Don and I have been ruminating over the potential to develop the equivalent of the human genome project for climate change and would like your input on the issue.
An optimist could argue that we’re in the early days of something unprecedented—thanks to the web 2.0 the entire world is beginning to collaborate around a single idea for the first time ever: changing the weather. Climate change is quickly becoming a nonpartisan issue and all citizens obviously have a stake in the outcome. So for the first time we have one global, multi-media, affordable, many-to-many communications system, and one issue on which there is growing consensus. Around the world there are hundreds, probably thousands of collaborations occurring where everyone from scientists to school children are mobilizing to do something about carbon emissions.
On January 31st in the United States, for example, millions of American students at over 1,300 academic institutions will take part in “Focus the Nation,” a one-day academic and civic-engagement discussion focused on climate change, its consequences and potential solutions. Organizers hope the event will create a groundswell of activism and help spur government policy-makers into action. The event will feature an interactive forum where citizens, students and political representatives can discuss issues, challenges and solutions. Participants will then vote on their top five priorities for action and the results will be forwarded to local and state representatives. Few other issues have garnered the attention of more than a million participants, and few, if any, have gone as far as Focus the Nation in convincing colleges, universities and secondary schools to lend an entire day of instruction to just one topic.
Before we get too excited, however, we should consider the pessimist’s case. One could argue, for example, that while there was there is only one human genome there are many, many solutions to climate change. It seems unlikely that someone, or some organization, will ever be in a position to coral the entire world around developing one “magic bullet” solution to climate change in the same way that organizations such as the National Institute of Health and Wellcome Trust helped to coordinate efforts to synthesize the genome.
Moreover, the worldwide effort to decode the human genome promised significant advances in health care and huge commercial windfalls for companies that learned how to exploit it. Apart from extremists, few people argued that the human genome project was a bad idea and there was little organized resistance. The efforts to stop climate change seem unlikely to produce similar windfalls, although there will undoubtedly be money to made in green energy, construction materials, and consumer products. Worse, halting the warming of the planet will require action — and in some cases, uncomfortable and perhaps unwelcome lifestyle changes — by billions of dispersed individuals and some very powerful economic interests that will resist change.
If we fail to stop climate change there could be devastating consequences. But for most people those consequences seem distant and it’s certainly true that the worst of it will be inherited by future generations. Given the short-termism that dominates our political systems, our economy, our capital markets, and day-to-day decision-making as individuals, I am not convinced that humankind will be sufficiently motivated by a sense of inter-generational justice to make the deep and difficult adjustments that are required to avert global ecological disruption.
So, I reluctantly put myself in the pessimist’s camp for now. While I think there will be many significant collaborations to stop climate change, I don’t see the equivalent of the human genome project emerging in this space. That being said, I am eager to see someone prove otherwise. It’s true that no issue has captivated the attention of a broad internal audience as much as climate change has in recent years. And, as noted by Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, “For far too long, climate change has been seen as a problem of the future, one that only a limited range of ministries and institutions should manage. This must change now. Climate change requires broader engagement.”
Will the “killer application” for mass collaboration turn out to be saving the planet? What do you think?
I could not read the entire title in my feed reader, and I assumed it would be “Climate change: the “killer application”
for mass extinction.”
If the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis is right, 4.5 billion people could die. Killer application indeed.
I do not agree with the premise that mankind causes, or can do anything about, global warming. The vast majority of Earth’s temperature change is caused by one source, fluctuation in Solar output. I wish people would stop taking ‘concensus’ as a given on this subject. See http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php
Hi Anthony,
I just finnished reading your book on Wikinomics and now I am maybe the newest addicted to your blogs page.
Anyhow, I do agree there is need to do something about the way we are consuming our planet; however, I would be careful to use the climate change as the argument.
I am not saying that greenhouse gases do not contribute to the warming of the planet and between you and I, I do beleive it has an effect. On the other hand though, there will always be detractors for that theory and while the pros will fight against the cons, nothing gets done.
I have a vision where there would be use of web 2.0 in order to create an ecosystem where we can find solutions to a sustainable way of life - promote sustainable consumerism is in my opinion the most efficient starting point. After all, why are industries poluting/ Why do we need to dig deep in the ground to find ressources and extract them???
I am telling you, aiming to a sustainable lifestyle is not that uncomfortable.
Back to my vision, I see a mainframe (open source preferably) which would connect together advocacy groups, industries and individual which would develop their own tool on one side but would connect to the ecosystem via common tools. A collaboration tool should not be space to gather and keep reminding us how bad is the poluted word but a project management tool that would enable people to manage innitiatives in an open environment and then share with the rest of the world.
Have a green day,
Sylvain Martel,
Vancouver, BC
Mark,
You just reinforced my argument about how man made global warming comes to an argument. Very nice site, I think every point of view is worth looking at - in the meantime I do agree that something bad is going on with all the ressources mining and particles in the air - there is still a need for sustainable behaviors otherwise our children might starve….
Sylvian,
I do agree with you on a couple key points. I believe we need to be responsible Earth citizens, and manage industrial pollution responsibly… and that Wikinomics can definitely help in this and in other large-scale challenges. I’m impressed with the keen insights provided by the authors, and I bought the Wikinomics book I am now reading.
One area where respectfully I do take issue, is with ‘resource mining’ you reference. The economies of the industrial world currently run on fossil fuels (primarily oil and coal). There is no dodging that simple economic truth. Why? These fuels - are simply the best and cheapest we now know of. We must use them wisely (eg, reasonable emission control equipment, like scrubbers to clean coal power plant smokestack emissions)… but we must use them nonetheless. Here’s a good related article by Dr. R. Spencer… http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzMwOTcxNWEyYWE4ZDQ0MTA5ZWRkNWE3MWJlODUzYzQ=
Perhaps Wikinomics can help the world encourage developing countries, like Communist China, to manage industrial pollution better? That to me, seems like a much more urgent issue than trying to avoid heating up our planet via industrial activity.
Gregor,
Like so much of current global science, the Clathrate Gun theory is unproven. Here’s an article refuting it. http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=2334
Unlike the Human Genome Project, which was set up to solve the convergent problem of ‘determining the sequence of the chemical base pairs that make up human DNA’, problems relating to climate-change and sustainability are divergent and ‘wicked’. Therefore they cannot be solved by a singular “killer app” solution. This complexity is perhaps what draws you into the ‘pessimistic’ (realist?) camp.
However, we need to remain optimistic that the types of innovation in social, information, communication and other technologies described in Wikinomics can provide the means for generating a diversity of ’solutions’ to these complex problems.
We need to do this within a new type of ‘ecosystem’ where we jointly exercise much more wisdom in selecting those solutions that offer the most promise of evolving into the next generations of solutions. Perhaps this is where the ‘killer app’ idea can play a role.
I encourage you to convert your ideas onto action, drawing on your influence, networks, resources and sense of purpose. What happens as a result will become history. But with the best intentions, this could help us to co-create and emerge into our uncertain future.
[...] Collaboration and Climate Change: Part II Last week Anthony wrote about the application of the mass collaboration concept to climate change. He noted that despite the evident potential for Web 2.0 tools to be used [...]
Thoughtful comments. I certainly agree with your assessment of the short term bias of most aspects of our society. It certainly is easy to get pessimistic.
Regarding the web2.0, ‘Think globally, act locally’ may be a way out of your delema. I doubt that any mass web2.0 effort targeted at a very broad policy level will have a significant impact. However, as you note, there are many different solutions to the GHG problem and many different audiences. It seems to me that many parallel web2.0 efforts focused on different aspects of the solution many be a more productive strategy to explore.
For example, auto emissions are one part of the problem, and right now the major auto makers have been using the court system (and their Cheney connection via EPA)to stall California’s GHG emission standards. 14 states that cover 50% of the US population have also adopted these standards. A web2.0 strategy in this case might be to promote a consumer boycott of all auto manufacturers who continue to oppose Calif’s CAFE standards.
Another web2.0 project might be a ‘climate truth’ effort the slowly and gently correct the misinformation that confuse readers like Mark above.
A third example might be to galvanize action at the local level. Web2.0 apps would be useful tools to link communities together to encourage behavior change at the personal and local government level. We might call this ‘WikiAction’
[...] cars In January, Anthony wrote a post on the potential for climate change to become the “killer application for mass collaboration.” In it, he speculated [...]
I do believe that mass collaboration’s killer app will be based around global climate change and the need to create sustainable technologies, cultural activities and consumption. I also agree that it’s possible that reversing global warming is a mass collaboration project. However, I see it being a “project of project” of sorts, with individual projects to create green buildings, products and sustainable services building towards a global project of creating a green culture. One project at a time, with many people working on several. Interesting idea, though, I came across it while researching the idea because I have a business idea that incorporates this conversation.
I’m embarking on tackling this question for a thesis during this summer. For me oneof the question is can the tools of web 2.0 change the relationships between consumer, big business and government? Climate change is certainly a problem that does not respect traditional geo-political boundaries, but then neither does the web. Hopefully come back with something interesting in a few months!