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07 October 2009
Just this past week, scientists announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human fossil that hailed on Earth 3.2 million years ago, humans were in the midst of an unknown stage of evolution. Today, it's safe to say that humanity is undergoing an equally dramatic transformation that even the creationists would call evolution. And for the sake of mother earth and her profound state of current upheaval, we are all fortunate that human evolutionary stages no longer require millions of years to transpire. I'd go so far as to say that the very earth and our survival within in it, now depend on this human dynamism. So are we really evolving? Will there be some 'tipping point' canary in the mineshaft moment that will shift us as a global populace towards tranformational and systemic positive social change?
Whatever the warning sign, that time in history is most certainly upon us. Let's call that time now.
Ten years ago, I interned at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, witnessing scientists weep in admission that their research was used to support oil corporations' decision to serve the shareholders best interest by not paying the high cost of cleanup fees for these environmental atrocities. During that time, I also conducted research on shore degradation at the Hawaii Institute for Marine Biology, profound times I was reminded of during a conference last week of the The Feast Kitchen. Dynamic keynote speaker Diana Ayton-Shenker of Fast Forward Fund told her story of how her youth and young adult research experience one day led her to founding a 'youth investing in youth' organization. When she spoke of discovering a decade later that her research was used as part of a landmark study on the cause, I had a similar 'hair on the back of your neck moment', as I had recently found that that summer of dolphin research ended up generating valuable data that was also put to positive means years after its time.
So what's the point of waxing all nostalgic about the days at my liberal arts college when I 'worked' for college credit, roamed the earth unshaven, and didn't have a true clue about the environmental perils that were boiling over?
Because those days are over. We don't have ten years to kick it until that tide turns, until that research turns into data that informs policy that leads to action. Back then, I was that very snarky Jersey girl who poked my Environmental Modeling professors on the very first day of class over whether we could run a formula to find out when exactly our actions would produce an unlivable atmospheric condition for humanity.
That number, that time, is upon us.
Now, I don't claim to be an academic know-it-all, knowing visionary or scientist with wisdom of the times to come. Hardly. Moreover, the Hopi Indians, among many other noted wise groups throughout time, had foretold this very period of history as the window or loop of hope of great change. Thousands of years ago, they 'tweeted' about this prophecy of now on caves, depicting this window of hope where humanity collectively steps into itself.
So here were are. Earth in upheaval. And everyone and their brother may or may not have the silver bullet super scalable game changing idea that is going to save the world. Anything may or may not be true. But as an urban planning researcher once told me and forever evangelized me as a result, it's all about the data. The solutions. The problems. The reality. The change in policy. It's all in the data.
At first I was allergic. Hell, I had shots in grade school to prevent me from all allergies, but I soon warmed to it and the dots began to connect. The more I broke down my resistance to data, the more I realized that my true allergy was to the newly emerging concept that was counter-intuitive to everything that I had been trained during my granola days. In this profoundly short decade leading up to the realtime now, a tipping point has occurred in human population and migration. Today, the world's cities are the home of the majority of the world's 6 1/2 billion population. With over half of the world's population living in cities, the solutions began to surface around one obvious truth, backed by data, supported by the obvious, and almost liberating in its profound implications and hopeful possibilities. The great shift our world is waiting for is going to be spearheaded within cities around the world. When applied to ripple out positively across the globe, the city becomes a beacon of hope instead of a blemish on the natural landscape.
The New Urban Ecological Paradigm
The models and solutions are many. The time is now. There is no space on earth that isn't ripe for change. Urban ecological ideas can turn into tangible realities quickly and have far reaching impact, such as the concepts for Transition Towns built on joint social equity in communities, or strategic urban vertical farms and scaled urban roof top gardens like Sky Vegetables. Future forward ventures impacting the urban space have also arrived, such as Green Spaces, a communal workspace and green business incubator, and initiatives such as Farms Reach, an online platform to connect local farmers to urban vendors. Restaurants such as Gusto Organics offer a prime example of how tasty this deep ecological future can and will be. The city as epicenter for ecological change is witnessing shifts towards complete sustainable development around the world, as documented so effectively by Green Map, an open source mapping resource for user generated green guides to your city. A quick search of urban ecology yields centers with community shaping programs in Boston, San Francisco, and Wisconsin, just to name a few. And let's not forget the new startup, Open Venture Society, the shameless plug for the company I just co-founded ;)
Is this enough to set back the hands of time so as to restore ecological balance here on this great earth? I have no idea. In fact, I'm relieved that I no longer have access to those research and computer modeling programs to map out the flow systems that can generate an exact date for our demise. I don't go there because, contrary to my 'scientific' roots, I know in my heart of hearts that the resilience of Mother Earth and her natural chemical reaction of whole earth renewal has never been witnessed or observed in any laboratory.
The New Urban Ecological Paradigm marks the new shift in thinking towards riding the wave of the current urban migration into the world cities and coupling it with radically innovative and sustainable initiatives that turn our cities into capacity builders and community resources for positive social change. There's a good 3.5 billion people currently living in the world's cities. The New Urban Ecological Paradigm starts there. With all of us.