VIII. Earth Earns: An Open Participatory Earthropocene to Astropocene CoCreative Future

C. An Earthropocene Era: Pedia Sapiens Can Choose a Unified, Peaceful, Creative, Ecosphere Future

Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry. The Universe Story. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992. Chapter 13 and the Epilogue envision an “Ecozoic Era” of communal, sustainable rapport between peoples, cultures, all diverse creatures and bioregions if we are to survive, fulfill and celebrate a prodigious, still developing creation.

Without entrancement within this new context of existence it is unlikely that the human community will have the psychic energy needed for the renewal of the Earth. (268)

Taverne, Dick. The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. A reasonable case that Western societies are increasingly beset by an irrational intolerance and disregard of evidence. This results in a categorical rejection of genetically modified (GM) foods, globalization, capitalism, vaccines, etc. without even study of these multifaceted issues. In the case of GM crops, for a third-world land where its indigenous populace gets sick from untreated rice because of insect toxins, a successful, well researched strain of rice resistant to this blight is presently blocked by protests. On the other hand, rapacious corporate policies are surely to be opposed. A timely discussion of this contentious area.

Thomashow, Mitchell. Bringing the Biosphere Home. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. Our inadequate response to the magnitude of pollution, waste, et al, ultimately stems from a lack of awareness that we live on a finite biosphere. In response, practical ways to relate ones local life style to this global ecological context are offered.

Timme, Marc, et al. Focus on Networks, Energy and the Economy. New Journal of Physics. 17/11, 2015. We cite this endeavor as an example of how a worldwide knowledge of generic network phenomena can serve as a natural way to effectively reconceive our human social infrastructure. Here German and Macedonian scientists, with postings such as MPI Dynamics and Self-Organization, first cite these universal features of distributed, networked systems, discuss usages for power grids and so on, and then pose projects for “our future in a networked world.”

Tolba, Mostafa, ed. Our Fragile World: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development. Oxford: Eolss Publishers, 2001. These two large volumes are a preview to the UNESCO-EOLSS Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, noted above. Be advised that a managerial and governmental mindset prevails with main sections such as: Knowledge, Technology and Management and Policy and Institutional Implications.

Turner, David. Thinking at the Global Scale. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 14/505, 2005. An Oregon State University forester proposes that the prescient concepts of Pierre Teilhard and Vladimir Vernadsky of the evolutionary emergence of a worldwide cognitive capacity, a noosphere, would make a good, common medium to intentionally understand and self-regulate our viable planet.

I would argue that the Earth’s biosphere has become a noosphere, but that it is as yet a rather dysfunctional one. (506)

Uhl, Christopher. Developing Ecological Consciousness: Path to a Sustainable World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. A Pennsylvania State University ecologist found that just departing “left brain” facts to his students did not inspire a “right brain” sensitivity to and communion with the natural biosphere nor an incentive to care for its viability. Uhl draws on the vision of Pierre Teilhard, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Charlene Spretnak, Joanna Macy and many others to present a three part response. Earth, Our Home situates a living planet in a cosmic genesis. Assessing the Health of the Earth then examines the “physiology” of an overstressed web of life, such as declines in migratory bird populations. Part III, Healing Ourselves, Healing Earth, joins many themes by noting the need for a meaningful cosmological story, images of a creative, sustainable society and pathways for personal and community transformation.

UNESCO-EOLSS, Joint Committee. Knowledge for Sustainable Development. UNESCO Publishing, Oxford: EOLSS Publishers, 2002. A three volume synopsis of the 50,000 page online Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. Thousands of articles by authorities from every scientific and managerial discipline are intended to provide a resource base for global sustainability. The website is www.eolss.net and requires a fee-based subscription to access. Yet the many articles, almost all by men, seem as separate objects devoid on a encompassing cosmology which could inspire our commitment.

VanderWeele, Tyler. On the Promotion of Human Flourishing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114/8148, 2017. The Harvard University, Program on Integrative Knowledge and Human Flourishing, scholar surveys this late turn from healing psychic maladies to empowering better personal and social lives. Six relevant domains are Happiness and Life Satisfaction, Mental and Physical Health, Meaning and Purpose, Character and Virtue, Close Social Relationships, and Financial and Material Stability.

Many empirical studies throughout the social and biomedical sciences focus only on very narrow outcomes such as income, or a single specific disease state, or a measure of positive affect. Human well-being or flourishing, however, consists in a much broader range of states and outcomes, certainly including mental and physical health, but also encompassing happiness and life satisfaction, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. The empirical literature from longitudinal, experimental, and quasiexperimental studies is reviewed in attempt to identify major determinants of human flourishing, broadly conceived. Measures of human flourishing are proposed. Discussion is given to the implications of a broader conception of human flourishing, and of the research reviewed, for policy, and for future research in the biomedical and social sciences. (Abstract)

Visvanathan, Nalini, et al, eds. The Women, Gender, and Development Reader. London: Zed Books, 1997. A sourcebook which runs from theory to practice, with an emphasis on emerging areas where women are particularly disenfranchised and brutalized. For one example, Vandana Shiva advises a new appreciation of the cosmic feminine principle of creative life as a way to overcome rampant destruction.

Voda, Mihal, et al. Geosystems’ Pathways to the Future of Sustainability. Nature Scientific Reports. 9/14446, 2019. An appropriate collaboration across four continents of computational geographers from Dimitrie Cantemir University, Romania, University of Nairobi, Wuhan University, and California State University broach a proposal for a global facility whose Google Earth apps can be accessed on tablet devices so as to achieve and record instant visualizations of close and wide scope. By this capability, streaming evaluation and management of bioregion ecosystem health or lack thereof can be constantly surveyed.

The world’s future development depends on effective human-computer linkages. From local to global, the virtual illustrations of a geographical, integrative place have to emphasize a peoples‘ place on our round Earth. Human values and social networks are now empowered by the unlimited creativity of smartphone applications. Our Geosystem grounded theory envisions that the sustainable management of natural resources requires that poorer communities have full access to the new technological advances. This paper will attempt to show the effectiveness of Geomedia techniques in the identification, evaluation, and valorization processes for the benefit of local inhabitants. This present methodology uses smartphone apps, Google Earth environmental datasets, Global Positioning Systems, and WebGIS for an assessment of regions throughout the world. (Abstract edits)

Wals, Arjen, ed. Social Learning: Towards a Sustainable World. Wageningen, Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2007. Some 53 authors from six continents engage the Principles, Perspectives, and Praxis of how we might converse and act together, talk and walk, to achieve the imperative of healthy, prosperous, and diverse, communities everywhere.

In short, the argument stresses the need for a seismic shift, from the still dominant underpinnings of modernism, through and beyond the inroads of deconstructive postmodernism, and towards a relational, ecological or participative consciousness appropriate to the deeply interconnected world that we have created. (Stephen Sterling, 63)

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