Saturday, March 23, 2019

La Tierra Segmentada: El fin o la transformación del Capitalismo y el ocaso del Antropoceno

La Tierra Segmentada: El fin o la transformación del
Capitalismo y el ocaso del Antropoceno

by Fernando Gularte, a friend of this blog

http://www.comerciazo.com.uy/pdf/Ensayo_Clifi.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2hpVQhEJqunbs92n20rAOTkliBHSNvj_Ii9l_sWeOmHMYGoM5nWOALYNs

En este trabajo trataré de relacionar conceptos centrales que forman parte de
la vida del Hombre. Esto, con la intención de provocar algunas instancias de
reflexión que permitan discutir algunas posibles respuestas a cuestiones que
irán surgiendo en el desarrollo de las siguientes líneas.

La Naturaleza y el Hombre

Sabemos que mucho antes de la aparición del Hombre en la faz de la Tierra, ya
existía la vida. Somos, al menos hasta el día de hoy, el producto final de una
sucesión de especies en una escala evolutiva.
Hasta cierto momento de nuestra Historia; junto a distintas especies de
animales, fuimos agentes biológicos que interactuaban con la Naturaleza,
situados en la cúspide de una pirámide formada por estas especies, debido al
alto grado de desarrollo de nuestro cerebro.
Creamos civilizaciones en la Mesopotamia, en China, en Grecia, en Egipto, en
Roma. Creamos cultura y conocimiento. En esta evolución, logramos estadios
de desarrollo e inteligencia cada vez más elevados. Así nos fuimos apartando
cada vez más de otras especies, además de nuestros antepasados homínidos.
Mientras tanto, transcurría la época del Holoceno.
2
Podríamos pensar, en resumen, que fuimos de alguna forma creados por
interacciones naturales determinadas, como lo fueron las demás especies, y
que por tanto, como agentes biológicos, estaríamos sujetos o condicionados
por la Naturaleza y sus códigos evolutivos.
Los Siglos XIX, XX y XXI: La aparición y dominio del
Capitalismo
En nuestro afán por superarnos a nosotros mismos cada día, lograr mejores
niveles de confort, mayor poder y dominio, fuimos tomando un control mayor
sobre el mundo natural, sobre sus recursos, sus fuentes de energía. Logramos
dominar, cielo, mar y tierra, mediante nuestras creaciones materiales. Surgió el
papel moneda a modo de intercambio entre distintos bienes y servicios, junto a
distintos grados de importancia y valor que eran definidos por lo que
conoceríamos después como Mercado. Con este último concepto, la mayoría
de las veces poco visible, de cierta naturaleza abstracta, nació el mundo del
Capital.
Quizás el Capital sea visto por ciertos sectores de nuestra sociedad como un
arma moderna, un instrumento de poder, que permite refugiarnos en pequeños
clanes ( élites ) y defendernos de los otros ( grandes masas humanas,
animales, naturaleza ), como lo hacían nuestros antepasados cuando
descubrieron que con un garrote o el fémur de un gran animal, podían matar a
otros animales para alimentarse, o incluso defenderse de intrusos ajenos a sus
comunidades que buscasen apropiarse de sus alimentos, mujeres o cuevas.
3
En este caso:
¿No sería el Capital acaso; más allá de ser una creación intelectual, un
elemento natural más, dispuesto al servicio del Hombre?
El cerebro humano fue evolucionando a lo largo de miles de años; el ADN, las
células y por tanto las neuronas del Homo Sapiens, seguramente poseen una
naturaleza distinta a la que poseía el Hombre de Neardental.
¿Porqué hubo un momento en la Historia en que el Hombre logró utilizar un
garrote a su beneficio, y antes no? Esta misma pregunta nos la podríamos
hacer, con el fuego; hubo un antes y un después.
Lo que trato de fundamentar, es que el Capitalismo puede verse como un
elemento inherente a la naturaleza humana, a su Biología, un elemento más de
supervivencia, y también de lucha contra el miedo.
Capitalismo y Antropoceno
Es difícil pensar en la aparición del Antropoceno, sin pensar en el Capitalismo.
¿Sería posible la existencia del primero sin el segundo? Es decir, ¿La
desaparición del Capitalismo implicaría la extinción del Antropoceno?
Si el Capitalismo es un factor inherente al Hombre, ¿Sería ahora imposible la
existencia del Hombre sin el Antropoceno, como lo era en sus primeras
etapas?
El punto de quiebre o quizás los puntos de quiebre, en los cuales el Hombre
fue abandonando su estado de agente biológico para convertirse en agente
4
geológico y por tanto creador de la época del Antropoceno, ocurrió en plena
expansión del Capitalismo, y de aquí las interrogantes anteriores.
Podríamos pensar en la existencia de “ciclos de refinamiento naturales del
Capitalismo” en el futuro, y que en algún momento dado, podamos abandonar
naturalmente ese ciclo, y continuar en las siguientes eras evolutivas sin
desaparecer como especie. Este punto, lo desarrollaré más adelante, con un
poco más de detalle.
Antropoceno y la posibilidad de un desastre nuclear
No es descabellado pensar que como especie podríamos desaparecer, al
pensar en una catástrofe nuclear de gran magnitud. Creo que entre todas las
amenazas existentes, la relacionada con la tecnología nuclear, si acaso no es
la más importante, estaría entre las primeras, entre las más probables.
Pensemos y analicemos el maquiavélico y letal cóctel al que estamos
expuestos.
Disponemos de centrales nucleares distribuidas por distintos países en todo el
planeta, que generan toneladas de residuos radiactivos que son enviados en su
mayoría a países pobres. Diseminamos así, cantidades potencialmente letales
de veneno, que harían desaparecer comunidades enteras, sin dejar ningún
rastro de vida.
No solo la basura generada es preocupante, sino también el hecho de que
estas centrales están a cargo de un grupo reducido de personas, que pueden
cometer errores, sumiendo a grandes áreas pobladas en catástrofes, como la
5
sucedida en Chernobyl, en 1986. Hasta el día de hoy, y por muchísimo tiempo
más, ciudades como Pripyat, permanecerán completamente deshabitadas.
Ciudades fantasmas por al menos cientos de años debido a la alta radiactivad
existente.
Si a esto, unimos casos como lo sucedido en las inmediaciones de Fukushima,
en el año 2011, en donde, fenómenos naturales como sismos y tsunamis se
unieron, desafiando las probabilidades y provocando la destrucción de una
gran central nuclear, a escasos 200 km de uno de los centros económicos más
importantes del mundo, liberando altas cantidades de radionucleidos a la
atmósfera y al océano; el futuro no resulta muy alentador.
Sin olvidar, la amenaza de conflictos bélicos nucleares, o simplemente
conflictos bélicos que pondrían en riesgo la futura existencia de las centrales
nucleares energéticas que menciono más arriba, el panorama resulta aún más
aterrador. Las pruebas nucleares que aún realizan países como Corea del
Norte, creando nuevas regiones estériles, ennegrecen aún más la situación.
El cambio climático, las catástrofes naturales, la tecnología nuclear existente,
junto a la negligencia y ambición de poder humanos, son factores que aunque
no queramos reconocerlo, se encuentran interrelacionados y nos ponen con un
pie en el precipicio. Todas consecuencias de un Capitalismo salvaje,
posiblemente creador único del Antropoceno.
¿Con qué herramientas contamos aquellos ciudadanos que deseamos revertir
este camino de autodestrucción? ¿Cómo minimizar estos aspectos del
Antropoceno?
6
En cierto modo, mucho daño ya se ha hecho. Es improbable que se desarrollen
en el mediano plazo, tecnologías tendientes a reducir los niveles de basura
radiactiva que sigue aumentando año tras año. Quizás es uno de los desafíos
más grandes del quehacer científico de las próximas décadas
Chernobyl y Fukushima: Paraísos Radiactivos
Pero aún en uno de los peores escenarios, el desarrollo de la vida es posible.
Una muestra es lo que ha sucedido en las inmediaciones de Chernobyl en
Ucrania, y más recientemente en Fukushima, Japón.
En los bosques cercanos a la extinta central nuclear de Chernobyl, la vida ha
florecido. Distintas especies de animales y vegetales se han desarrollado
desde la catástrofe en 1986. Lobos, osos, ciervos , insectos y plantas han
poblado estos lugares, formando verdaderos paraísos radiactivos. Y en parte,
ha sido posible debido a la ausencia del hombre. Los niveles de radiación son
muy altos, y más a nivel del suelo. Los animales consumen alimentos con altas
concentraciones radiactivas y también diseminan de alguna forma esa
contaminación, ya que es posible que se desplacen a zonas de radiactividad
menor.
También está el caso más reciente de Fukushima, con sus jabalíes radiactivos.
No solamente estas especies han sobrevivido, sino que además coexisten en
gran número. Lo que se ha investigado también es que ha disminuido la
diversidad y que algunas de las especies que existían desde antes del
accidente, han sufrido mutaciones.
7
Tal vez aquí la Naturaleza también nos esté mostrando algo: La vida es
posible, en otro ambiente, con una menor diversidad ( ya que algunas especies
más sensibles han desaparecido por no poder adaptarse al nuevo medio ).
Este ambiente podría pensarse como artificial, consecuencia de errores
humanos. Pero también, podríamos pensarlo como una forma de selección
natural, en donde sobreviven los más aptos. Las acciones del Hombre,
pensado como ente biológico, también podrían entrar dentro de un marco
natural, al formar éste parte de la Naturaleza.
La Tierra en la era postnuclear como Espacio Segmentado
Los dos ejemplos anteriores nos pueden llevar a pensar en un futuro
postnuclear: La Tierra como un espacio dividido en zonas. Podríamos pensar
en tres básicamente:
Zonas convertidas en paraísos radiactivos sin presencia humana.
Zonas sin radiactividad habitadas por el hombre. Islas.
Zonas híbridas, con radiactividad y presencia humana
Podría ocurrir que luego de una o varias catástrofes, que si bien aquí
pensamos en la nuclear, como eje central de nuestro análisis, podrían ser de
otra índole, aquellas personas que logren sobrevivir ya sea en “ Islas no
contaminadas “, o en zonas híbridas, quizás hayan “aprendido la lección”
acerca de las peligrosas consecuencias que puede traer una sociedad
capitalista desmedida en la cual se concentren ciertos tipos de poderes.
Podríamos pensar en nuevas sociedades que si bien tengan ciertos tintes
8
capitalistas, estos sean limitados o controlados. Lo podríamos ver como un
“refinamiento capitalista”, por parte de una sociedad que de alguna manera, ha
dado un paso siguiente en la evolución. Quizás lo podríamos ver como un
pequeño eslabón en la cadena, con posibles cambios biológicos.
¿Por qué si ciertas especies animales, han mutado y sobrevivido en
condiciones letales y lograron reproducirse y aumentar su población, no lo
podrían hacer los humanos?
¿Sería una segunda oportunidad para el Hombre de convertirse nuevamente
en un agente meramente biológico dejando atrás el antiguo Antropoceno?
¿Se aprovecharía esta oportunidad, o se crearía un nuevo Antropoceno, con un
nuevo capitalismo, generando así un nuevo ciclo de autodestrucción?
Ciclos de Refinamiento naturales del Capitalismo
Sospecho, que si bien como humanos, podemos cometer los mismos errores,
los haríamos de forma distinta, de algún modo nos podríamos volver a
equivocar pero de un modo “más inteligente”. Es decir podríamos repetir el
ciclo :
Hombre como agente biológico -- Capitalismo -- Antropoceno --
Catástrofe Nuclear -- Zonas Segmentadas ---> Nuevo agente biológico
, pero de forma distinta, quizás produciendo efectos sobre nuestro planeta cada
vez menos devastadores. A estos ciclos, los podríamos llamar “ Ciclos de
Refinamiento Capitalistas”, y los podríamos ver como ciclos de selección
9
natural. Tal vez, tengamos como misión, interrumpir incluso el primer ciclo, que
ya puede estar próximo a cerrarse, y que creo que aún estamos a tiempo de
evitarlo, o aprender del primero, para no volver a repetirlo y entrar en un
segundo ciclo. O en el peor de los casos, repetir tantos ciclos sucesivos como
sea necesario, hasta superar el Capitalismo y evolucionar hacia estadios
mayores de inteligencia. Siempre teniendo en cuenta el hecho de que algunos
de nosotros podamos sobrevivir a estos ciclos y perpetuar nuestra especie, y
teniendo en cuenta las posibles diferencias en el formato biológico.
Definiendo un Futuro distinto
Aún como meras creaciones naturales, podemos diseñar desde el Hoy, un
futuro distinto. Escapar a esos ciclos que se cerrarían de manera muy dolorosa,
más aún si imaginamos un mundo el cual hemos abandonado sin mejorarlo en
ningún aspecto, sino por el contrario.
Nuestras sociedades tienen la capacidad organizativa y ciertas herramientas
como la democracia, la educación, la ciencia, la tecnología, el arte y la ética,
entre tantas otras, que puestas a su servicio, podrían evitar catástrofes como
las desarrolladas más arriba.
Pero también existe un factor que no depende de nosotros como humanos y
que escapa a nuestra razón, y es el hecho de venir codificados “de fábrica”, y
que en última instancia no seremos nosotros quienes crearemos o
diseñaremos un futuro distinto para nosotros mismos, o para las especies que
nos sucederán. ¿0 si?
10
Del polvo venimos y al polvo volveremos, y la Tierra seguramente continuará
en su evolución, con o sin nosotros, porque como especie humana somos
ínfimos, ante la Naturaleza, y más aún ante el Universo.

"Jeopardy" TV quiz show goes cli-fi in episode 57 with host Alex Trebek on March 20, while Oprah Winfrey plugs the genre in ''O'' magazine

'Jeopardy' goes cli-fi on Alex Trebek show and Oprah Winfrey's branded magazine "O" lists seven important cli-fi novels to read in the magazine's ''EARTH DAY'' issue for April 2019

by staff writer with agencies

Hollywood is catching up with the ''cli-fi'' buzzword these days, if the popular TV show "Jeopardy" is any indication.

Let me explain: On my cable TV set in Taiwan, where I can watch over 100 channels from around the world in over a dozen languages, I cannot get "Jeopardy'' and to be honest I've never watched the program in my entire life. But I know what it is, of course, and how it is set up and who the host is: the one and only Alex Trebek, a Canadian native of Ukrainian heritage who now works in Hollywood and has been a naturalized American citizen since 1998.

So imagine my surprise last week when a friendly college English professor in New Jersey named Juda Bennett notified me by email that episode 57 on March 20 aired nationwide featuring a ''Jeopardy'' ''cli-fi" clue and its correct answer of ''climate fiction.'' Contestant Lindsey Shultz got it right and earned some money in the process.

All this was told to me by Juda in a brief email message that arrived out of the blue. Surprised and delighted, I Googled to a video and the transcript of the show.

Juda wrote: "Hi Dan, you contacted me about my "Walking in the Anthropocene" class a while back and so now I am contacting you to make sure you know that your term, cli-fi, was a 'Jeopardy' question yesterday. Actually, they gave the question away when they asked what does cli-fi refer to, and I believe they referenced Kim Stanley Robinson's work."

Juda, an author, literary theorist and professor at The College of New Jersey, added: "Yes, it was the March 20 show where Jonathan Lindeen won. I looked for the episode but I don't know when they post these things. The clue -- if I remember correctly --- comes on the program about 3/4 of the way in."

My Google searches led to me to an online transcript of episode 57 with this initial clue: ''The planet's in trouble in the novel 'New York 2140' by Kim Stanley Robinson, part of the ''cli-fi'' subgenre, short for this.''

Lindsey clicked her stage buzzer before the other two contestants and got the answer right: "climate fiction."

Here's a link to the transcript on the second page of the ''Jeopardy'' website:

http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6245

"Yes, they did give it away, but 'Jeopardy' increasingly gives away the answers," Professor Bennett told me. "It is difficult to assess because the rest of the world is just catching up to you (and the term you coined) my friend. There are even people who do not believe in anthropogenic climate change. This reminds me of a 1980s Jeopardy questions about AIDS, which was also a question that they gave away, but when I saw it during the early 1980s our American president at that time had still never said the AIDS word in public. Words are power.''

This month has been a busy month for the cli-fi genre in literary circles, and the "Jeopardy" mention was just icing on the global warming cake, so to speak.

On March 13, a journalist and book reviewer who has been writing a monthly ''cli-fi trends" column for the Chicago Review of Books for the past two years wrote an article for the Oprah Winfrey magazine "O" headlined "7 Books That Provocatively Tackle Climate Change: They Each Fit Into a New Genre: Cli-Fi."

https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/books/a26811549/climate-change-books/

Oprah! Who knew?

"O" introduced the book reviewer this way: ''Environmental identifies an intriguing epidemic: the proliferation of provocative novels in which the enemy is climate change.''

"As news of the oceans warming and icebergs melting grows ever more urgent, the light drizzle of fiction about eco-disaster spawned by J.G. Ballard’s ahead-of-its-time sci-fi thriller 'The Drowned World' (1962) has gone full-on flood, with apocalyptic visions from a diverse array of authors hitting the mainstream," she told "O" readers online worldwide.

"In Barbara Kingsolver’s 'Flight Behavior,' pollution and other biospheric disruptions throw a colony of butterflies off their migration course to disastrous effect, while in Claire Vaye Watkins’s 'Gold Fame Citrus,' a California besieged by sandstorms illuminates social inequities and the excesses of Hollywood. So robust is the growing genre that it’s earned its own name: cli-fi (short for climate fiction)," she noted.

And then she introduced the following cli-fi novels: "Clade" by James Bradley; ''The Water Knife'' by Paolo Bacigalupi; ''The Year of the Flood'' by Margaret Atwood; ''American War'' by Omar El Akkad; "Blackfish City" by Sam J. Miller; ''New York 2140'' by Kim Stanley Robinson; ''Salvage the Bones'' by Jesmyn Ward.

From ''Jeopardy'' to ''O,'' the PR doesn't get much better than this.

And there's more to come in the rest of 2019 and the 2020s.

SEE ALSO:
https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2019/10/18/remembering-his-hometown-from-across-the-world/

A new cli-fi short story by Boston writer Vandana Singh titled "Reunion"

Mr Shenoy notes:

"Capping the anthology is [a cli-fi tale,] a climate fiction story about the language of Gaia herself – which in itself is worth the price of admission – by the author of Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories, Vandana Singh, ''Reunion,'' which is at once a [cli-fi] meditation on where the future of cities and urban living lies in the context of a sustainable future and set in a climate-world world where Mumbai has become an archipelago.

What does ''kalpabigyan'' mean?

Dr Arin Basu in New Zealand tells me:

[[ It's "Kalpabigyan" (Kalpa == "fantasy", "bigyan == "Science"), ........this means "science fiction", a term coined in Bengali by the author and sci-fi writer Adrish Bardhan. Kalpabiswa Kalpabigyan is @KalpabiswaWeb is the _only_ bengali language magazine devoted to sci-fi.]]

and

T Ravi Chandran a professor in India on Facebook tells me Dan Bloom ......''Kalpa refers to (in Hindu and Buddhist tradition) an immense period of time, reckoned as 4,320 million human years, and considered to be the length of a single cycle of the cosmos (or ‘day of Brahma’) from creation to dissolution. The word implies something that is dystopian.the length of a single cycle of the cosmos (or ‘day of Brahma’) from creation to dissolution. The word implies something that is dystopian.

South Asian based writers and South Asian based writers living overseas in North America and Europe are a hotbed of brilliant cli-fi story writing, as well as writings in all the related genres and together, whether in Bombay or Boston, capture by the Bengali word "kalpabigyan (encompassing literature that is "science-dependent," "science-based," "science mystery" and "science"), and there have been many brilliant anthologies from writers in the region or born in the region and now naturalized citizens of other countries in other regions of the world; the latest entry to the field is Gollancz's new Book of South Asian Science Fiction, edited by Tarun Saint, the subject of a fascinating review by the blogger's friend Mr Gautham Shenoy in ''Factor Daily.''

Adrish Bardhanis credited with coining "kalpabigyan." BUT... Mr Shenoy finds fault with one element: it only features writers from the "partitioned three" (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), with no contributors from "Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives or the Tibetan Community in exile." Shenoy has called on Gollancz to revisit the book as a series with contributions from these other nations and literatures. He writes" To paraphrase the title of my favourite Billy Paul song, “Am I South Asian enough for you?” He adds: The answer would be ‘No’. For one, the anthology features only writers from the ‘partitioned three’: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The editor, Tarun K. Saint, says in his introduction that they weren’t able to reach out to writers from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives or the Tibetan Community in exile. One hopes that The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction is not a one-and-done publication, but just the first volume of many. So, subsequent anthologies could include stories from the aforementioned countries (and mayhap including even Afghanistan, each of which surely have a history of speculative literature of their own with many of them having a thriving contemporary SF scene, not least Sri Lanka) as also stories, not just from authors who write in English such as Samit Basu, Indrapramit Das, Sukanya Datta to name just a few, but also by writers such as Jayant Narlikar, Sujatha, Naiyer Masud and many others whose stories are written primarily in regional languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Assamese, etc., so that The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction grows into something true to its name and becomes for speculative fiction from the subcontinent what Gollancz’s SF/F Masterworks is for the genre as a whole.

''Climate Change Is....Confusing.'' -- a list of 100 words project in progress, please join us

UPDATED NOW WITH MORE WORDS, and we are still hoping to gather more words
Uve Be Dolezal notes ''Love your project"

Wishing Well

‏
@do_you_cli_fi_

add your words to the coments section here
or email me
or tweet to me:

"Climate change is...confusing".

And so on.

For a blog project and future podcast I'm looking for 100 single words like confusing, annoying, alarming, solvable, unfathomable, (either negative or positive words, up to you) to be sent me here. One entry or multiple entries, as you wish. RSVP . - Dan

THE LIST SO FAR: 19 words so far, we need to make it 100 words eventually, maybe 101 words,
maybe 99 words...

"Climate change is...(brief one second pause) natural.''
SPOKEN ON THE PODCAST BY A PROFESSIONAL VOICE-OVER ACTOR with a slight one-second pause after ''is''....

HASHTAG FOR TWITTER suggested by Josh W. in Tweet to this blog.

#ClimateChangeIs
#climatechangeis

Climate change is...._______ [ADD A USEFUL ONE-WORD word TO THIS LIST]

Climate change is.... exisential [suggested by Christy George via FB]
Climate Change is....real
Climate change is.... painful
Climate change is.... inevitable
Climate change is.... happening
Climate change is.... cumulative
Climate change is.... incurable
Climate change is...everywhere
Climate change is...universal
Climate change is...inescapable
Climate change is.. global
Climate change is...horrifying
Climate change is...daunting
Climate change is...terrifying
Climate change is ..solastalgia [suggestedby ______via Tweet]
Climate change is ... annoying
Climate change is ...alarming
Climate change is ...solvable
Climate change is ...unfathomable

Climate Change is .....observable [suggestedby Susan Feathers via Facebook]
Climate Change is.....unfolding [suggestedby Susan Feathers via Facebook]

Uve Be Dolezal suggested
who notes "Use or replace any words BELOW that you like. Love your project"

RE ''Climate change is ....real''

AND....

2. Painful
3. Inevitable
4. Happening
5. Cumulative
6. Incurable
7. Everywhere
8. Universal
9. Inescapable
10. Global
11. Horrifying
12. Daunting
13. Terrifying
14. solastalgia"
15. annoying
16. alarming
17. solvable
18. Unfathomable

19. 20. [Susan Feathers] observable, unfolding

21. adjustable
22. circumstance
23. jobs
24. work
25. statistics
26. facts
27. math
28. data
29. science
30. ours
31. Responsibility
32. Ecological
33. environmental
34. debt
35.
36. awareness
37. felt
38. Revolutionary
39. passive
40. divided
41. voiceless / silent
42. dumb
43. industrial
44. human
45. pivotal
46. foreboding
47. demand
48. planetary
49. emissions
50. waste
51.
52. future
53. devastation
54. Survivable
55. ignorance
56. Suffering
57. death
58. species-ist / speciestalgia
59. alarming
60. unexpected
61. extreme
62. hell
63.
64.
65. war
66. conflict
67. refugees
68. turmoil
69. opportunistic
70. generated
71. caused
72. effectable
73. cataclysmic
74. catastrophic
75. studyable
76.
77. stimulated
78. advancing
79. measurable
80. destiny
81. duty
82. obligation
83.
84. movement
85.
86. unsustainable
87. preventable
88. unifying
89. undeniable
90. dividable
91. cyclical
92. empirical
93. experienceable
94. actual
95. inequitable
96. verified
97. undeniable
98. inherited
99. irrefutable
100. Climate change is .....change.

Climate-Fiction (Cli-Fi) Game Sends Players Clues from the Future ....2014 news link

‏ @IVEInnovatIVE

On world meteorology day it could be fitting to consider the creative collaborations that Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction) is drawing together in order to help us understand and predict the impact of climate change

Read this article

: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-climate-fiction-cli-fi-game-sends-players-clues-from-the-future/

Just before 4 p.m. Sunday, a message from the future landed in Washington, D.C. Its location was sent out in a tweet: "GPS N38.872033 W77.019141, SW Waterfront Park. All seekers go!"
Trey Reyher, who was playing board games with friends at the time, decided to hop in his car and head out to find the "chronofact," the physical manifestation of a voice mail somehow sent backward in time.
Chronofacts carry messages from a variety of possible futures—some sound neighborly and pleasant, while others sound downright apocalyptic and ugly. These messages make up the basis of FutureCoast, a collaborative storytelling game that explores what various people in the present day think climate change holds for their future.

After Reyher found the geometric plastic chronofact lying near the Women's Titanic Memorial on the Potomac riverside, his task was to decode it by taking a picture. In the voice mail, a woman from the year 2063 apologizes that her aquifer design beat out a colleague's for project funding.
"I didn't mean to steal your ideas. I know that our aquifer designs really look the same, and I'm sorry that the one I submitted won the commission," she said. "But I want to work with you on it. It's a big project, and we'll be bringing water back into the center of L.A. I think we could really use your brains here. I want to make this right. Give me a call."
In another message from 2065, a man tells his business partners that Arctic sea ice is returning but that their drilling wells in the Chukchi Sea are not equipped to handle the icy conditions. In one from 2039, a mom tells her pregnant daughter to consider leaving California to raise her baby somewhere with a better water supply and farmable land.
A 3-month immersion in 'cli-fi'
FutureCoast is a three-month-long climate fiction, or "cli-fi," project created by Columbia University's Polar Partnership with funding from the National Science Foundation. One part of the game involves participants hunting for physical chronofacts that have been planted in cities across the United States. The other involves people calling in from around the world to leave their own "voice mail from the future," which is added to the FutureCoast website.
The project seeks to reach the public on a personal level. There's lots of scientific information available on carbon dioxide levels, temperature rise, ice melt and other aspects of climate change, but these numbers are difficult to relate to, said Sara Thacher, one of the FutureCoast creators.

"Scientific models show sea level might rise, but it doesn't say how we're going to adapt to that and what it means on a personal level," she said. "That's what FutureCoast is really all about; it's asking you to envision what your personal response or the response of your children or the young people in your life might be to the outcomes of climate change."Reyher, who works as a game design consultant, said he was compelled to find the chronofact out of a love for exploration. As he searched for the voice mail, he noticed he was also exploring his own concept of climate change in a much more tangible way.
"In the process of walking around the park looking for the chronofact, I was thinking, 'What does this park look like in 50 years when the rivers rise and the landscape changes?'" he said.
"There's clear data the climate is changing, that the planet is shifting in ways we somewhat understand but don't fully understand," he added. "I think the messages FutureCoast gives with voice mails bring a more emotional and empathetic response to people who may not understand the effects climate change will have on their lives in decades to come."

Adaptation, innovation and grief
Each voice mail engages with climate change in a unique way. In one voice mail from 2050, a woman in Alaska describes a community of floating houses, presumably made in response to sea-level rise.
"Hey, Gina. It's Kendra. Hey, I just remembered you were bringing your house over to visit this week, so I thought I better let you know I've moved out of Cordova North Pod 2 just over to our vacation place. I've got the house over at Hartney Bay now," she said.

The woman goes on to give her friend directions, noting that her home is at "a newly built island" that's not on the maps yet. In this imagined future, just how much land is underwater?
Other messages paint a bleaker picture where little or no climate adaptation and mitigation has taken place. Some refer to power outages, lethally high temperatures and school lockdowns due to poor air quality.
In one eerie voice mail, a young man says hi to his friend then suddenly notices a "wall of water" moving rapidly toward him. Then there's static, followed by panicked yells and swooshes, until the line goes dead.
Other messages paint a decidedly more hopeful picture. In one voice mail, a man asks his neighbor to turn on his "windjam" to help meet local energy demand over the weekend. In a message from 2033, a mother congratulates her son on his new job working on the high-speed electric train and adds that he should consider upgrading his old, beloved Tesla.
It's not just the politics, it's you
While the voice mails tackle climate change in different ways, few, if any, are politicized. Ken Eklund, the veteran designer behind FutureCoast and the popular alternate reality game World Without Oil, said using a fictional narrative to tackle a difficult issue encourages people to suspend judgment.

"We have been made accustomed to the idea that essentially it's climate change science versus climate change deniers and that is the conversation," he said. "What I think FutureCoast is really discovering is that if you go to the people, the conversation is not a polarized discussion. It's really one where a different set of questions emerge about how to adapt."
Yesterday, FutureCoast stopped collecting voice mails and sending out chronofacts for people to find. In the coming months, the creators will analyze messages. What were some of the most prominent concerns? The most popular solutions? And how closely did people's voice mails matched up with actual climate science? Their findings will eventually be presented in a paper.
Stephanie Pfirman, professor of environmental science at Barnard College who holds a joint position at the Columbia University Earth Institute, said the goal of the game wasn't necessarily to educate people on climate research. It was to get people today, who are in a position to address the issue, to simply think about it.
"Some people say they are very aware of the climate change issue, but others are not so engaged," Pfirman said.
To reach people, "stories really help a lot," she said. "It brings the issue home."

Friday, March 22, 2019

Mainstream culture is no longer quiet about climate change, insists cli-fi arts and culture maven Lucy Jones in the UK

Lucy Jones, the arts and culture reporter for the Independent newspaper in London, offers a very important statement: "In the wake of the massive devastation caused by hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, heat waves worldwide over the past few years, mainstream culture is finally waking up now about the risks of runaway climate change."

Her thought is big wide global wake up call!

For example, a new concept album from the 20-something artsy cutesy Ukrainian-Canadian singer/songwriter ''Grimes'' (Claire Boucher is her real name) and many new new novels suggest we are be entering a new era of climate-related stories about this time we live in. And cli-fi novels and movies are leading the way.

*Case in point: the popular American TV quiz show "Jeopardy" hosted by Alex Trebak recently used the cli-fi term as a clue for on its quest panel questions. It went down like this on the March 20 show, archived as Episode 57 for 2019:

Clue: ''The planet's in trouble in the novel "New York 2140" by Kim Stanley Robinson, which is part of the ''cli-fi'' subgenre; what is this term short for?''

The correct answer was "climate fiction." Panelist Lindsey answered it correctly.

The subject of climate change in novels and movies is ripe for Hollywood movies and stories of corporate derring-do, according to Lucy Jones. And as the impact of a changing climate accelerates and millions of young people mobilize in school strikes, music and television and film and fiction are starting to capture the zeitgeist of ecological and climate anxiety, according to The Cli-Fi Report.

Jones cites examples of environmental art such as of Hollywood cli-fi thrillers (Waterworld, The Day After Tomorrow), novels (Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake; John Lanchester’s The Wall), songs (Anohni’s “4 Degrees”, Radiohead’s “Idioteque”, and Pixies’ “Monkey Gone To Heaven”).

The songwriter Toby Gad, who co-wrote the charity single “Love Song to the Earth” with artists including Paul McCartney, Natasha Bedingfield and Sean Paul, talked retrospectively about the challenge of writing about the environment without sounding “preachy” or too “doomsdayish.”

While we don’t yet have the vocabulary to express what is happening to humanity and planet Earth at this point in history, cli-fi novels are getting there. And "Earth Emotions," a new book by this blogger's Australian friend Dr Glenn Albrecht, speaks to this need for a new language to tell ecological stories. He coined the term "solastalgia" 20 years ago and it has made its mark.

Albrecht is most known for the concept of solastalgia, which means “the pain and distress caused by ongoing loss of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory.” Albrecht offers a framework within which to understand and acknowledge the dissociation of humans from the living world. With a new language and means of expression, a wider array of cli-fi stories from diverse voices can hopefully be heard.

So yes, cli-fi novels and movies, within popular culture east and west, in dozens of languages,can serve a wake-up call to this planet where we all now sing the climate protest anthem "We All Live in the Yellow Anthrocene." And yes, stories, music and art can move us in a way that hard facts don’t, according to the Cli-Fi Report.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

JEOPARDY televison show on March 20, 2019 used ''cli-fi'' term as a question (see link here)

UPDATE:

#Jeopardy TV quiz show March 20 Episode 57

#CLUE:----- ''The planet's in trouble in "New York 2140" by Kim Stanley Robinson, part of the ''cli-fi'' subgenre, what is this term short for?''----

ANSWER IS: "climate fiction"---

LINK http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6245

#CliFi

A friend of mine in New Jersey, a professor who teaches classes on climate issues and movies and noves, wrote to me the other day, by email, saying:

Hi Dan,

You contacted me last year asking about my Anthropocene fiction class at my college and so now I am contacting you to make sure you know that your term, ''cli-fi,'' was a Jeopardy question on March 20.

Actually, they gave the question away when they asked ''what does cli-fi refer to?" and I believe they referenced Kim Stanley Robinson's work.

See if you can find the video link on Youtube or the Jeopardy Facebook page, they archive every show immediately upon airing them.

In this March 20 episode, the clue occurred about 3/4 the way into the show, and it was the show where Jonathan Lindeen won.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcJrGAnXXo [MIGHT NOT BE ONLINE]

Published on Mar 20, 2019

There is a Special Introduction before the #Jeopardy Final Jeopardy begin. I hope you enjoy it.

#Jeopardy TV quiz show March 20 Episode 57 #CLUE:----- ''The planet's in trouble in "New York 2140" by Kim Stanley Robinson, part of the ''cli-fi'' subgenre, what is this term short for?''----ANSWER IS: "climate fiction"--- LINK http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6245 #CliFi

WIKIPEDIA: "Cli-Fi" as a 21st C. literary genre / Tweeting 24/7 at @do_you_cli_fi_

WIKIPEDIA: "Cli-Fi" as a 21st C. literary genre @do_you_cli_fi_

3-part THREAD on #ClimateTwitter

1/3

"THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW" and "FROZEN" are basically the same movie, according to #ClimateTwitter. 1. Global climate apocalypse for fixing family. 2. Also planet fixes itself and ice spreads w alarming rapidity. 3. There is a gesture toward human responsibility/culpability....

2/3 ..that is then shifted to some mystical transcendent cause which means that the problem will be fixed with little change in human activity.

[SEE ALSO "2012" movie. Comments? Rsvp here.......]

3/3 hat tip to two Hollywood climate film experts on Twitter professors Jeffrey Insko and Brian Connolly

see also #clifi in Hollywood website http://korgw101.Blogspot.com

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Meghan Markle: the polite revolutionary in the palace

anne mcelvoyVerified account

@annemcelvoy

Senior Editor @TheEconomist, head of @Economistradio. I present BBC R3 Free Thinking & R4 Moral Mazer. Lon Standard columnist. Analogue mother in a digital age

London

"The right think.. she is irritating and preachy while the new, punitive, left is not keen to identify with rich royals with extensive shoe collections" Via @annemcelvoy

Her liberal views rile the right and left, but an encounter with the Duchess of Sussex leaves Anne McElvoy sure her campaigning will not be silenced

reporting by Anne McElvoy in the UK

March 10 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

From left, Adwoa Aboah, Julia Gillard, the Duchess of Sussex, Anne McElvoy and Angie Murimirwa, executive director Africa for the charity Camfed — From left to right, Adwoa Aboah, Julia Gillard, **the Duchess of Sussex**, Anne McElvoy and Angie Murimirwa, executive director Africa for the charity Camfed. [photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS]

She’s the Duchess of Woke, imposing trendy views on stunned courtiers and preaching women’s empowerment, a presumptuous “Yoko Ono to the royal Beatles”. Or......she’s just the wake-up call a dusty Establishment needs, enthusing the once-laddish Prince Harry with the cause of girls’ education in poor countries as the key to “this equality we’re pursuing” and curbing the (real) monthly curse for so many girls and women of dire period poverty, which keeps them out of the schoolroom and the workplace for want of sanitary products.
A reputation for having fitted the Cinderella glass slipper and “capturing” larky Prince Harry has been exchanged since her marriage last May for a role as practised glass-ceiling smasher.
Deconstructing the artist formally known as Meghan Markle is a…

The Three Little Pigs Grow The Coolest Cubby in the Universe

The Three Little Pigs Grow The Coolest Cubby in the Universe

the climactic sequel synopsis

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. They were about to become very significant climate change reversal agents but at this stage they didn’t even know it. They were just trying to relax and have fun being wolf free....

One day the three little pigs notice the wild flowers starting to disappear and rabbits holes appearing under the brick walls of their house. The pigs realised they needed a Wolf again to keep the rabbits moving.

The new wolf tells them all about the “worse than huff and puff” insidious problems of climate change. He helps the pigs devise a new type of high fun, comfortable, tasty and low cost, low energy and low environmental impact shelter.

It had to be relocatable and able to handle floods, tornadoes and bushfires made worse by climate change. They set about building and growing a new type of retractable room shelter that rolls in and out of a food vine covered igloo shaped structure called an Agloo. It works so well and the pigs are so happy with it that they realise it could also become a component for a new type of eco city and civilisation. The pigs decide to help the wolf find a lady wolf and set up their own Agloo nearby that grows lots of herbs to feed (and go with) the rabbits!

Cheers

Callum Morrison

Australia.

The conventional “Tiny House” movement shrinks conventional buildings to their minimum size and cost. This article is about a breakaway prototype tiny room that......

Hi Dan,

Here is a draft article l have prepared that you might be interested in.

It explores how one day we might be able to live in our gardens.

It still needs some work and l am not sure where to publish it. I guess it comes under a new genre called CLI-Fi except this is real liveable science fiction!

Regards

Callum Morrison in AUSTRALIA

(Picture:Dynamic Passive Solar Health Tram)

The Tiny RoomMovement

By Callum Morrison

The conventional “Tiny House” movement shrinks conventional buildings to their minimum size and cost.

This article is about a breakaway prototype tiny room that literally moves out of a garden shed through a specially constructed garden and pushes into new open design frontiers and warping of conventional permaculture zones.

Zone 0,1,2,3 becomes 0..1, 0.2, 0.3 and threaded through 1,2,3!

This warp creates an escape into a habitat of your own making to help rejuvenate you for going back out to tackle the problems of the outside world.

For years I dreamed about constructing one of these and have explored lots of design options and potential in recurring and very realistic dreams. While laying in bed it is easy to close your eyes and imagine the fresh air, with distinct aromas from tomato and carrot plants, buzzing insects, lushes gleaming green leaves of loaded fruiting plants and amplified warmth of whatever winter sunlight is available. I close my eyes and go there often to work on design questions and plan my work/fun schedule. As it has started to materialize it is even more amazing than I imagined and I would like to share with you the overview.

I have called my moving room a “Health Tram” given that it is a renovated trampoline on tiny wheels and moves on wooden tracks. It can either be thought of as a shrunken building, a new type of garden furniture or an extension to your clothes to trap or avoid heat to a desired comfort. Just make sure the suitable panels are in place for the next few hours of weather and then climb aboard into what is a sort of future eco nest. Before you go diving into this new frontier, please read the disclaimer at the end of this article.

Time appears to slow down and the infra-red warmth of the sun is amplified, trapped and UV filtered for you to safely bask, smile and drift off to sleep. The idea came from watching dogs and cats find optimal comfort locations to rest and sleep in the back yard. I saw how they moved through the day so I decided to construct my own adjustable microclimate creating apparatus. In effect I have taken apart the weather, window and other parts and layers of a conventional building and garden and constructed them along a track so they can be better accessed and separately and customized to the needs of the occupant/s...

The health tram rolls on tracks only a few times its own length through the garden but don’t be deceived by the short length of track. This is a vehicle for more comfortably and ethically travelling around the sun each year. The objective is better health and less environmental and financial impact than all other built environments by innovatively reducing compromises. It is the closest you are going to have to a spacecraft in your back yard.

Why would you take a 15 year old trampoline, turn it upside down, place it on wooden legs with castors in rails and place an old tent on top of it with roll bars? For all the positive reasons you go camping and even more aspects that make sense and support life.  The ‘roll’ bars are actually ‘role’ bars that support an assortment of different panels that are customized every few hours according to where the sun is and what the weather is doing. This is just like you do with your clothing but this case it is climate changing your personal space, not just your body.

It frees you up to wear what you like and relax without having to worry about the static charge, off gassing and the fragmenting contaminants of synthetic clothing. Sometimes the weather changes, so like the sails on a yacht, you need to make appropriate adjustments. You soon work out whether you have made the right adjustments.

It is the close up arms reach food garden outlook, fresh air, lively plants and animals, comfortable passive energy systems, bird calls and clouds in a wide open sky that improve health. The floor is a virtual sleeping hammock on the old trampoline or it can also accommodate a seat or bean bag. Note the trampoline base has two ropes under it to reduce the sag, provide support along your back when sleeping and as a safety precaution if the rotting thread on the trampoline canvas tabs holding the springs give way. One spring noisily shot off the other day and woke me up but the other springs held!

I am proposing to use various panels to keep out dangerous UV radiation, biting insects and threats to indoor air quality while letting in and even focusing or directing fresh air, sound, tastes, aroma’s, sensations and warmth to benefit the health of the occupant and the planet.

All of these have powerful healing and health promoting attributes and together with minimal costs and environmental impact, it can make the most practical use of any time out and quality self time.

The health tram is not much larger than personal space however it opens up amplification of the senses to far beyond that of a normal building. The fresh air, sounds of nature, panoramic view out all sides and the big sky make you realize all the health, environmental and economic compromises of occupying conventional buildings. Imagine a reach out and touch room where you get to choose the whole wall and ceiling composition any time you like. It does not have to be weather or security proof because this whole room can retreat into a shed when unattended or the weather starts to turn.

Almost all buildings have a fixed view and garden. This tiny room has the choice of what vegetation types and density to look out on and a choice of fruit and vegetables within reach. The garden can easily be watched for pest activity and cared for in comfort. Imagine being able to seemingly hover over a garden bed in comfort and examine and plan its maintenance intricacies. Unlike any other human shelter, it can straddle garden beds to generate an aroma from underneath and when the conditions are right, allow you to head out into a dry balmy night in comfort, mosquito free to watch the stars and clouds. Gardens are full of alien looking creatures attacking the plants and attacking each other day and night so providing the right habitat for the good guys helping to defend your ecosystem is really important. Working out what is eating your seedlings or fruit can be done in comfort.

If extended stints or self contained versions are proposed then heavy kitchen or wet bathroom plumbing fixtures of this accommodation are proposed to stay in a shed. Some fixtures on board could be supported by roll out of an umbilical water hose and extension lead for power if desired. Trapped rain and reused water and nutrients are proposed to be processed by earthworms and then distributed to help sustain the vines for food and cooling.

The tiny room, at its minimum, is just a wooden and metal frame on casters with no walls or ceiling and just like a large hammock. Most of the summertime there is usually a shell of insect proof screens but additional reflective mirror panels, UV light filters and assorted thermal mass heat traps are utilized at other times to minimize energy consumption for heating and cooling and maximize natural comfort.. The tent is in place temporarily but by winter the flexible base of the tent and the zip door end will be retained while the rest of the tent is replaced by close fitting interchangeable walls and ceiling panels.

(picture: IMG_1075)

When out of the shade tunnel, reflecting panels open out to boost the amount of sunlight heat entering the wall. The fly screen walls and ceilings are there to protect against biting, stinging and creeping insects as well as poisonous snakes that might be following frogs up through the shade tunnel vegetation.

(frog photo IMG_1042)

It is great to be using a computer in a such a healthy space with natural light.. Sounds distract you and rest your eyes and mind. Birds are intrigued, call to let you know they are there and I find I don’t need to use my glasses as much on the computer. I guess there would be room for a pet or another person if you wanted company.

The health tram is a very creative space. When you wake up and go to unzip the door of the tent or health tram you could be anywhere you have just dreamed about…..

1.   You could be in your own back yard realizing its full accommodation potential and considering renting out your house to get ahead financially.

2.   You could be helping refugees grow and assemble their own emergency accommodation to escape terror of the past by focusing on a new and unfolding positive healthy future.

3.   You could be with a group of nomadic or indigenous peoples wanting to return to their lands in comfort to blend science and permaculture with their ancient traditions.

4.   You could be in a new type of caravan park site – not just an unserviced tent site but a health tram site with an established shade tunnel, garden and storage shed with amenities. You might be towing your standard sized flat pack health tram with you our just stay in one assembled ready on site. A fraction of the cost and impact of a conventional caravan.  How much would it take to convert my prototype into an up market version for “glamping” – glamorous camping!

5.   You could be on a theatre stage about to entertain, educate and inspire hundreds of people with several onboard and hand held cameras broadcasting to big screens to provide a glimpse into an environmentally healthy future. (See computer generated set mock up set with sun and moon simulation arching light boom for educational purposes.)

I thought about trying to write a play but maybe making this set design available and pointing out all its attributes to theatre writers and actors would result in more theatre of varying composition. Things like showing time passing with the lighting that designates the position of the sun and the moon could be really effectively used.. It could even be used to show time going backwards and become the standard set for a competition or series of small or short plays written around the same set.

(Ecliptic Boom.jpg and Set for Climate Change.jpg)

6..   You might be building one of these at your school so children can compete in competitions racing to reach certain internal air temperatures and advance garden design and productivity. Each student might be broadcasting from their own microclimate cockpit. If we got all the science and design right then one day whole school class rooms might be built into one of these rooms straddling multiple tracks through giant shade tunnels.

7.   You might be in a new type of hospital or aged care facility where bed bound people are wheeled down the sterile corridor and through some well sealed doors where the bed slots into the protective shell of panels on a powered health tram. Then the patient or automatic systems move the whole bed slowly out through the shade tunnel and fresh air to stop wherever the patient feels comfortable. Instead of the patient being scanned, it is the patient who does the scanning.. This activates all their senses and they reap the benefits. If chickens had access to the elevated garden in amongst the vines, the chickens could eye off the patient through the fly wire waiting for the occasional feed pellet to be dispensed. There is something intriguing about spending time with a dinosaur with feathers. Being booked in for a “chicken scan” could one day be part of many standard medical treatments.

8.   You might be in the “good permaculture human” exhibit at the zoo that is demonstrating the importance of diet, range, exercise and the importance of habitat – just like every other enclosure at the zoo. Humans have to start reducing their impact on other species or a visit to the zoo will be an awful experience of what species and habitats have been lost around the world.

9.   You might be opening the tent door on top of a multi-storey vine and scaffold covered structure in a future city thriving with food and wild life.

10.                 What would you like to do and achieve in this new personal space…… it is up to you?

Vines hide the hanger/shed from view and it is probably so small and totally screened so that a permit may not be required for construction if of limited height and floor area. You may still need a permit for camping in some municipalities. There are lots of new underpinning permaculture techniques needed to build and grow such a building.  My previous articles on octopus irrigation in “self watering bucket” and “Drip Allocation with Octopus IV”, was the first of several future articles on each component of this new thread of permaculture systems. The disclaimers on both these articles also apply to this one so read these before acting on any of this information.

The portable hinged wooden rails are stored in the shed/hanger out of the weather when not in use. This puts them out of reach of ravenous termites and rot conditions so no paint, toxic chemical pesticides or preservatives are required.. Fruit tree pruning off cuts have been used to construct the tunnel for the vines to climb over. Small pieces of old poly pipe were used to join these in several ways like flexing tent poles are assembled.



This prototype is really about micro climate change for humans in a positive and relaxing sense for a change. It shows what you can change and do at arms length and within a few paces to reduce your impact. All the benefits of eco-camping to start with but if a new more viable accommodation unit of civilization eventuates then I guess some people might take over multi-storey cities with these one day.. Our history of nesting in trees, caves, huts, single room buildings and homes suggests we could revisit and make the best of aspects of all of these if we try... It is positive science fiction without the fiction and great to dream about.. Most of this article was written on board the health tram.

My background and career to date in environmental health has been spent taking action to prevented illness and environmental contamination by ensuring universal precautions are taken. It has been really disappointing to see potentially all the gains made over hundreds of years be potentially reversed by the threat of climate change and declining scientific awareness.. Food safety and food security, clean, air, water, land and absence of disease do not just happen of their own accord.. Although our conditions now might appear to be good to the untrained eye, they can change quickly and many people are currently living out of sight in really terrible situations.

There had to be a better way of humans accommodating ourselves in the future and hopefully this idea takes us much further down the track in greater health and comfort.

Disclaimer: If you are going to build and grow one of these it is your responsibility to check with local authorities whether there are any planning or building requirements or other approvals necessary.  Take care in the garden as there are many risks.  You don’t have to go out into outer space to encounter some pretty toxic microscopic aliens, chemicals and radiation. Study up on the local biting life forms – we have some really tough creepy centipedes longer than your finger and with ominous pincers under their head.  If there are local issues like bushfires or tornadoes then you might have to beef up the vines over the shed or very carefully consider a bunker in your design.

Lightning is something that might also need some consideration.

Obviously I and the Permaculture Research Institute take no responsibility for any loss or injury from this space age re-entry into your garden but we do claim all credit for the good that flows!

Thank you to the Benalla Woodworkers Association who custom router cut my groovy portable rails.

Sent from my iPhone