My Head is Full
Last week held days of intense and friendly conversations about the world and our place in it. Over a hundred sincere and passionate people gathered to discuss, prepare for, and then dive into the Decisive Decade. One such conversation could kick off thoughts for weeks. A week of them will affect me for much longer. In the meantime though, my head is full as all of the thoughts settle into new niches and rearrange the furniture to make room for their neighbors.
There is plenty of trouble in every level of the world: personal, local, societal, global, ecological. Every era has its share, but within the last century, global issues have progressed from traveler's anecdotes of foreign lands to considerations within modern lives. Someone cutting corners in China can affect the health of children in California. Smog from one continent crosses an ocean and lands in someone's garden with the rain. A volcano in Iceland can slow the global economy.
The agricultural waste in fresh water, oil spreading through the Gulf, wasted plastics supplanting sea life, runaway atmospheric carbon accumulation, are issues that can impact everyone regardless of nationality, economic status, or position of power. As members of the human species, we each need water, food, and air. Long ago, a tainted well or depleted fields might mean moving a village. Now, any move bumps into someone else (unless we go off-planet, but that's a separate post.)
A week of concentrating on the world's problems, especially from people who have witnessed and experienced the situations, could be overwhelming - and could have ground my mood into a depression. Fortunately, that didn't happen. I ended the week fatigued, exhausted and concerned, but not depressed.
People are working on solutions.
That doesn't mean that all of the world's problems can be solved easily, or even that the solutions have been identified. Some solutions exist, and while some are difficult, the biggest difficulty is usually not technical. Sometimes the hurdle is economic, but usually the hurdle is sociological. Getting people to change their world view has never been an easy sell. Even churches spend a lot of time and effort reminding the faithful of their faith. Where solutions haven't been uncovered, there are people working to do so, in competitions like in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge or in the Global Social Entrepreneurial Competition. Even investors are turning to solutions, investing where good work is being done.
Whenever I travel I take along something to read. One of the geek luxuries I afford myself is a subscription to Scientific American. I never had the time to finish an issue when I had a regular job. Now, I at least have a chance to make it through before the next edition arrives in the mail. The issue that came along told the story of how the human species recovered from being decimated, reduced to a few hundreds or thousands.
We are a tenacious species, and from a few small tribes, we managed to recover to become the dominant species on the planet. There's good reason to believe that we overcorrected, but we also came out of that experience with the ability to adapt.
Our situation can't be ignored without imperiling us. Every year many people die from natural disasters. We may have amplified the effects of some and have introduced more of our own.
Fortunately, people are congregating to find and work solutions. Usually, the most effective technique for uncovering answers is to listen. Within the minds of seven billion people, someone has a solution or is on the right track to finding it. I spent 22 years as an engineer, either in school, or at Boeing. I enjoy finding solutions, and asking around. Last week I heard lots of solutions. Many were simple and simply needed the word to get out. Use less plastic. Eat local. Entertain each other instead of relying on packaged media. My favorite is still the realization that white roofs consume less energy. That doesn't require a great technical effort, merely getting the story out.
There's a lot of work to do. My head is crammed with issues, stories, solutions, areas to research, and anticipation. And spending a week with impassioned people fills my heart. It also fills a laundry load or two. Time to unpack.
Sunday, August 1, 2010