The End of Quiet Time

Tue Mar 7 09:13:53 PST 2006

No - this is not a continuation of the current thread. It is a personal
story with, I think, some larger implications. The story begins on Friday,
March 3, 2006. I was going down to Albuquerque New Mexico to open a little
space for what I have been led to believe was a group of "Green Architects."
I already had the theme question: "Building True Green - Issues and
opportunities" It had a certain ring to it with overtones of John Wayne,
True Grit and life out there in the great American Desert. Frankly, I
thought it was going to be a walk in the park, and I was looking forward to
a little relaxation in the warm desert. Turned out I was dead wrong.

The sponsor told me on arrival that an architect from Santa Fe (just up the
road) had some information to share before we got into Open Space. I never
like to begin with speeches, but I was assured the speaker would be brief.
He was, but when he finished, there was shocked silence. Here in brief is
what he had to say.

Over the past several months two articles have appeared in the journal
"Science," which reported massive increase in the rate of glacial melt in
Greenland and Antarctica. Not just a little melting, but 3-4 times the
projected rates with strong indication that the increase in rate of melt was
heading towards exponential. There was another article which showed up in
the New York Times describing how a senior US Government Climatologist had
been effectively silenced following an address to 11,000 of his colleagues.
I had actually seen all three articles, but never connected the dots. As a
matter of fact, I am not sure that I even saw any dots to connect - But the
speaker did. And this is how it works. It seems that the senior scientist
had access to the reports when he made his address. He could not cite them
as they had not been published, but he used the data and offered his
conclusions. Apparently his credibility in the world of Climatologist is
right at the top - someone called him the "Galileo of the field." His report
was disturbing, to say the least. I have scanned the speech, and while I may
have a few of the details messed up, I am pretty solid with the general
picture. And this is what it looks like.

First, the two new studies absolutely demolish the computer models which
have been used to this point to predict the rate and impact of glacial melt.
They are not just wrong, they are catastrophically wrong. Stuff is happening
at 3-4 times the predicted rate, and everything points to an upward curve.
Truth of the matter is nobody really knows just how sharp that curve will be
- but it is definitely up. 

Second - a conservative interpretation of the new data yields a disturbing
picture, to say the least. Within 10 years we (planet earth and all 6.5
billion fellow travelers) will reach the tripping point beyond which there
will be no possibility of reversal. After that, we can look forward to a 1
meter (2.5 foot) rise of sea level in another 10 years, heading towards a 6
meter (20 foot) rise somewhere around 2030 or soon after. Plotting a 20 foot
rise on the coast lines of the world shows that available real estate
diminishes greatly. Examples: In Louisiana Baton Rouge will be waterfront
(New Orleans is gone). The southern third of Florida is under water. Lower
Manhattan, up to the Village is good fishing, and official Washington DC is
submerged. On the other side of the world, Beijing (now in the interior of
China) is beachfront. The endgame is a climate change of such proportions
that you have to go back 65 million years to the time when the dinosaurs
disappeared. If you want all the pretty pictures etc go to
www.architecture2030.org 

This could be yet another example of conspiracy theory going crazy combined
with severe Eco-hysteria. It could be except that a rather interesting group
of people are paying a lot of attention. The one that caught my eye was the
AIA - the American Institute of Architecture, an organization never known
for its radical views. It turns out that buildings (or all sorts) contribute
in excess of 50% of greenhouse gasses to the environment. Frankly this
figure blew me away for it is vastly in excess of such things as Industry
and Transportation. The AIA response is to advise its membership to seek a
50% reduction in emissions in the next 10 years! The governor of New Mexico
has set a similar target with an executive order, and apparently, other
governors are moving is a similar direction.

So what does all this have to do with us here in the OS Community? Leaving
aside the obvious personal self interest, I believe we have both the
opportunity and the responsibility to offer what we have in terms of
knowledge and experience. Obviously there is a "real business issue" with
lots of complexity, diversity, conflict/passion with a decision time of
yesterday. More directly, Open Space is the only approach that I know of
which has the capacity to enable large groups of people to deal with
humongous stress and complexity in a quick, efficient, and economical
manner. Obviously there are other things out there, and I love them all, but
in this case they are just too slow and costly. At least that is what I
think. 

And the group in New Mexico, once they got into the Open Space apparently
came to the same conclusion.  Most of these people worked in New Mexico, but
a number were part of a quickly growing international effort to rally the
troops. The individual who made the presentation is off to China this week
for a similar presentation to senior government officials. Anyhow, I made
bold to offer our assistance world wide, if asked. I think we will get some
takers. I also think we might be a little pro-active by seeking out the
local architects, etc.

I am desperately hopeful that this is an acute case of Crying Wolf, Fire, or
whatever. But on the off chance that the wolf is really there, the fire
already started, to say nothing of the flood - I think we are in for some
interesting times. The End of Quiet time.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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