2019 Osher/Dover: #1 Welcome to Spaceship Earth & the Anthropocene

Earthrise, 1968 (NASA)

Session 1: Introduction to the Spaceship

Music:  "Space Oddity" Chris Hadfield 2013  Link to song

Gathering: name + The reason that I am taking this course is...  

Essential Questions:

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

Rick's Rap:  

• course overview
•  Stevenson and Zinn quotes
• Tools: Bias-angle exercise, Origin - Purpose - Value - Limitations (OPVL), Reflective Sentence Starters
  
  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
  • problems are opportunities in disguise
  • human involvement in climate change is proven science - 97%
  • moral responsibility of the social scientist to be prescriptive
• 
  
• What is Climate Change?
• Video: "CO2  and the Greenhouse Effect," Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, 2012
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ0eN_93l4k

• • Introduction to Paul Hawken & Drawdown
          • Video: Chad Frischman, "100 Solutions to Climate Change'," Ted Talks Link to Video
  

  • video: Paul Hawken, "Project Drawdown," 2017 Link to Video

  • review of Foreword, Origins, Language , Numbers

  • selection of readings & review process

  
  • Introduction to Colin Beavin & "No Impact Experiment"
  
  

  •Video: Interview with Colin and Jennifer Beavin, CBS News w/ Harry Smith, 10/5/09,  YouTube
  

  video, Link to video

  • Exercise: Re view of "No Impact Experiment" handbook & partner work Link to Handbook

  
  • Introduction Imaging a Fossil Free Future 

• • Exercise: Positive Image of a World in 2038

          • Spaceship Earth Exercise 

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

Readings:
      • David Wallace-Wells, "Time to Panic," New York Times, 2/16/19 Link to article

• "Climate Change," wikipedia, Link to article
• 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
• Deirdre Fulton, "The Anthropocene is Here: Humanity has pushed Earth into a New Epoch," 10/15/16,  Link to article
•  • Ken Edelstein,, " In Drawdown, Paul Hawken ditches the rhetoric to offer 100 practical climate solutions," Mother Earth Network, July 11, 2017https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/drawdown-100-achievable-climate-solutions-Paul-Hawken  
• "Humanity is on the Case: 100 Best Climate Solutions -and why they're going to work," Interview with Paul Hawken, Optimist Daily 12/30/18 Link to Article
• Resources
• Optimist Daily, Link to website
• IPCC Report, Link to Report
• Video:  "CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect", Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ0eN_93l4k
• Imaging a Fossil Free World - Participant Handbook 

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