Core77

Earlier today, Dan Gilbert articulated exactly why we tend to turn our backs on slow (see Carl Honoré), steady, and very deadly worldwide issues. Inaction today leads to a less promising tomorrow. With awareness adjusted to point closer to the big picture, we have a real opportunity to repair the mistakes we've made, prevent them from happening again, and advance neglected communities to ensure a more sustainable future.

Cary Fowler emphasized the essentiality of agricultural inclusion in biodiversity efforts. Global and local temperatures have never been warmer since neolithic times. Our manipulation and interruption of natural processes and our abuse to the planet has put the world's agricultural diversity in jeopardy. We are destroying/losing diversity- losing traits and options for the future that we'll never have again. "This is not the time to start throwing out options." Fowler explains two choices: We can modify the environment to suit the crops or modify the crops to suit the changing environment. He's also working on a convincing "Plan B." A modest endowment fund of about $125,000 per year will sustain "forever" a safety back-up seed vault facility...carved into the side of a mountain in Norway! It will have a maximum capacity of 1.5 million seeds in each of three vaults. "The problem of losing this diversity is of global significance. It's unique among all the big problems because it's one we can actually solve quickly. Crop by crop, once and for all." Fowler is currently working to gather additional endowment funds to build more seed banks around the world.

The next presentation by Robert Boroffice, head of the NASRDA, brought things to a more specific, regional level within the global view, expressing how space technology can transform the future of Nigeria, and ultimately Africa where one of every five Africans are Nigerian. Nigerian satellites, the first of which are Nigeriasat1 (2003), Nigcomsat1 (2007), and Nigcomsat2 to launch in 2009, show that space technology is an affordable investment for developing countries. But what about the returns? Boroffice notes that "to be part of a modern society, you must be connected." These satellites then provide a non-modern society with an immediate ability to observe social, economic, and environmental standings in real time. This includes a wide and valuable range of data like geographical fluctuations and food security. Just as importantly, connectivity becomes available, which can be best exemplified by a fully mobile medical unit with a stowed antenna that travels from village to village or a boathouse hospital that serves the removed river delta population, granting the staff with accurate medical information to properly treat each unique patient and ensure the health and life-wealth of many communities.

Chris Luebkeman of Arup brought us back out to a world view, stressing unsustainable urbanization as a threat to global security, our individual responsibilities to choose neutrality over consumption, and a serious reminder that "the age of endless resources is over." An astounding 48% of greenhouse gases are produced by buildings. We've consumed most of our gas and half of our oil in a very short amount of time. 90% of all transportation requires oil. While flicking through images of traffic from all over the world, he poses the question, "How long can mobility equal freedom--and does it equal freedom? Luebkeman saidabsolutely not. Our best chance at freedom at this point is to embrace sustainable urbanization, seeing that city-dwelling is the wave of the future with a projected 600 million people on the move to cities over the next 20 years--in China alone. The characteristics of an efficient, closer-to-neutral city are environmental protection, reduction of water consumption, reuse of water discharge, better and increased use of waste, sustainable mass production in agriculture, carbon free energy use, and emission reductions. Luebkeman ended on a striking point--that one person definitely can make a difference, and how it can be easily proven by taking the time and effort to closely observe your lifestyle and the sensitivities in your individual footprint.