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TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 74 DAYS

Yesterday, results from a year-long test at thirty sites around the world were received and are being integrated into the global strategy. The sites are essentially very large greenhouses that simulate the effects of reducing ecological impact on self-sustained warming and polluting mechanisms like those currently threatening our planet. Details of the observations are also being used to identify methods that can decelerate and potentially “disconnect” the underlying feedback loops.

Sally generated several new versions of the Hope Chart. None of them showed full success, as defined by the leveling off of total resources and corresponding constant population that was a fixture of the previous versions. At best, our demise was delayed by several decades when following the original approach of reducing our ecological impact over the next twenty years.

“The lowering of direct impact was always about buying time to fill in those TBDs,” Maura said at a mid-morning team briefing. “Now we have a better idea how big the gap is. While Sally and the development team work on updating the strategy, our focus will be on designing tests and observation protocols that can be performed by virtually anybody to both supplement global awareness and inform local supporting activity. Feel free to use all the test sites, and provide any and all feedback to Sally for assessment and distribution to the other teams as she deems appropriate.”

Later, as we sat in her office developing an action plan for me to follow, she gave me some positive feedback. “Your creativity ideas are going to be particularly relevant now. Everyone has to be engaged, a lot of them as naturalists identifying what’s important to concentrate on and how actions will impact their local environments, both artificial and natural. That takes a level of dedication that comes from having a personal stake in the process as well as the outcome. I’ve seen you do that every day, and I’d like you to think more about how to share it.”

Reality Check

I created a new simulation of interactions between a global population and three contributors to a decrease in total resources available for consumption. The contributors are represented in the Hope Chart as low, medium, and high warming based on extrapolation of the non-linear component of historical data. Curve fits to graphs of cumulative total consumption vs. projected warming were used to approximate the effect of lowering total consumption.

Following is one of the Hope Charts I created with the new simulation:

Maura’s pep talk reflects what I’ve been telling myself lately, and its content mirrors a similar approach I practiced when I was active in the community of amateur astronomers.