How can we employ networks of cooperative observers and new technologies to map the geographical distribution of all species on earth to maximize their conservation?

Global biodiversity is being lost today at an unknown rate – unknown because there are not enough field biologists, nor funds, to support the required field expeditions to many parts of the world to document the existing biodiversity. Existing procedures prevent mapping the geographical distribution of all species on the planet with sufficient detail to determine the minimum areas needed for preserving a major fraction of the remaining diversity. Suitably-trained scientists and support staff cannot be increased fast enough to carry out such work in any reasonable time. However, it may be possible to enormously extend the reach of the research community through recent technical developments that include 1) the global expansion of the Internet 2) the widespread adoption of digital cameras by the general public, and 3) increasingly accurate knowledge of where pictures are taken – using GPS and GOOGLE Earth –type technology. It should be possible to rapidly increase the documentation of existing biodiversity and biological landscapes through the development of a digital photographic archive produced by individuals around the globe. All images could be made publicly available in a manner similar to those of current online digital imagery archives. Individuals might send digital photos with relatively detailed documentation to a central website, where they would then be forwarded to specialists who would attempt to identify them and, if needed, communicate further with the photographers. Scanned slides could also be sought out since these offer a valuable historical record of landscapes. The global research community would effectively have a greatly expanded team of international collaborators. The main problems to implementing such an idea would be the need for volunteer help in sorting the large number of images likely to be submitted, the guiding of photographers towards priority subjects, and help in maintaining the database.

How can we utilize existing biodiversity data to create a computer-based system to reflect pressures on the environment on an ongoing basis?

We all know that the environment is under pressure and there are many people working towards regulating or relieving these pressures, but how are we doing? This proposed system would create a dashboard of sorts that can be updated on a weekly / monthly basis to show how we are doing in various critical areas of biodiversity. The system would most likely be a website offering graphs and interactive maps (GIS) to show biodiversity pressures and programmes. This would highlight areas that have lots of support (programmes) and areas that are largely overlooked.

What are the possible policies for meeting the problems of climate change, overfishing, and depletion of mineral resources? What is the effectiveness of tradeable permits and taxes, how can they deal with tradeoffs over time, and especially how are they compatible with the need for economic growth among the poorer nations who are, at the same time, contributing to the problems? What is the scope for directed technological change?

Recognizing the importance of challenges to the Earth system is only the beginning. We must ask how to meet them. This requires a great deepening of our knowledge of economic and social systems and of changes in values to accompany the changes in needs.

What would it take – what time, money, energy, efforts, cooperation – for the social sciences to be able to provide wise, reliable and timely strategic guidance to persons, organizations and states regarding the conscious development and transformation of late modern forms of civilization into a truly new form of civilization?

1. Evidence is mounting for the view that any civilization that hopes to survive the 21st Century must be able to live within the limits set by the Earth’s ecology; that ecological overshoot cannot go on for many more decades.

2. Given that OECD countries are already living well beyond our ecological means and that most societies aspire to do so, as a species we have a serious problem that cannot be avoided much longer.

3. The most common response to items 1 and 2 is to re-commit to the hope that small changes can add up to wholesale change. While some real differences will be made, as an overall strategy this appears to be a forlorn hope.

4. A second widespread response is to commit to large investments in new technologies in the hope that they will be sufficient to handle our situation. While some real differences will be made, as an overall strategy this too appears to be a forlorn hope. (This strategy is also sucking funds away from the social sciences.)

5. What other options might be explored?

6. One option that is almost wholly neglected in public discourse is that of learning as whole jurisdictions to take responsibility for our ongoing evolution; and to do so not only as persons, families, communities and organizations, but as whole socio-economic orders and forms of civilization.

7. Work that explores this option and the question asked above will identify contributions that can now be made, and contributions that can come to be made, by the social sciences to ensuring the long-term future of humanity. It will also identify those scholars globally who care about this question.

8. The work may also reveal the need for and nature of transformations required within the social sciences; some of which may address the crisis that now exists in the field.

What is the role, responsibility, and accountability of Media and Information technology and society in Earth system research?

The media today is oriented to sustainability of development rather than sustainability of life. The question is based on premises (hypothesis) that the post-modern technology can be used without harming natural resources or destroying the biosphere and ecosystem.

In September 2008, the world was shattered by a “global crisis” which struck in a decade, marked as “globalisation”. The crisis was neither sudden nor unexpected. Besides the prevailing “sustainability of development” backed by the international capital, the counter argument voiced as “sustainability of living” by ecologists was not given a fair opportunity. The crisis has over shadowed globalization. The world agenda today is surviving the recession or reviving the market. Purposes and policies of the “globalising world” have fallen from the headlines.

How did the so-called information society come to this impasse, and what was the role or responsibility of Media?

In a formal proposal to ICSU, I have summarily concluded that, if not technology, the information technology can perhaps be domesticated. The ultimate challenge is not the technology but the MAN —dependent on technology,

Key Words: Sustainability, technology, information society —growth or survival

How much potable water can be extracted from sea water that is safe to drink?

Different experiments are being performed to obtain potable water from sea water. Procedure seems to be expensive. No records are available about its side effects, if any. It is not known that such drinking water will be cheaper or not. If it is cheaper to make then third world countries, poor countries many african countries and asian countries would benefit.

How should the human community reorganize its activities towards a healthy relationship with Earth?

The focus of Earth System Research (ESR) involves, according to Reid et al. (2009), the interaction between land, atmosphere, water, ice, biosphere, societies, technologies and economies. Eventually ESR should lead to the prediction of global environmental changes.

Amongst these eight sectors of the system, those capable of some control by the human community are ‘societies’, ‘technologies’ and ‘economies’. These then are the sectors where human-induced unwarranted changes should be confronted with priority. We know much about the other sectors through research in the natural sciences but we have no control over them beyond the effects of the above three sectors. Limited predictability leads to social uncertainty, consequent unpleasant and intense but fruitless debate as in the field of climate change.

Despite voluminous research on societies, the predictability of social dynamics is also limited. Yet, the required confrontation seems, in principle, rather simple. We just have to realize that with its increasing complexity the human community has soiled and continues to soil its own nest in the widest sense and in ever greater measure, local counteraction over the last two decades notwithstanding.

Society, technology and economy can, of course, clean the nest and keep it clean. This is all that mankind can do to confront and possibly contain the well-known undesirable human-induced changes in the environment. It is not a matter of further natural and social science research but of political will because of the myriad of serious conflicts of interest that have to be resolved. Against this background a new ESR agenda is not as urgent as Reid et al. (2009) suggest. The priority is in cleaning up System Earth.

How does nature do it: how does she transform the disordered form of matter by recycling back to an ordered form without violating the second law of thermodynamics? And how does Nature prevent disorder to accumulate on earth when she processes matter and energy from available form to unavailable form? How to develop planetary technology analogous with these natural processes?

The planet earth is materially a huge system processing matter (mainly by recycling) and energy (mainly by dissipating exergy flux from the sun or from the stores in the ground, and active information. Doing it Nature necessarily produces entropy which contrary to the human system is, however not accumulated on earth but discarded to the space by a proper natural process.

First the material entropy (related to matter transformed into an unavailable state) is processed back to an available state by recycling etc. This work is done by microbes, etc with use of solar energy or energy available in the material under processing. But when the disordered form of matter is transformed to an ordered form again – entropy is decreased! But according to the second law it is possible only, if somewhere entropy at the same token increases even more. In fact the decrease of material disorder is compensated by increase of the exergy dissipation (energy entropy) when the work of recycling is done. And in the next stage the exergy dissipation related entropy is bound to warm up a little water vapour and CO2 gases and lift them to stratosphere and then the low quality energy (energy entropy) is “released” to the space.

This kind of planetary technology is totally missing from the human system and we are accumulating disorder in increasing amount on the earth.

How to ensure that solutions for climate stabilization optimize adaptation and mitigation, maximize the co-benefits and minimize the unintended consequences for health, ecology and the global economy?

Life cycle analysis to assess the health, environmental and economic costs of proposed technologies and practices is a methodology for making healthy and sustainable energy choices. Some measures, like burning ethanol/gasoline mixtures produce ground-level ozone that contributes to the heat island effect (worsening adaptation to heat waves). The coal life cycle, from mountaintop removal to pulverization to combustion has multiple health and ecological impacts. Carbon dioxide capture and storage address only the very end of a long stream of hazards and emissions.

On the other hand, some solutions offer multiple benefits.

 Transport: Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) minimize the burning of all substances and are suitable for cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships and planes. By reducing black carbon emissions, ozone precursors and CO2, they clean and cool cities.

 The grid: Such vehicles must plug into a cleanly-powered smart grid. Al Gore’s proposal for a smart grid in 10 years for $1.5 to $3 trillion provides the goal, timetable and economic stimulus needed to move to a robust, job-creating, well-adapted and climate-stabilizing backbone for the low carbon economy.

 Healthy cities: A healthy cities initiative – with green buildings, rooftop gardens, walking paths, biking lanes, tree-lined streets, open space, congestion control, smart growth and improved public transport – will decrease vehicular miles traveled, promote exercise, save money, create jobs and advance climate-stabilizing technologies. Green cities connected by electric light rails and railroads will reduce highway and short-haul airway traffic.

Ecological design principles: Making our energy system resilient, robust and adaptable requires using ecological design principles: combining hybrids of power generation at all scales, “smart technologies,” and new generation of batteries. Triangulation of distributed, regional and central generation decreases vulnerabilities in the face of more heat waves and storms, and loss of hydropower from disappearing glaciers.

Can the adaptability of Earth and ecosystems be also enhanced through physical and biological means while enhancing human adaptability in the wake of climate crisis?

We are panicking that Earth system is going to fail as its capacity to maintain is being tested to limits due to massive human activity. As we are not sure about the Earth’s exact ability to restore itself or to adapt to the human alterations, we need more precise information and measurements and should research on devising bio and physical technologies to enhance Earth’s capacity to adapt to growing human activities.