Plans

During this last week until the formal execution of the global strategy, all nations are preparing “startup status reports” that detail how close they are to the targets for 2040. The reports will be filed with WICO and posted online for everyone to see. Plans for implementing the strategy are already available at the resolution of communities of five-thousand or more people, that include bench marks expected to be reached over the next year.

Like many people, I spent the last three days finalizing my personal plan and today will be submitting it to the Extinction Response Unit for evaluation and feedback that ensures it is consistent with the relevant community plans. Maura and I have decided to file jointly as a family unit now that we both live and work together, and so our plans are very similar. Much of the time spent preparing the plan involved discussing what we see as our joint future, shaped by our joint values and commitment to “creating as much good as possible, locked into the past everywhere that’s touched,” as she likes to say.

As expected, the main goal of the plans is to reduce ecological impact to minimize the extinction rate by maximizing longevity, quantity, diversity, and quality of life, in that order, with emphasis on our species. The checklists included with the plans vary by global region, with specifics of culture, environment, and current impacts accounted for. Here in the Rocky Mountain region, industrial pollution, extractive industries, transportation, other land and water use, and population growth are major concerns, along with increasing climate variability that affects the ability of local ecosystems to provide basic needs. Rapid reduction of all of the above is a top priority for the majority of plans here, as they should be elsewhere.

Part of the research Maura and I are performing involves learning how parts of existing regions might inform understanding of the history and potential future of others, at all scales. Flying to other regions in this and other nations could provide valuable information that would be hard to collect remotely. However, flying has one of the largest ecological impacts of any activity, and should therefore be avoided where possible. We’re exploring other possibilities, such as expanding the partnership between the university and WICO, datamining of online news sources, and leveraging work being done by other groups on other projects.

Reality Check

The “family unit” formed by Will and Maura is, of course, fictional - just as they are. In some respects, however, their relationship is based on how I imagine my wife and I might have formed one if we met around the age of 30 under the conditions of the simulated world.

Work on community plans would have been in progress since the declaration of the global emergency in January. Completion of the strategy and completion of education activities during deployment would trigger finalizing detailed plans at the individual level.

Limiting high-impact activities such as mining is an obvious early step in any effort to reduce the extinction rate, since it affects two of the main drivers (habitat loss and pollution). Unlike our real world, the simulated world is not trying to maintain socio-economic norms through technological innovation; so traditional renewable energy sources won’t be developed on anything other than a temporary “bridge” basis, if at all, and any new infrastructure will likely be more focused on synergy with ecosystems using a radical version of today’s permaculture.