Also see The Quiet Revolution by the same author.
Thomas I. Ellis, Ph.D.
A Heuristic Framework for Generating Interdisciplinary Dialogue on the Global Ecological Crisis
The division of academic discourse into separate domains of inquiry–the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the professional disciplines–has had the unfortunate effect of restricting the exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, largely because scholars are rewarded for publication in their own fields, and hence have a disincentive for inquiry into topics that require delving into other disciplines. One result of this mutual isolation has been an astonishing lack of attention, across the curriculum, to the greatest challenge facing all of us in the Twenty-First Century: the global ecological crisis.
Students who are concerned about the global crisis are normally channeled either into the physical or biological sciences, where they study specific manifestations of the crisis, or into environmental studies programs in the social sciences, where they focus primarily on the socioeconomic and political causes of specific environmental issues. Meanwhile, all the rest of the students and faculty–in the arts and humanities, mathematics, sociology, history, economics, business, architecture, engineering, law, and the health sciences–pursue their curricular goals in settings where discussion of this fundamental and inescapable global crisis has no place. Many, especially in economics and business, are thus in complete ignorance and denial about the central fact of our time: the fundamental incompatibility between an economic system predicated on the infinite growth of production and consumption, and a finite and overstressed world.
None of us, however, has the luxury of ignoring the global crisis any longer. Our polar ice caps are already melting, due to global warming, threatening an unprecedented global catastrophe within our lifetimes. Rainforests are being destroyed at an accelerating pace, toxic chemicals pervade our bodies and our world, species are disappearing more rapidly than ever, fresh water supplies are dwindling, topsoil is disappearing, and population continues to soar, particularly in the nations of the southern hemisphere which can least afford additional mouths to feed. Petroleum, the primary source of the cheap and abundant energy that has driven industrial expansion for the past century, is at or near its global peak of production, after which the net productivity of our global oil resources will steadily and irreversibly decline, while demand continues to grow. Yet no affordable alternatives are in sight.
Addressing this global crisis of unprecedented magnitude will require the best thinking and efforts, not simply of “environmentalists” (who are often marginalized and dismissed by the cultural mainstream) but of all of us, regardless of our disciplinary interests. Accordingly, I have developed the following heuristic model to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue among faculty and students in order to focus their creative efforts on this fundamental challenge.
The Model
Based on James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, a systemic perspective on the codetermination of life and the physical conditions that make life possible, the model consists of three concentric spheres: the Physiosphere, the Biosphere, and the Noosphere.
The Physiosphere refers to the physical substrate of life: matter and energy. I have divided it into the four classical “elements” which are also the four basic constituents of, and prerequisites for, life: Fire (energy), Air (primarily oxygen), Earth (topsoil), and Water.
The Biosphere–the sphere of living organisms–both depends on, and transforms, these constituents of the Physiosphere. Life is driven by an energy source, usually the sun (Fire), which it transforms, through photosynthesis, into biomass and free oxygen (Air), thus making that solar energy available to other life (predators and decomposers), which transform the mineral substrate (Earth) into topsoil. It also, via evapotranspiration and filtration, transforms seawater into fresh water, again making water available to other forms of life. In all these ways, life itself enhances and sustains the conditions that sustain life; this is Gaia theory in a nutshell.
While the first two spheres are familiar, the Nˆosphere needs some explanation. Coined by the French Jesuit thinker, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the term “Nˆosphere” refers to the sphere of mind, conscious reflection, and the soul. I prefer, however, a less theological, more pragmatic definition: the sphere of information made possible by the evolution of human language. Information is neither physical nor mystical. As Claude Shannon and others have shown, it can be measured precisely and corresponds, in physics, to negentropy. But the important thing, always, about information is its effects. As Gregory Bateson has aptly defined it, information is “a difference that makes a difference.”
In my model, I have therefore divided the Nˆosphere into four interrelated categories of information that continually flow through, and shape, our global civilization:
(1) Politics–information about power, authority, and entitlement; who is in charge, what rules we must follow, our rights, privileges, and obligations with respect to those within and outside our political spheres.
(2) Technology–information about the properties of our physical and biological world, and how to manipulate those properties in order to serve our purposes.
(3) Economics–information about the exchange value of commodities, as mediated through the money system; and
(4) Culture–information about values and priorities; the shared assumptions of our societies, as mediated through language and the arts.
Each of these four categories of information reciprocally influences the other three. For example, our political systems, our technologies, and our choices of where to spend and invest our money are all determined by, and at the same time directly influence, our shared cultural values; likewise, political decisions are influenced by economic considerations and vice versa, and the directions in which scientific inquiry and technological innovation proceed are likewise determined by politics, economics, and culture.
Just as the Biosphere emerges from, depends entirely on, and constantly transforms the Physiosphere to serve its purposes, so the Nˆosphere emerges from, depends entirely on, and transforms both the Biosphere and the Physiosphere to serve human purposes. And therein lie the roots of our global crisis: our economy, technology, political institutions, and culture are all complicit in the steady deterioration of our biosphere, and in the exhaustion or pollution of the physical resources upon which the biosphere depends. Our fresh water supplies are threatened worldwide; our atmosphere is changing due to global warming and ozone depletion; our supplies of fossil fuels are running out; and our topsoil is being depleted far more rapidly than it can be regenerated.
And yet these same four social determinants–politics, technology, economics, and culture–also provide our only available points of intervention for curbing the deterioration of the biosphere and the depletion of the physiosphere, by enacting new laws, developing sustainable technologies, using economic incentives, and incorporating ecological values more thoroughly into our education, mass media, and other forms of acculturation.
Using the Model
This model can be used by educators in a variety of ways, to generate topics for discussion and inquiry, in a campus-wide “Gaia Forum” series and in the classroom. A “Gaia Forum” is an event in which a prominent keynote speaker leads off a panel discussion among faculty from diverse disciplines, focusing on one or more aspects of the global crisis. One approach to organizing such a forum series is to “spin” the outermost sphere–the four social determinants of the Noosphere–through each of the four physiospheric determinants of life in turn (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water), in order to generate questions of basic knowledge, reciprocal causes and consequences, and solutions. Here are a few examples of how the model might be applied to the determinant of Earth or topsoil, in developing a Gaia Forum event with corresponding curricular units in various disciplines:
Basic Knowledge:
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- What is topsoil, and how is it formed by the interaction of life and the mineral substrate?
- What kinds of topsoil are there, and what are their properties?
- How do living organisms depend on topsoil, and vice versa?
- In what ways do we as human beings depend on topsoil for our very survival?
- How are the world’s topsoil resources threatened, and why?
Causes and Consequences:
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- How do political decisions affect topsoil depletion, and how does topsoil depletion affect political decisions?
- How does economic behavior affect topsoil depletion, and how does topsoil depletion affect the economy?
- How do advances in agricultural technology contribute to topsoil loss, and how has topsoil loss affected agricultural technology?
- How do our cultural values contribute to topsoil loss, and how has topsoil affected cultural evolution?
Solutions:
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- What can be done politically to promote conservation of topsoil?
- What economic incentives are available to promote conservation of topsoil?
- What technological innovations would result in agricultural methods that were less damaging to topsoil?
- What cultural values and practices, particularly in our eating habits, would promote conservation of topsoil?
A similar set of formulaic questions could likewise be generated for Fire (Energy), Air, Water, and Life (biodiversity). The depth and complexity of these questions, of course, could be scaled up for upper-level college students, or down for elementary or secondary students. The model is infinitely adaptable in this respect. The model could also be tailored to apply to a specific social problem, such as deforestation, population growth, or suburban sprawl. (e.g. How does suburban sprawl affect topsoil, energy consumption, air quality, and water resources? How does it affect biodiversity? What are its economic, political, technological, and cultural causes and consequences? What solutions are available economically, politically, technologically, and culturally?)
The purpose of the Gaia Model is therefore to assist educators at all levels in reorganizing their curricular goals to acknowledge the critical state of our living planet, and to encourage students, in an empowering way, and on a continuing basis, to think creatively about solutions to these fundamental problems.
The Gaia Model
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