The ‘Anthropocene’ was a nice concept, but in truth, it misses the mark

When I was an infant, I was ignorant of everything.

As a child, I was self interested, seeking what entertained me over all else.

As a teenager, I was arrogant and cocky about my knowledge.

As a young adult, I was sure I knew more than enough to succeed and leapt from the nest without a second thought.

I crashed. Time and time, I failed.

Eventually, I began to appreciate how much I didn’t know.

I understood, through my own trails, the real depth of empathy.

I learnt to anticipate the effects of my actions on others and strived to make them positive.

Patience. Patience has been the hardest thing to learn.

And today, I’m not angry, I strive to avoid too much self interest, I seek out what is necessary for a good life rather than listen to the wants of passing desires and I accept what I must work for over what I would like simply handed to me.

I began New Anthropocine with an idea. In short, there’s no question that our species is a force of nature. Daily, we modify the hydrological and chemical cycles, we reshape genetic diversity and natural landscapes and we even modify our climate. It’s the Anthropocine – an era where one species dominates everything.

By ‘New’ I’d like to think that we have reached a level of understanding that we are able to take responsibility for that dominance.

But we’re not at a point where we will willingly work for goals bigger than ourselves. We couldn’t care less for the necessities of a good life while the trinkets of want glitter from shop windows. We still expect an easy life – so much so that we utterly ignore the resulting social and environmental costs result from our actions.

We are impatient, selfish, cruel and heading for crash after crash.

The evidence for this has long been obvious in environmental degradation, debilitating social inequality and the resulting social impacts.

Yet, the political rhetoric surrounding the carbon price (here in Australia), refugees and ethnic groups have all grown more dreadful as they become further from the truth, to the point that facts have become irrelevant. Blind anger is a massive voting block.

From the vote against the carbon price, to Brexit and now, the next President of the free world, I’ve been left speechless. I feel like a mute prisoner stuck in the mind of my young adult self.

Collectively, we are moving down a path that is dangerous, isolating and irreversibly damaging to our resources, our prosperity and ourselves. Bad ideas dominate because they reward their messengers while the rest of us have failed to provide an effective rebuttal.

Hence, I can’t call this the New Anthropocine. I’m even tempted to say that it’s not even the Anthropocine at all.

Maybe, because we are simply the agents of potent ideas, it should be called the Memeocene.

The Anthropocene; too obvious to ignore but pointless to linger upon

Making the news over the last couple weeks as been that geologists are now saying that our impact is so great that it could be recognised in the geology in distant times as a distinct change – enough to make a change of times. From the Holocene to the anthropocene.

It’s better last than never, I guess.

At the end of the day, these geological eras are artificial creations that are agreed upon to define certain fragments of Earth’s history; all with shared long-term trends of some sort, beginning and ending with a break from this trend.

When did the Anthropocene actually start? Our species have dramatically altered landscapes, species distributions / genetics (and even extinction) as well as the atmospheric chemistry for longer than recorded history.

What I became interested in when I moved to this blog was not simply the recognition of the human-era, but instead the acknowledgement and ownership of the fact.

We can continue to deny, denounce and vilify the human influence on our biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and atmosphere or we can become worthy of our status as a force of nature. The former is to keep the blindfold on, press down harder on accelerator and ignorantly hope for the best. The latter can lead to a prosperous, entrepreneurial and unimaginable future.

I wanted to start to paint a picture of what the latter could look like. Unfortunately, I allowed myself to fall into the rabbit holes of insular thinking and politics. While a natural progression, as climate change influences both, it still wasn’t helpful.

We are a force of nature and one that has thus far remained blind and detrimental. I want us to own up to it and find the possibilities exhilarating, as I already do.

Now that the case is strong enough for the Anthropocene to be “official”, let’s rush from that to a new one; one that we create with the focus on a thriving, prosperous planet.

The horrible truth about fluoride, vaccines and GMO’s

I found the following on various threads and couldn’t help but share. The point, I think, is amplified when they are presented together.

Welcome to the new (er) New Anthropocene

I’m staggered to learn that, in my absence, the traffic has remained. For months on end.

That my efforts on here for the past four years continues to be of value is the very best compliment I could ask for.

I had a spike last week (three times my running daily average), with about a third of that traffic directed towards my fluoridation work. I honestly don’t get the controversy. Capital cities in most states and territories of Australia have had fluoridated water since the 1960’s or 70’s.

Compare such places to Brisbane (not fluoridated) for signs of the supposed adverse reactions of fluoridation and be astounded in the boredom… We don’t see the drop in IQ or increases in cancers or whatever boogeymen you wish to imagine. We do, however, see a reduction in cavities in fluoridated areas.

In reality, that should be the end of it. But that’s the problem with any anti-science movements.

The ABYSS

I’ve learnt a lot in the past year. Unfortunately, I’ve become a little more cynical as well. My writing, I was informed by a potential employer (which they came across in a standard background check), is a liability. This is especially so with the political writing – the only stuff that professional outlets seem to want from me (unpaid, of course). To a lesser extent, the same is true with my rebuttals to anti-science (apparently, I show up on climate denial and anti-vax websites), which sully my name in association.

Moreover, to take a quote I’ve used before; you shouldn’t debate with idiots. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

As such, I will no longer smash my writing efforts against the wall of cognitive dissonance required to hold on to any ideology, be it religious, political or anti-science. It’s sad that many find the unknown so daunting that they need to prop up idealistic models of reality at any cost rather than to trust solid evidence.

If I’m going to writing, it may as well be useful.

Still, I am back!

I have a new job (outside of environmental science) and I am getting close to regaining enough free time to spend on NewAnthro (the past year was spent in a very insecure role where all my free time went to family or, more often, relentless job searching).

NewAnthro will finally get back on track with what it was intended to do; provide an outlet for discussion concentrated on the overwhelming fact that we are now in the Anthropocene and thus a force of nature. What we do about yielding this influence must be targeted towards prosperous outcomes over degradation.

For my kids sake, I’m not interested in a low / no impact life, because that is honestly a pipe-dream suitable for Qi fanciers. The only answer is medium to high impact; like a farmer who increasing the production of a landscape, human activity must aspire to promote biodiversity, thus biological services, thus prosperity for all.

My own efforts will be shared, as a video journal as well as writing, as I try to achieve wins within my fence line. The Sustainable Cities Collective remains one of my favourite gems on the internet.

Right now, I’m working on a home-made, off-grid, weather station which will also water my garden (you can take me out of environmental science, but can’t take the field out of me!) and plan to develop videos along the way. I might share snippets and trial segments on the NewAnthro FB page. If you would like to provide feedback to these test runs, please follow.

I hope the shift will be one that interests you!

Budget 2014: My advice to an aspiring uni student

Following the 2014 budget, I am glad that I’m no longer a tertiary student and that more than half of my HECS debt is repaid. As the first of my family to not only have a degree but to actually finish high school, I understand the fears this budget can incite within a ‘working class’ student better than most.

“But you don’t have to pay it back until you’re making money.”

This retort is idiotic. I find it repugnant that people shrug off the proposed deregulated course fees and increases to HECS interest rates (that begin as soon as you gain the debt, not earn enough to pay it back) with such a comment.

Debt is debt. My environmental science degree is likely to double in price. I know that I wouldn’t have selected it if I knew it would lead me more than $40k in debt. Of course, with higher interest rates, the cost of the loan would be even greater again. This actually means that those wealthy enough to pay upfront get a discount.

As for a career in environmental science….

For me, I have an excellent track record, for example;

• having control of a project of more than $150k in which I built what became an exemplary environmental / climate research facility within the national academic research network,
• I have designed new equipment to support the research objectives of PhD students,
• Developed detailed spatial data packages of the aquatic flora assemblage of Victorian estuaries,
• I have also developed much of the background project management infrastructure, such as project databases, Standard Operating Procedure Manuals (both of which have been adopted by other research groups) and various data validation and management systems

In short, my input to various projects have been valuable and my initiative has allowed for new avenues that soon become standard. Moreover, I’ve proven myself to be a successful science and policy commentator, now with articles appearing on various professional media outlets as well as my work being quoted even further. Alongside this, my promotion of research and ability to produce interesting multimedia content is also proven.

I am successful with wide ranging capacities beyond my core roles.

Still, I’ve known nothing but job insecurity. I have had contracts of as much as 3 years and as little as 3 months. I’ve done all I can to demonstrate my value, only to lose hours due to cut backs.

Since January, I’ve dedicated much of my free time to job searching (hence why NewAnthro is fairly quiet). Despite my wide ranging skills package, my very helpful networks and all the application assistance I’ve had on my side, I haven’t even had a single interview.

I can’t even scroll through the news of late without hearing of more cutbacks in research and natural research management, leaving me at a loss in a career that was suppose to be the industry of the 21^st century (as I was sold prior to selecting my degree).

My advice

As for what I would suggest, it’s difficult to admit, but I wouldn’t take my path if I knew back before my uni days what I know now.

To a student currently hoping to enrol in an environmental degree, I would suggest a general science degree instead where you can major in courses that suit your interests, skills or desired career path as you go along.

If you, like me as a student, plan to work in applied science, choose something core to human activity.

For instance, instead of conservation, focus on primary industry. Instead of climate, focus on urban design or engineering or something relevant.

You can influence the same necessary behavioural changes, but under a different title which have greater employability.

Lastly, be clever with your protesting.

Hijacking Q&A when Christopher Pyne was a guest. The presumed violence towards Julie Bishop on a recent uni visit. These are worse than ineffective, they are detrimental.

Being an advocate for climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as equality for a number of years has led me to mull over this problem for some time.

In this case, the protesters could mirror the response; this has been to morally disapprove the behaviour of these students.

Collect the data and campaign on the fair and equal rights of all Australian students to develop their skills. Going to uni isn’t simply personal. Tertiary education improves the standard of living and revenue of the country as a whole (how else do you end up with skills shortages than through reducing support for education?). It is an investment where the individual and the Commonwealth both benefit.

The marching this month is great, but social media is a powerful tool as well. Education through concise multimedia and easy to understand memes can reach the voting public in ways that scuffling with politicians on uni grounds simply won’t.

Uni students are a large cohort of the public, with numerous resources at their finger tips (eg. libraries and access to research behind pay walls for instance) and being primarily Gen-Y, they are tech savvy.

These are the strongest weapons in the students’ arsenal.

General Update

Hi all,

sorry, but yet again I have fallen quiet over the past few months, as you may have noticed. There are a number of factors that have contributed to this, with two being the most significant.

Firstly, my wife and I are expecting our second daughter within the next few days. With a toddler and an increasingly pregnant wife, I’ve had fewer and fewer pockets of time around work to construct articles.

I’ve got some ideas and if I had the time I’d love to pursue them. There are some excellent sources for high quality public data and I want to work on material in the same fashion as I did the Direct Action analysis last year. This work had impact and if this style is my best work, I’d like to tackle that… when I have the time.

With that in mind, I have been approved for another article for the Australian science journal, Solutions. This would form a small part of a much bigger urban/social science project I have in mind. In this, I don’t want readers to simply digest my article, I want them to be able to walk along the streets of my vision for a sustainable future.

Secondly, back in January, I lost all job security. While I still have a position, I could have a meeting with my manager any coming business day to find out that this is cut in half or lost entirely. Being a single income family for the next year couple years has demanded that I place a lot of time and effort into job searching.

As most Aussies would be aware, technical research support / applied scientists such as myself are losing their jobs, not finding them.

It has been a tough gig from the very beginning for me in any case, regardless of the massive stamp on my CV that I achieve with the creation of the Calperum OzFlux tower and so, with any luck, I will move more into what I obviously have a passion for; science communication and advocacy.

With all this on my plate, there is a fair amount of weight on my shoulders.

I have been writing as much as I can (primarily on other outlets), but this is by no means up to my usual rate. More importantly, I am still paying a lot of attention to the media and science.

I’m thinking that I will, at the very least, provide a “Sunday Read” with some of the highlights I have come across over the past week, with a short blurb and links. It will at least help to remind me that NewAnthro needs attention and will continue to serve to provide share quality information.

Lastly, please don’t forget about the new forum I’ve put together. I’ve started populating in (if only a little bit), but without others it is not a community – it lacks dialogue. Please join and chat.

One thing I have noticed about it is that it might not be instantly obvious how to contribute (it took me a little bit of time to work it out). To contribute to a forum page, you press the “New Topic” or “Post Reply” buttons at the top of the list. For me at least, I would have expected the button at the bottom.

Thanks, as always, for your patience and interest in my endeavours.

The Anthropocene Blueprint Forum

As I wrote recent, I have been left with the conclusion that our public representatives have forgotten their role to the public, as public servants, with continual measures that favour the wealthy minority and short term self-gratification.

We need solutions that support climate science, biological science, agricultural science, social science, as we best understand it, and potential threats, today.

There is a lot of talk, but little action from a wide range of agents.

About the only place I have any faith restored is in the public itself. Occupy and the March in March show that many thousands of people are motivated towards change. They see the shortcomings of Business and Usual as well as the potential to a wide range of solutions.

Crowdsourcing

In the days prior to the Information Age the democratic process gave the best weight to the people. It was the original crowdsourcing through the election of individuals that would speak on their behalf. It has never been perfect. It has always spoken for those groups with the most influence, not necessarily the majority.

Modern technology provides the solution. People can be organised to take a stand, to change behaviours and to influence their local culture via social media.

Progressives, with their diversity views, can step in time on shared values and/or mutual disgust of the current power brokers.

With this in mind, I’ve started a forum.

There is no content yet, but for a topic on the forum structure, but it is the platform I wish to develop and take NewAnthro forward.

Welcome to The Anthropocene Blueprint

The new forum is The Anthropocene Blueprint.

It’s a simple, free, forum as the initial test bed.

As the name suggests, it is a place for those who recognise that our influence is lasting. We shape the world. We shape the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the hydrosphere.

Climate will continue to change. Population will continue to grow. Our economy, our technology, indeed our modern world necessarily plays a continuing fundamental role in our modern world. The only point in question is whether all of this will come at a massive cost to those yet unborn or if we can enrich the world through all our modern processes.

Let’s draw up the Blueprint.

The Anthropocene Blueprint thus is all inclusive. Any problem noticed by a member of the community or solution already applied in a personal situation is part of the process. It is the shape of the future we wish to design.

Through a forum, it avoids hierarchical influences and solutions are applied by the individual through their own means and desire (if it so exists). In this space, we can share and influence change than benefits us all and future generations through an entirely grassroots motivated approach.

More importantly, the forum must be the result of an engaged community of users. We need to be involved and we must also encourage others to as well. It is our blueprint and our statement to future generations that we recognised the need for change and worked towards it on their behalf.

I’ve created a new page above that you can use to directly find the forum should you need a quick and easy link to it for others.

The most important part of this project is that it cannot be left to a few of us. We must build a large and motivated community of users. We could, collectively, reduce the burden of living costs as well as our impact on our resources in a scale that would surprise observers.

We must live the example to set the example.

Re-pitching an idea; To do differently, we need to think differently

With the depressing by-election results in WA, we have reason for concern. The by-election handed over the balance of power to a government riddled with broken promises, doublespeak (eg. be careful if the PM wants to be your “best friend”) and agendas aimed at making life easier at the top at the expense of the rest and also the environment.

More concerning is how backwards this government is on a problem that the rest of the world is owning up to; namely, climate change. There are huge expenses that come with allowing climate change to continue unmitigated. Australia already has a harsh, fluctuating climate.

Maybe this government believes Australia will be sufficiently cashed up on coal money as a buffer. Maybe their perspective myopic; stuck on just the next three years.In any case, their attitude and policies regarding climate change is insufficient. We will suffer for it.

Many of us feel that these are not public servants, but private appeasers. They do not represent us, nor do they work for policies to ensure the Australia the average Australian would recognise.

They seem to have forgotten us.

A while ago, Mike Marriott and I built “Generation Adaptation”. While there was not yet enough inertia for the project, there are elements of GenA that could be of great value.

Primarily, the forum. It now seems clear that, at least for the next three years, we will need to fend for ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we need to do it in isolation.

We can build a community.

I want to crowd source ideas and potential solutions to help individuals and communities reduce their living costs, their carbon footprint and improve their lives simultaneously.

I believe it’s possible – or else I wouldn’t have wasted all these years harping on about climate change and sustainability. We need to think differently. In my own life, I’m already making numerous steps in that direction.

Yet, for it to work, I pitch the following to my readership; If I was to make a type of forum on NewAnthro, would you help me make it a valuable resource and discussion platform for all? It would require not only interaction, but SHARING and encouraging others to also get on-board.

One person is a monologue. Two, a dialogue. This would need a community actively engaged in bucking the tend. While I focus on Australia, this platform would be international.

Case studies! If someone provides an excellent case study, it should also be a post (written by a reader, or by myself if it’s easier). The most important this is to show that this is possible, not wishful dreaming. I would think of this forum as proof that how we live isn’t the best it can  be. We can achieve more only if we are willing to think differently.

If you like the idea, please “like” this post or comment. Also share this page to encourage others to do the same. If I can get a small community ready to begin the project, I’ll try to develop the infrastructure required.

Climate Name Change

Just for a laugh. I can’t wait for cyclone Ian Plimer, Chris Monckton or Climate crap Tony…

Retail shopping; does it really help local economies?

With the annual season of mass spending back upon us, I’ve noticed a number of pop-news articles playing up to business. The general theme being that online shopping is killing retailers and that this is bad for local communities.

While I would agree with the principle argument, reality already fails to align with this point and so I’m drawn to implore to my readers to in fact shop online in the interest of preserving local wealth.

The money trail

Take a given CEO, say Bernie Brookes from Myer, in the fiscal year, 2011-12, he grossed more than a cool $3 million. Assuming a full time employee grossed $40k, which for memory was about the going rate a few years ago, this one bloke, in one city, makes more than 75 times as much as the general store staff.

And then there are the shareholders, that play their part for a share in the profits wherever they happen to be in the world.

Another massive overhead is the products themselves. These are sourced wherever they are cheapest and to get them the cheapest, manufacturing is done where people are poorest and obliged to accept whatever lousy wage on offer.

And then there is the tendency to maximise growth through the amalgamation of companies. Take, for instance Unilever. Look on the package of a range of competing products, say frozen food or hygiene products, and see how many are owned by Unilever.

Regardless of which you buy, the profits largely feed back to international shareholders and disproportionate wages heavily weighted to a handful of individuals, with a comparatively small amount staying local in wages (which themselves are then fed back to this process).

Shopping at retail outlets locally this season is largely draining local wealth away through the lion share of the profits distributed internationally, not locally.

And Brookes shamefully complains about holiday wages!

No, these retailers are not the least part interested in local wealth, except for what they can bleed from it.

Don’t shop at retail outlets if it’s cheaper to shop online. Keeping your bank account healthier means that more wealth is kept local.

How to buy special and buy local

There are also other ways you can give special gifts that helps to keep money in the local economy.

For instance, there are small retailers and farmer markets that sell their own goods, especially treats. These can make a great and unique gift. Another personal favourite of mine is experiences. Be it classes in cheese making or baking, dance classes for the aunty and uncle who have been married for decades and might not think about spending time like that together…

There is always something suitable for anyone and these opportunities can be life changing while supporting local business and, being not a material focused gift, can help reduce our tendencies for landfill

More in the video below that I made for last xmas.

(more thoughts to follow..)