large collective scale, humans are still wildly chasing.
In our efforts to face climate change, most of us are either waiting for someone to tell us what to do, or desperately grasping at all possible means; there are just too many balls in the air. Now more than ever, we need to step back and observe our actions and ourselves as part of a larger system. Juggling can be used as a re-framing tool to help focus our efforts on the three core principles of sustainability. The economic, ecological and technological lenses Parker and Blodgett describe in In Global Climate Change; Three Policy Perspectives may offer a more tangible guide towards discovering feasible solutions. But regardless of the lens we choose to view climate change through, the metaphor of juggling might help us keep the big picture in mind and inspire us all to act with intention, imagination and awareness both individually and cooperatively.
Some inspiration: Amazing Juggling Finale
Tags: climate change, Danielle Hoffman
In their report to Congress Parker and Blodgett outline three pervasive lenses through which many laypeople, activists and policy makers see climate change. Each lens is shaped by values and beliefs about climate change, and it determines what action a person believes should be taken to counter it.
I would like to propose one all-encompassing, comprehensive lens which includes what we know with any degree of certainty about climate change at the moment. The assumption is knowledge in the science of climate change, an understanding of the consequences of inaction, and belief that in order to avert disaster (by halting the further release of CO2) and prepare for the inevitable changes that will occur, no expense should be (ethically speaking) spared.
The comprehensive view I am suggesting includes both an ideological and a practical side, or lens. On the one hand, there is the Ecological lens, which includes philosophical, ethical, and other such considerations when dealing with the problem of climate change. This approach by itself, however, is not enough. Unfortunately, not everyone views the problem in this way, and since it takes a lot of time and effort to educate people, in order to get things done more quickly, this view requires a more practical side to take action.
The other side, I propose, would be a Policy/Technology lens. It would be policy-intensive, therefore requiring the government’s full cooperation in implementing economic policies (such as taxes and cap-and-trade systems), as well as investment in research and development of new, more efficient technologies and creating a market for their wide-spread implementation. This, I believe, would be the quickest, most efficient way to prevent further damage and find ways to manage the changes that are now inevitable.
A note on the Economic lens:
The Economic lens outlined in the report assumes a gap in knowledge, because the body of evidence to date suggests grave economic consequences (among others) if the status quo continues unchanged. Therefore, a well-informed person who normally sees issues through an economic lens should see that the costs will be greater than the benefits of not doing anything to counteract climate change. This person would probably agree in general to the implementation of policy of the policy/technology lens, even if they do not agree on the finer points.
To summarize, the lenses outlined on the paper are true reflections of the views many people hold today. However, some of them are flawed given their lack of knowledge about climate change, or belief in its veracity.
Emission trading – Theregenerationproject.org
Parker presented three lenses that can be used to view and prioritize solutions to climate change. She gave a warning before describing the three lenses, “The purpose here is not to suggest that one lens is superior to another, but rather to articulate the differing perspectives in order to facilitate communication among different parties and interests”. Any way of categorization is a simplified model of understanding the reality. I view the solution to climate change more holistically, through a mix of all these three lenses with different priority levels: first economic, then technology and finally ecological.
The way we have been trying to reduce emission is by creating a target deadline and a target percentage reduction in emission. Failures to meet these targets have negative political and economic implications. Within this framework, timing is an important factor. Three lenses, or three sets of solutions, have different response timeframes. Economic solutions yield the fastest results. As soon as an economic policy is implemented companies need to start cutting emission or face increased costs of production. This is the fastest way to get factories to invest in the newest technology available and to incentivize new business models with less environmental impact.
On a different note, technology solutions require time to research and develop. Even with sufficient funding and incentives, the process from researching, building prototypes, and mass production takes a relatively long period of time to complete. Timeframe in research is an open-ended issue. Researchers cannot promise a specific deadline for delivery of a new technology.
Among all three lenses, ecological lens requires the most time to have any impact. Viewing environmental issues in terms of individual and institutional behavior requires change in societal values and education in response. Individual habits are already hard to change. Changing the way the whole society produces and consumes from an ethics- based angle take many times more effort and time than that. It may take generations before ecological solutions have significant impacts.
For all the above reasoning and assumptions, I view all the three approaches as equally important. Yet, they should be implemented in order of economic, technology and then ecological to really achieve emission reduction in a timely and efficient manner.
Luan Nguyen.
Tags: Luan Nguyen
The world has a problem. Climate change has ceased to be a debatable possibility with the potential to affect earthly existence at some point in the (very distant) future, and has materialized in the form of measurable ecological changes. Scientific evidence showing elevated atmospheric temperature, rising sea levels and changes in precipitation patterns has begun to pile up, and there is little question that human development has had a defining role in the surge of these processes. The debate has now shifted to whether any action aimed at reducing or undoing the harm is too late. This is indeed one big problem.
Fortunately, there is a sector within the scientific community that believes action would not be completely unfruitful: even though the Earth will get warmer and the effects of the rising temperatures will be felt, it is still possible to protect the long-term viability of the planet, and our species, by enforcing some much needed, albeit uncomfortable, changes. Putting a stop to population growth and achieving carbon neutrality are examples that rank high on the to-do list.
However, the implementation of these and other changes is currently being stalled by the political negotiations that naturally accompany such a large-scale endeavor. The perspectives are varied, and they respond to differing interests and values. Parker and Blodgett (2008) have developed a sharp characterization of the main three approaches, or lenses, to climate change policy – technological, economic and ecological – and the trade-offs among them. The ‘three lenses’ paradigm is key to the understanding of current environmental policy because it’s been the difference in approaches that caused the failure of the main international efforts on climate change. The Kyoto protocols, which were not ratified by the U.S., are a glaring example of the problems currently affecting climate change policy.
It is expected that future environmental policy will be as affected by the lens through which policy-makers see climate change as it has been in the past; however, there seems to be a shift in public moral concerns with the environment which suggests that more individuals are embracing the ecological lens. This would certainly be a welcome change, since a morally engaged world-wide community would be the most effective in exerting the necessary changes, regardless of the economic pressures they may result in.
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000191 EndHTML:0000005406 StartFragment:0000002376 EndFragment:0000005370 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/bettu/Desktop/Parker%20&%20Blodgett%20notes.doc
Reminder for making smart decisions
A TechnEcologic Lens for Viewing Global Warming
As someone who holds strong morals and ethics, and a believer in efficiency, I characterize the lens in which I view climate change as TechnEcologic, a blend of Parker & Blodgett’s technological and ecologic lenses(http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2X6pLBKlqTLNjYxOGE5YTAtYjMwYy00MTJjLTlkMjUtZDcyMjE1OTgzYzVi&hl=en). I feel that people need to be properly educated on global warming and the consequences of not acting quick enough in order to help minimize the already disastrous effects global warming will have on our planet. One way we can achieve this is by incorporating global warming into school science curriculum’s, which will promote a stronger ecological conscience,” which will then spread to the parents. Another way we can help alleviate our carbon footprint is by creating and encouraging people to use products and appliances. By make the use of energy efficient technology a social norm, more people will use them, and discourage the usage of the usage of non-efficient products and appliances. The ecological lens described by Parker & Blodgett’s suggests that people will make responsible choices when they have a full understanding of the repercussions of carelessness. In a poll taken earlier this year, Global warming was the last issue on the American’s list of priorities (http://www.skepticsglobalwarming.com/?p=12403) even though it threatens not only the lives of our future generations but of human kind and other species living on out planet! I feel that this is due to the uncertainties of global warming, but watching the polar ice caps melt is more than enough to convince me. Making responsible decisions, especially as college students, older siblings, and any other role we play in society, is vital to setting an “ecological conscience,” one that will set the bar for the future generations, which will be the ones who will have to learn to mitigate the inevitable effects of our warming planet. Decisions as simple as unplugging electronic chargers, turning off the lights after you leave a room, and posting signs that remind people to make the right decisions, like a sticker I saw in the International House (http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/campuslife/houses.html).
This is where the technological lens comes into play. The creation of energy efficient products, like Energy Star appliances, allows consumers to make “green” decisions easily. Even though these appliances are slightly more expensive than non-efficient, the savings on energy bills pays it off. Educating people about these energy efficient appliances, as well as other eco-friendly products, will give people more of an incentive to make “green” decisions, like replacing traditional light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs, which are 4 times more efficient. MyTechnEcologic lens magnifies the importance of educating people of all ages, on global warming, and the importance of the use and further development of energy efficient technology. We can easily begin to do to help contribute to a greener neighborhood, nation, and world. For simple and inexpensive ways to go green within your room or home, please visit http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1720628/10_easy_ways_to_go_green_every_day.html?cat=57 .
Your Comments