Introduction to the Spaceship

Earthrise, 1968 (NASA)

Session 1: Introduction to the Spaceship

Gathering: name + The reason that I took this course was...  

Rick's Rap:  

• course overview
• handouts - readings, unanswered questions sheet
•  Stevenson and Zinn quotes

Essential Questions:

• What is the Greenhouse Effect?
• What is Climate Change?
• What is intelligent design?
• What is systems theory?
• What is environmental sustainability?

Course Assumptions

• 1st module = designing an environment for the children of all species
• Emergence of awareness of ecological economic theories, interconnectedness 
• Earth is a closed and finite ecosystem in an open economic environment
• climate change as a human and civil rights issue
• definition of sustainability
• problems are opportunities in disguise
• human involvement in climate change is proven science - 97%
• about paying attention and Jared Diamond
• moral responsibility of the social scientist to be prescriptive

Exercise:  Tools

• Bias-angle exercise
• Origin - Purpose - Value - Limitations (OPVL)
• Reflective Sentence Starters

Exercise:  Image a positive future in environmental (goals)

• What are the goals of a sustainable environment? (preferred state)

Exercise:  Spaceship exercise

• What are the challenges facing the environment? (present state)

Question:  How do we get there?

• What disciplines will help guide us to the answers to the Spaceship challenges?

Video:  "CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect", Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ0eN_93l4k

• video debrief

Guest:  Dr. Jonathan Sharp, Emeritus Professor, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean & Environment

Closing: "Something I learned today was ..."

Readings:

• "Sustainability", Wikipedia, 9/10/12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability"
• Kenneth Boulding, "Earth as a Spaceship", Washington State University, May 10, 1965 https://bertaux.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/boulding-earth-as-spaceship-1965.pdf
• Chelsea Harvey, "Research show there's no debate:  Study shows experts do agree on climate change,"  Washington Post, 4/24/2016  Harvey article link
• Jared Diamond, "Mirror of Our Fate," from Collapse:  How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, 2005.   http://eu.patagonia.com/deDE/patagonia.go?assetid=35769
• Resources
• Draft of Climate Science Special Report 8/8/17 https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3920195/Final-Draft-of-the-Climate-Science-Special-Report.pdf

"We are called upon to be the architects of the future, not its victims", Buckminster Fuller