Interactions - September/October 2011

pening more quickly than we imagined just 10 years ago, and that it will continue in fits and starts, not sliding up a smooth hyperbolic curve. We will not be frogs in the cooking pot. And we are racing against time.

But if our models are inadequate, how could gathering more data help? When there is more data, the holes in our hypotheses become more apparent. We see phenomena that a plethora of data cannot explain. In science, holes in hypotheses lead to new questions, new hypotheses, new science—and when we are fortunate—new understanding and new capabilities. In a nutshell, that’s why participatory sensing matters, and that’s why Gaian IxD should be bearing down on more and better observation— attentiveness—as a method that can be expanded and designed so as to engage more participants at deeper levels.

the heroes are NSF wonks doing hardcore science and making exceedingly bold choices. There is no time to sit back and ponder the unintended consequences of our urgent efforts to address the unintended consequences of our activities on Earth. These characters are 21st-century heroes.

Although perhaps not as swashbuckling as Robinson’s crew, interaction designers can make unique and vital contributions. We can enable and encourage the kind of attentiveness that will feed science and spread Gaian awareness. We can create representational methods that change minds. We can galvanize public will to demand policies and actions that take Gaia seriously. Through Gaian IxD, we can take a consequential stand on what may be the greatest challenge of our day.

September + October 2011

interactions

Take a Stand!

Rain came down where I made my stand
And the cyclone rose with a wave of my
hand—Bruce Hornsby [ 31]
In The Vanishing Face of Gaia
Lovelock’s view has grown pes-
simistic: “…it seems that climate
change can happen faster than
we can respond to it, and it may
be irreversible” [ 32]. Many of us
grow dispirited and fatalistic;
others succumb to denialism
fueled by the media Spectacle.
Some, like me, believe that hope
is the best working hypoth-
esis. Bearing down on Gaian IxD
requires hope and courage.

In his Science in the Capitol trilogy [ 33], Kim Stanley Robinson takes the reader to a near future where catastrophic changes are happening suddenly, as Lovelock and others have predicted. In Robinson’s three-book series,

Acknowledgements Deepest gratitude to Rob Tow, Sean White, and Jennifer White for their conversations and invaluable contributions to my thinking and this article.

eNdNotes:

1. Morton, M. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Harvard University press, boston, MA, 2007.

2. O’Kane, r. Wahoo: The Patrol of America’s Most Famous WWII Submarine. presidio press, Novato, cA, 1987.

3. Laurel, b., Strickland, r., and tow, r. placeholder: Landscape and narrative in virtual environments. Computer Graphics 28, 2 (May 1994). 4. campbell, J. Myths to Live By. penguin compass, New York, 1972. 5. the revolution was televised—but not, in the first instance, by a central broadcasting model. 6. the Grateful Dead. “Eyes of the World.” Jerry Garcia (music) and robert Hunter (lyrics), 1973. 7. See Vernadsky, V.I. The Biosphere. complete annotated edition in English, D.b. Langmuir, trans. Springer-Verlag, N Y, 1997. In the preface to Gaia (1979), Lovelock referred to the failure of most in the West to recognize Vernadsky’s contribution as “egregious.” 8. Lovelock, J.E. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford University press, Oxford, England, 1979, 11. 9. Margulis, L. Symbiotic Planet: A New View of Evolution. basic books, NY, 1998.

10. rob tow, personal conversations. 11. rae and charles Eames. Powers of Ten. Film based on book by Kees boeke, Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps. John Day co., princeton, NJ, 1957. 12. both Vladimir Vernadsky and teilhard de chardin used the term, “noösphere.” De chardin’s is evidently the first published use in a 1922 paper entitled “cosmogenesis.” 13. Johnson, t. Exercises in spirituality. White Crane Journal 31 ( Winter 1997). 14. See [ 1], p. 2. 15. See [ 1], p. 27. 16. Lopez, b. Landscape and narrative. In Crossing Open Ground. Vintage, New York, 1968. 17. rudman, W.F. Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate. princeton University press, princeton, NJ, 2007. 18. barry Lopez, personal correspondence. 19. barry Lopez, Salon at california college of the Arts, San Francisco, cA, Oct. 7, 2010. 20. White, S., Feiner, S., and Kopylec, J. Virtual vouchers: prototyping a mobile augmented reality user interface for botanical species identifica-tion. Proc. of. IEEE Symp. on 3D User Interfaces (Alexandria, VA, Mar. 25–26, 2006). 21. http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sli- ceofmit/2011/03/22/vanished/ 22. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ archives/2011/06/2000-years-of-sea-level/ 23. http://www. miraikan.jst.go.jp/en/sp/tsunagari/ geopalette.html 24. http://www.tedprize.org 25. http://www.ted.com/talks/e_o_wilson_on_sav- ing_life_on_earth.htm 26. Life http://www.eol.org/ 27. National Geographic News, Oct. 28, 2010; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ news/2008/02/ 080227-Ap-encyclopedi.html 28. Estrin, D. participatory sensing: From eco- systems to human systems. big thinkers Event. Yahoo!, (Mar. 6, 2011). 29. http://neoninc.org/budburist/ 30. http://www.openmind.org/ 31. “the cyclone,” music and lyrics by bruce Hornsby, 2010. 32. Lovelock, J.E. The Vanishing Face of Gaia. basic books, New York, 2009, 12. 33. robinson, K.S. Forty Signs of Rain (2004) Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007) Spectra, New York.