Forward
Half a century ago, as Apollo 8 emerged from the dark side of the moon, the astronauts aboard
became the first humans to see an Earthrise. This event was immortalized in the most reproduced photograph of the pre-Instagram era, and was identified by many as a pivotal moment in the evolution of human consciousness.
A Missed Opportunity
At this moment, it became incontestably clear that the Earth and its resources were finite, and its biosphere, home to all living things, a diaphanous tapestry of incomparable beauty and fragility. The Apollo photo should have been a wake-up call for a somnambulant world; it showed clearly the fluid continuity of the oceans and the atmosphere and the ragged connections between the continental land masses. By contrast, the arbitrary political boundaries were largely invisible; an illusion born of the human desire to divide, possess and ultimately commodify the planet.
The photo could have sparked an epiphany, a realization that the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to resource extraction, deforestation, waste disposal, water and air pollution, which had ben the default practice for decades, was unsustainable. It could have heralded a new way of seeing and, perhaps even more critically, a new way of being in the world; a way of being captured in the words of cultural historian and ‘geologian’ Thomas Berry, when he observed,” the universe is a communion of subjects, rather than a collection of objects.” Before his death in 2013, Berry also speculated that, “humanity, after generations spent despoiling the planet, is poised to embrace a new role as a vital part of a larger, interdependent Earth community”.
Tragically, Berry’s vision has not come to pass. Instead, through a dispiriting succession of global climate summits purportedly focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the situation has continued to get worse. Over a quarter century, the definition of human prosperity and progress has remained unchanged; frozen in time by an addiction to fossil fuels; and a wilful denial of the long-term costs and consequences of environmental degradation. There is no clearer proof of this assertion, than the unrelenting ‘retreat’ of Earth Overshoot Day’.
Quantifying Sustainability
Earth Overshoot Day was first calculated in 1970, and marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what the Earth can regenerate in that same year. The deficit represents the irrecoverable liquidation of stocks of ecological resources and the irreversible accumulation of waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
An Earth Overshoot Day of December 31 would mean we are living within the ecological boundaries of the planet. In 1970 (just two years after the Apollo 8 photograph was taken) Earth Overshoot Day was calculated as December 30, meaning resource depletion and regeneration was happening at a (very nearly) sustainable rate. However, by 1995, Earth Overshoot Day had retreated to October 5, meaning resource depletion was happening at 1.3 times the sustainable rate. With the sole exception of 2020 (where humanity was constrained by the COVID lockdowns) earth Overshoot Day has continued its retreat. In 2021, it came as early as July 29, meaning resource depletion was at almost 1.75 times the sustainable rate.
These figures make it clear we must move from siloed and linear approaches to problem solving, to holistic and integrated ones. Whereas in the past, technology has often been the tool by which the ignorant and uncaring have amplified environmental destruction; from this point forward, it must be used to foster the acquisition of knowledge and accelerate ecological regeneration. Within our STEM-focused education system, we must ensure that ecological literacy becomes the foundation of all design and decision-making processes.
In Search of Ecological Literacy
To survive on this planet and for this planet to survive, we must reimagine our relationship with it. This is not simply a question of better resource management, but one of deeper spiritual connection. To understand what this might mean, we can find inspiration in the Indigenous world view.
As Indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal explains: “In the Indigenous world, people are beautiful spiritual beings of light housed in flesh, connected to the Creator and all living beings, as well as the Universe and beyond. There is no evil, one does not need to fear themselves, nor the Creator, who is the embodiment of love and caring”.
As kindred spirits of the flora and fauna, land and water of their ancestral territory, Indigenous people have a deep reservoir of inherited wisdom about environmental stewardship acquired and tested over millennia. It is worth noting that this knowledge, while guided by a set of shared cultural values, would be considered ‘local’ by today’s definition. Moving through the land and water by foot or by canoe, enables the traveler to experience the natural world with a degree of discernment and at a level of detail, impossible when moving at any greater speed.
Despite the failures of the international community noted above, the Indigenous ethos of ecological literacy is not completely alien to Western societies. North American settler culture has within it a continuous strand of environmental advocacy. Dating back more than 150 years to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Muir whose most often quoted observation ‘when you tug on something in nature, you find it hitched to the rest of the universe” remains a touchstone for the environmental movement today.
This succinct, insightful and compelling observation comes from the diaries Muir kept over the many summers he spent exploring the rivers and lakes, mountains and valleys of California’s Sierra Nevada region. His inspirational writings and drawings captured the beauty, complexity and interdependency of the animal, bird, insect and plant communities that flourished throughout the region’s diverse ecosystems. Muir’s work was also instrumental in the establishment of the US National Park system and the Sierra Club.
In the context of climate change, it is the intimate knowledge of local and bioregional ecosystems that is key to the development of successful mitigation and adaptation strategies: what have come to be known as ‘’place-based’ solutions. While we can benefit greatly from the enduring wisdom of Indigenous people, or be inspired by the assiduous observations of John Muir and the tireless advocacy of his many successors, the immediate imperatives of climate change no longer give us the luxury of time.
AnEcotechnic Future?
In 2009, American author John Michael Greer set out a vision for a post-peak oil world in his book ‘The Eco-Technic Future’. He imagines a society in which the emerging synergies between technology and ecology bring us closer to both. Such synergies create opportunities for the rapid acquisition, widespread distribution and beneficial application of metadata on the structure and health of ecosystems.
Ecologists have long understood that the presence of specific organisms, and the overall richness of wildlife communities, can be highly dependent on the three-dimensional spatial pattern of vegetation.[1] Individual bird species, in particular, are often associated with specific three-dimensional features in forests.[2] In addition, other functional aspects of forests, such as productivity, may be related to forest canopy structure. Much of the data required to inform ecosystem analyses can now be acquired through the use of LiDAR technology.
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a rapidly developing remote sensing technology that can increase the accuracy of biophysical measurements and extend spatial analysis into the third (z) dimension. LiDAR sensors directly measure the three-dimensional distribution of plant canopies as well as subcanopy topography, thus providing high-resolution topographic maps and highly accurate estimates of vegetation height, cover, and canopy structure. In addition, lidar can accurately estimate leaf area index and aboveground biomass.
The data is acquired using drone technology to scan the subject area in two directions in order to output 3D images that provide detailed information about topography, plant cover and canopy depth and spread.
While the abstract nature of this data cannot replace the multisensory inputs that embed themselves in the DNA of those who have spent a lifetime on the land, it can provide a foundation for an intellectual appreciation of a place. The speed with which this technology can propel us up the learning curve toward ecological literacy is without doubt its greatest asset, as the threats posed by climate change are now existential for many species and ecosystems.
For architectural students, these technologies can provide an astonishing level of data and information about a place which can be used to create a virtual model of the building site and its surroundings. The design process could be expanded to enable the architect to virtually place buildings and infrastructure into a fully detailed virtual site model, enabling a fundamentally different design process than using conventional tools.
While these digital realms may never supplant the historical significance of Apollo 8’s Earthrise photo, they may ultimately do more to revive a fragile planet languishing on life-support.