The End of Quiet Time

Tue Mar 7 10:20:46 PST 2006

Thank you so much for sharing this very important piece of information.  In our 
work in holding space, we are to allow, trust, help create a space for people 
to have whatever experience is needed in the time it takes to happen.  Their 
agenda, their time.  I struggle personally with the need in issues like these 
to step forward and put out the calling question.  Gather people together for 
purpose.  Our agenda (the global one), with very little time to wait.  

Thank you for inspiring me this morning.

Best regards,
Georganne Oldham
604 868 9531
Vancouver, BC Canada

uoting Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>:

> 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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