Weaving art , story, science, policy, life

1. FACING EXTINCTION CONFERENCE Weaving art, story, science, policy, life Joe Ravetz Centre for Urban & Regional Ecology University of Manchester www.manchester.ac.uk/cure www.urban3.net

2. CONTENTS Why pictures & conversations WTF Workshop: “Synergistics 101” Ecolo-poly & Ecolo-polis Civil-opoly & Civil-opolis The Large ThinkonomicSynergizer Beyond sustainability draw your dreams The objectives The clients

3. Work in progresswww.urban3.netwww.urban-energy.org Urban 3.0 Creative synergy & shared intelligence for the one planet city “Environment and the City” - critical perspectives on the human urban environment around the world URBAN 3.0 – “Local / global transition strategy” – mapping & design of post-complex challenges & opportunities “World’s largest feasibility study” – linking spatial, economy, environment, society, governance. Town & Country Planning special issue: October 2013

4. Introduction:(1 technical slide only)

5. Weaving ecology & biodiversity with pressing human concerns FINANCE & MACRO-ECONOMY Macro-economic & fiscal policy Money / exchange systems Financial credit & investment, ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY Social finance, pensionsetc Water, energy Ecological & social values Higher needs, identity & meaning Biodiversity habitat & species Culture & heritage Mineral resources Fixed assets & property Social equity, welfare, prosperity Food & renewable resources Basic needs, survival & security Social & community enterprise Waste & recirculation Entrepreneur, innovation, LIVELIHOODS & CONSUMPTION Service & knowledge sectors Primary / resources Industrial manufacturing & processing PRODUCTION & SUPPLY CHAINS

6. This session • This session is about the weaving together – not just of ecology, industry, sociology etc….. But of art, stories, science, policy, life – to explore futures dark & light. • The medium here is the graphic storyline…. one way to help creative and deliberative thinking – ‘under the skin’ / ‘out of the box’ / ‘beyond linear’ – to navigate the impasse of extinction and alienation, towards some place beyond. • Here are some graphic storylines on these themes, both old and new. • The storylines invite feedback as ‘collective visual wisdom’ – where to go, how to use, what emerges. • Actually I need your collective help to complete the storyline for the book.. (which is way overdue) • An interactive graphic wall continues through the day in the Refectory – you are invited to think & respond with visuals, poems, stories, objects or anything else • (Background to this visual thinking is on - http://urban3.net/visual-thinking/

7. Weaving

8. Background - why pictures & conversations? So why do we need pictures and conversations? I thought this was a heavyweight book about the future. They can show visions And pictures can reveal certain perspectives Or certain moments which cannot be defined Yeah well, conversations reveal certain truths, which are more complex than saying A=B & maybe more interesting

9. Conversations can be arguments, mis-understandings, or deep seated rage Pictures can show alternative realities & discourses of resistance A picture is another form of map, or mapping useful if you lose your way in the inter-connected-ness of things I can’t believe you just said that!! Sometimes you have to draw them yourself

10. Pictures & maps can be a guide to the future With pictures we can notice tiny details Yes!! we could invent the ‘Fut-Nav’ & make a million With conversations we can debate their meaning With pictures & conversations we can explore the inter-connected-ness of Thinking I thought you were gonna say “Drinking”, ha ha Hmm.. And with both together we’re ready for anything

11. The workshop WTF workshop: Synergistics 101 Then, hands-on “creative synergy & social intelligence” And G-TEC has sent a demo ‘Sphere’ to inspire us Ok here’s the plan... We have 3 Challenges: 3 cases: 4 future scenarios welcome to this WTF * workshop “Synergi-stics 101”. Challenges – cases – futures * Note – WTF is the World Thinkonomics Forum, set up in 2024 after ‘economics’ was formally discredited and disbanded

12. Then, it’s methods, tools, concepts… & the elephant effect What d’you mean, elephant? It’s a tree! TOOLS – METHODS - CONCEPTS You’re joking, it’s a snake!! Not at all, it’s a rope, innit

13. Basically it’s about “synergistic co-evolution” – as easy as “1-2-3” 1.0is a mecha-nical system 2.0is a biological system 3.0is the human side - synergy & social intelligence

14. In the 3.0 Games the basic aim is to live together on One Planet... So you play ‘ECOL-OPOLY’ starting with 1.0 or 2.0 rules – then work out how to collaborate, to build the 3.0 ‘ECOL-OPOLIS’. But Urban 3.0 & the others, are more than simple cause+effect, you have to play the 3.0 Games But each game contains a mighty struggle .... The rational brain now has knowledge so powerful it cannot lose. But the creative brain designs the game so it can only win. On that paradox hangs our future Now if you play Monopoly – it’s very ‘2.0’ –everyone loses except the winner who takes all.

15. Game #1: “Ecolo-poly” “ECOL-OPOLY” The ONE PLANET game Hi, I’m Benito. My family were rancheros. Hunger was our main hobby To eat you had to take land from the forest... Many went to the cities, but I followed the trucks, across many borders, to the other side of the world But the forest was a madhouse – police, agencies, farmers, loggers – all taking what they could get One day the police turned the guns on us. It was time to leave The people there were so fat, it was not a good sight HAPPY MEALS GO LARGE

16. For many years I worked & studied. Then I got a job working on the new Syn-Earth game module Development? We tried all the options and settings... We monitored all the results... Education ?? Regulation ?? Markets?? Finance ?? The so-called GLOBAL NEXUS was at the core of the system. Innovation ?? CLIMATE FOOD ENERGY Trade?? WATER HABITATS But we couldn’t get it into stability & balance GMO?

17. But the system was imploding - every 6 minutes another species extinct. The devastation was shocking And the human species was also imploding – sadly, some suffered more than others if I was a panda would you help then?? GRIEF BLAME DENIAL ANGER GUILT Then we realized – the humans were the problem. Like with 5 stages of trauma

18. What if we could discuss the situation with everyone involved? Then we’re into deeper myth & archetype So some will feel angry, but the fact is, the only solution is growth & development ... After the deluge.. Cosmic justice Like a Conference of the Species? **** your solution pollution!! Sin & redemption.. squawk rrrrrr Shiva the destroyer We can only go forward ssssss

19. Game #2: “Civil-opoly” “CIVILOPOLY” The governance game After a while I got to be mayor, then a UN delegate We worked with G-TEC and the others, thinking that any system would be better than this chaos we kept the symbols of democratic politics, while the real business shifted to elsewhere Greetings I’m Aisha. I grew up in an African township. Things were rough, but there was hope in the streets We worked for positive change, but instead there was more terror & instability

20. So welcome to the game of CIVILOPOLY... The object is to get ultimate power via democratic elections. A less bad future A better future Meanwhile, global investors quietly make sure our national system is charged & watered, so to deliver 10%+ returns to them & friends Don’t trust any of them!! But it looks like puppets on a house of cards, cashing in votes from celebrity glitz & fashion swings

21. Some call for an alternative to the system - they don’t last long, but we admire their ethical stand & what about the “underclass”.. cyber-punks & rejects, misfits & weirdos, abusers & abused, freelancers & freeloaders?? floating voters are a problem – lost in their phones & profiles – they think politics has no relevance… only wifi & coffee matters Otherwise it’s a technical task to net all the possible voters Yeah we’d like to include them, but they just hide in the cracks & destroy themselves

22. But power isvery power-ful... look at that!! Ok let’s get democracy back to its roots – not just the town or village, but anywhere that people come together So to build the CIVILOPOLIS we have to include all these communities ‘Real’ power is in the voice & energy of the people I can’t believe you are seduced by expensive shiny phallic objects!! & there is resistance growing, from inside & outside the political spectrum

23. Game #3: “Thinkopoly” G-TEC LIVING LABS TOP LEVEL RESTRICTED ACCESS Here we see 5 layers: global ecology at the top, then economies, cities, communities, & root ecology. This one seems to be at the 2.0 stage – you can see the elite, extracting the value & leaving chaos & fallout... Welcome to the G-TEC Living Labs and the LARGE THINKONOMIC SYNERGIZER. Here you see 100000 inter-connected spheres, each one a test site for the co-evolution of ‘social intelligence”, Sorry I can’t tell you that. I can say that the Large ThinkonomicSynergizer is the most advanced experiment ever in collective intelligence. Even we can hardly imagine where it’s going to end Look at that – spheres within spheres, and smaller ones inside them. Maybe it goes on for ever? Impressive. so when do you expect to go into commercial production?

24. Coffee break Synergistics 101: beyond sustainability But there’s new things.. We see the Earth hanging in space. We know we have complex brains with multiple intelligences But it’s not in a straight line, it’s evolutionary. To live on One Planet humans have to learn the art. It’s not a technical fix or even a ‘plan’ Well they’ve been working on that one for 3000 years. So to get beyond the impasse of “sustain-ability”, we need to look at how humans really work it’s about community – most of us are confused & need a crowd to follow it’s about aspirations, like a beautiful garden seen through a doorway There are so many directions & levels to walk on Like a labyrinth with no exit.... so who has the map?

25. So there’s two different tracks here. One is about ‘creative synergy & social intelligence’ But the other is where we’re at.. Where cities & human systems are all messed up, fragmented, senseless, chaotic, Ok so we all look for patterns of collaboration, & learn how to do it better & chaos isn’t just ‘out there’ but ‘in here’ How many forums, likes, feeds, streams, pokes, can you use? Then we can start again with some building blocks So before anything else, we have to look for what makes us whole human beings... What is this thing ‘social’, & what is ‘intelligence’?? What? Actually i’ve lost count

26. Conclusion: draw your dreams