Plein Air and Great Service at L’Auberge Chez Francois

During a plein air competition this week hosted by The Arts of Great Falls, Virginia, I had the opportunity to work on the grounds of one of the top French restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area, L’Auberge Chez Francois.

Illustration: Photo of “plein air” watercolor as a work-in-progress by Black Elephant Blog author

Braving unseasonably hot days (over 90 degrees!)  was made easier by the very attentive staff of this deservedly highly-rated restaurant, who came outside to the patio dining area several times to offer a cold glass of sparkling water or iced tea. This was very thoughtful, and probably outside their job description as their paying customers were inside the air-conditioned restaurant.   As it happened, I had my own ice water with me so did not need to accept their offers but their hospitality made what could have been a somewhat uncomfortable setting (due to the heat and occasional biting bugs) more pleasant.

The competition continues (and ends) today but a day already in this heat has left me content to submit only this one watercolor now on sale at the sponsors’ art gallery.  (There is something satisfying about going straight from the field to a gallery even if it is not a juried exhibition!)

Illustration: Watercolor as a work-in-progress by Black Elephant Blog author

This experience is yet another reminder that ‘plein air’ is dominated by oil painters, it seems.  The history of watercolor’s admission into the ranks of accepted mediums for serious art is a fascinating one on which I started a blog post some months ago, and may try to finish soon.  These on-site ventures out into the world of artists (and gracious restaurant staff) are fun tests of one’s ability to frame and execute a concept quickly.  My approach was to go out one day and scout the place for a scene, and then to sketch it in pencil.  The following day I set aside three hours to do the watercolor.  My hope was that the white tablecloths of the scene would provide a brighter contrast; the end result was less effective in this regard than I wanted, but dissatisfaction can be a powerful motivator.  In any case, I popped it into a frame and the sponsors now have it on display.  How fun!  And I will be happy to take it home again, if it doesn’t sell,  as a memory of this experience.

Zoo Animals Enjoying the December Sun

All kinds of animals–from lemurs from Madagascar to turtles; and from elephants to the orangutans clambering on the thick cables overhead, and also, of course, the flamingos–were out basking in the warm sunshine on this first Sunday in December at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.  It was a lazy bright day, perfect for showing off to the few humans who were touring the zoo on a day which annually is usually quite a bit colder.

Illustration: Watercolor and Platinum Carbon waterproof ink with Lamy Safari fountain pen in Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook

Five Trees in dem Schwarzwald

So, today was another beautiful day, a perfect day for a hike in the Black Forest, or Schwarzwald. Our origination point was the small “Kur” hamlet tucked in between forested hills called Bad Wildbad. A stream runs through the middle of the town, which has a massive sanitorium building straight out of an earlier age looming above it.  This town, in a smaller version of Baden-Baden, is centered around thermal natural spring baths and also lined with outdoor waterfront cafes, hotels, and stylish shops.  People were out enjoying the sunshine and a coffee on the terraces along the stream, accompanied by the soothing sound of the waterfalls below. Initially our destination was the Sommerberg Bahn, a small train that glides up (and down!) railway tracks at a very steep angle to and from the top of the berg, or mountain.

Sommerberg Zug im Wildbad

The scenery was gorgeous at the top of the mountain with hiking trails going every which way and intersecting here and there, with “Skiihütte” (skiers’ huts) helpfully positioned at the crossroads, in case you need a rest or want to measure your pulse. (The bigger Skiihütte offer steaming plates of wurst and salad along with beer or lighter drinks.)  It seems important to mention that there even were raised hiking trails on platforms at least thirty feet above our heads that extended through the trees in a wide circuit (the “Treetop Path”), making the hiking experience easily accessible–and particularly scenic–for those who wanted to see the sights from a yet higher vantage point, including those who are wheelchair-bound.

There is a Nordic method to calisthenic hiking and it involves hiking poles. This method reportedly burns up more calories and leads to greater fitness. So, many people getting on and off the Sommerberg Zug had their hiking poles (a bit like ski poles) with them. While you are on the Sommerberg Bahn, you may pass by people sunning themselves on their otherwise apparently private terraces  (alongside their drying laundry arrayed on racks to catch the sun). There are a great many Kliniks and sanotorium in this area, reminding one perhaps of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

It seems doubtful that anyone is in a hurry here, so probably it would be a great place for sketching.  It would be painless, for sure, to check in here for a few months!!  In any case, although the watercolors were along for the ride, the circumstances were such that only a simple sketch of one of the Skihütte sites was possible. This is the site of the Fünf Baüme, or the Five Trees, a surprising spot in several ways.

Since this spot is surrounded by trees, it is natural to ask, as we did, why it is called “five trees.” Soon we spotted the reason; there were five trees growing together and protected by a fence just to the right of the hut. A clearing above the hut had permanent recliners–sort of anti-gravity chairs for hikers or, possibly, for sketchers passing by.  Below the hut, through the trees, a horizon of mountains and tree tops as well as blue sky was visible.  The many trees in the foreground were all possible shades of green–a fabulous place to take a rest, as several hikers and bikers did while this sketching was underway.

Eastern Market Meanderings

For locals and tourists, the Eastern Market in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill is a fun place, full of surprises. These are sketches done in situ in a Stillman & Birn 5 1/2 ” x 8 1/2″ Alpha series sketchbook, as urban sketching practice.  Capturing a lot of information,in a short time,with attention to shades of difference, context, and composition–is what this sketching activity involves.

Illustration: Watercolor and pen and ink by Black Elephant blog author

Although this is “Capitol Hill,” it does not seem like a place for people in a hurry, generally speaking.  Even in slow motion, however, people are difficult subjects for sketching.  Hopefully it will get easier!

Illustration: Watercolor and pen and ink by Black Elephant blog author

Living Laboratories of Biodiversity

Bright sunshine today in Washington, D.C., where many were observing Memorial Day by exploring beautiful sights away from the crowds.

Illustration: Watercolor and pen and ink by Black Elephant Blog author

Frame Innovation in Change-Resistant Organizations

An important book has accompanied the traveler/doodler author of this blog, making it possible, at least, to consider taking some notes on it.  The book is called Frame Innovation:  Create New Thinking By Design, by Kees Dorst (The MIT Press, 2015).  Dorst is a Professor of Design Innovation at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and at Endhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Sketchbook on-site illustrations: Pen and ink and watercolor by Black Elephant Blog author

As one reads the book, it is clear that the book’s author has been researching and developing case studies of the concept of design thinking–as applied to practical and often seemingly intractable social and urban problems–for many years.  Although the text of this book is necessarily abstract in places–explaining, for instance, the difference between traditional analytic approaches of “deduction,” and “induction” and design thinking approaches of “abduction” and design abduction”–the author is quick to remedy this through his use of case studies and helpful word-graphics. ((To fast-forward a moment to the topic of a future blog post or two, the basic issue here is a very big and momentous idea.  It is that our traditional methods of analytical reasoning, deduction and induction, “are not enough if we want to make something. If we want to create new things–or new circumstances–we need different approaches, for which even “normal abduction” (the reasoning pattern behind conventional problem-solving using tried and tested patterns of relationships) is insufficient.))

As explained in the series foreword by the editors of this new MIT Press series on design thinking and theory, design challenges today “require new frameworks of theory and research to address contemporary problem areas.”  Often problem-solving for modern challenges requires “interdisciplinary teams with a transdisciplinary focus.”  According to the editors, three contextual challenges define the nature of many design problems today.  These issues affect many of the major design problems that face us in whatever field we’re working.  They include:

–a complex environment in which many projects or products cross the boundaries of several organizations and stakeholder, producer, and user groups;

–projects or products that must meet the expectations of many organizations, stakeholders, producers, and users; and

–demands at every level of production, distribution, reception, and control.

Past environments “were simpler,” write the editors, and “made simpler demands.”   To meet modern challenges, experience and development are still necessary, but “they are no longer sufficient.”  “Most of today’s design challenges require analytic and synthetic planning skills that cannot be developed through practice alone,” they write.  What is needed, they say, is “a qualitatively different form of professional practice that emerges in response to the demands of the information society and the knowledge economy to which it gives rise.”

Designers today confront complex social and political issues, the editors note, quoting the work of Donald Norman, (“Why Design Education Must Change,” 2010).  What the authors are talking about is the fact that education today is not training professionals in ways to take integrated approaches to solve complex, inter-sector problems and imagining new futures.  The book by Kees Dorst is the first in the series and, based on this writer’s close reading of it, it represents an excellent start to this ambitious (and profoundly needed) project.

Dorst argues that society today is being “tripped up” by the “emergence of a radically new species of problem:  problems that are so open, complex, dynamic and networked that they seem impervious to solution.”  He writes:  “What all the news stories show us is that it makes no sense to keep trying to tackle these problems the way we used to.  The trusted routines just don’t work anymore.  These new types of problems require a radically different response.”

In the spirit of the focus of this blog–understanding “surprise” and the ways and whys for when we get “tripped up”–future posts will examine some of the important ideas in Dorst’s book.

Urban Sketching in Richmond, VA

Image: On the lawn behind the Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia

Yesterday a group of us spent pleasant hours sketching on the exquisitely beautiful lawn behind the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond, Virginia–as part of the “Urban Sketchers – Richmond” course.

It was clear at the start of the course that most of us have much to learn about “loose” drawing.  That’s why we are here, after all. While each sketcher develops his or her own style–and there are few hard-and-fast rules–in general urban sketching involves lots of squiggly lines depicting buildings, trees, and people followed by applications of ink and possibly watercolor.  This training is particularly good for appreciating differences in “tone” or shades, to the point that the distinctions can be made with no more than a pen or pencil.  By the end of the first day, it was clear we were learning a lot from this course.

Earlier today we were on Monument Avenue which, as its name suggests, has many monuments, especially at traffic circles. As cars zipped by in both directions, some of us sketchers chose to sit under the shade of beautiful trees in the ample (at least 30 foot-wide) median area next to one such traffic circle. Other sketchers were scattered about in shady spots along the sidewalk to one side of the avenue.  All around us were stately mansions, no two alike and each with all sorts of architectural flair.  Urban sketching, while it certainly can be done solo, is the type of activity that benefits from having company.  Fortunately, there are urban sketcher groups all over the world.

Illustration: Pen and ink by Black Elephant Blog author

The weather’s been great and so are the restaurants! Sketchers have come in from far afield but some, it turns out, live practically next door back home. Architects are part of our sketching group, and know the professional lingo for–and can certainly draw!!–the architectural details we’re seeing.

Illustration: Pen and ink by Black Elephant Blog author

Now that we’re all heading back home, hopefully, loose, squiggly drawings–combining ink and watercolor–will be ready for this blog before too long!  (The teacher’s work is much, much better–which is why his book and his courses are so popular with urban sketchers.) These sketches from the weekend have sketchers sketching in them– live action images of urban sketchers at work!

The Resilience Dividend

Illustration: Watercolor and ink by Black Elephant Blog author (All Rights Reserved)

Island nations have been in the news alot lately, and not just because of the cyclone that hit Vanuatu recently.  There is new interest in islands and the subject of resilience.  It turns out that on this subject, conventional wisdom–as so often is the case–is not quite right.  Islands aren’t always more vulnerable and less resilient, according to some experts who will be speaking at an upcoming event, “Islands as Champions of Resilience,”sponsored by by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies in Washington, D.C.  At this event, the speakers will discuss replacing the prevailing notion of island nations as victims of climate change to “champions of resilience.”  I know of some people right now in island nations who would be very interested in these proceedings…

And since we have just discussed the concept of resilience in my class, and some people I know are presently preparing materials related to resilience, here are some notes on the subject.  This is a big subject and likely to spill over into a future post or two.

In her new book, The Resilience Dividend, Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, defines resilience as “the capacity of any entity–an individual, a community, an organization, or a natural system–to prepare for disruptions, to recover from shocks and stresses, and to adapt and grow from a disruptive experience.”  She notes that ideally one becomes more adept at managing disruption and skilled at “resilience building.”

The “resilience dividend,” according to Rodin, refers to new capacity that results from becoming more adept at managing disruption; as a result, one is “able to create and take advantage of new opportunities in good times and bad.”  Thus resilience is most definitely not about snapping back to the status quo ante.  It is not like a plastic ruler bent and then let go.  Instead, Rodin writes, resilience is “about achieving significant transformation that yields benefits even when disruptions are not occurring.”  The capacity for building resilience is one of the most urgent “social and economic issues” today, she writes, “because we live in a world that is defined by disruption”.  These disruptions run the gamut, from cyber-attacks, new strains of virus, a storm, economic surprises, a structural failure, civil disturbances, and so on, notes the author.

While there is nothing new about disruption, there are three disruptive phenomena that are “distinctly modern,” according to Rodin.  These are:  urbanization, climate change, and globalization.  These three factors are “intertwined,” she writes, and affect each other in a “social-ecological-economic nexus.”  And, “because everything is interconnected–a massive system of systems–a single disruption often triggers another, which exacerbates the effects of the first, so that the original shock becomes a cascade of crises.”  Rodin writes:  “A weather disturbance, for example, can cause infrastructural damage that leads to a public health problem that, in turn, disturbs livelihoods and creates widespread economic turmoil, which can lead to a further degrading of basic services, additional health problems, and even political conflict or civil unrest.”

According to Rodin, any entity can build resilience but “too often…resilience thinking does not really take hold until a galvanizing event or a major shock–such as Superstorm Sandy–brings the need into high relief.”  She describes her goal for her book as to help frame and contribute to the process of resilience by proving a template for thinking about, and methods for practicing, resilience.

Five Characteristics of Resilience

Rodin identifies five characteristics of resilience:

• Being Aware
• Diverse (different sources of capacity)
• Integrated (coordination of functions and actions across systems)
• Self-regulating
• Adaptive

Being aware is first because without awareness you have no idea what your strengths and weakness are, what threats and risks you face…and have no concept of all the aspects of a situation, which can include “the infrastructural elements, human dynamics, and natural systems–and how they interconnect.”

Being aware is not a static condition because circumstances can change rapidly with proliferating secondary effects, Rodin writes.  The fluidity of the operating environment for most of us requires what she calls “situational awareness”–which she defines as an “ability and willingness to constantly assess, take in new information, reassess and adjust our understanding of the most critical and relevant strengths and weakness and other factors as they change and develop.”  Rodin describes several methods for enhancing situational awareness, and references what psychologists call “mindfulness,”  Mindfulness is described as “a flexible cognitive state that results from drawing novel distinctions about the situation and the environment.”

In order to be mindful, says one of Rodin’s sources on the subject, one needs to be able to develop “new mental categories, to be open-minded, receptive to different and new perspectives and new information, and to focus on processes rather than outcomes.”  In this way, a “mindful” person is “more able to understand situations as they actually are, not as you assume they should be or always have been” and “thus to respond more quickly and appropriately.”

All this is enormously relevant to people in any field anywhere, given the complexity of the systems that make up modern life and what many are finding is the inadequacy of most inherited frameworks for dealing with that complexity.  Future posts will come back to this subject as it is both central to what we are learning our class this semester and useful material for various projects of mine.

Drawing the Light

Illustration: Pastel pencil and white charcoal by Black Elephant Blog author

During a recent art class, the teacher encouraged the students to “draw the light.” With black sheets of paper and a few xeroxed black and white images fished out of a pile to serve as models, we tried seeing the opposite of what we have been trained to expect. Instead of trying to represent the external reality of someone or something in terms of its casing or flesh and bones, we were to draw the light reflected from the surfaces. This was a fascinating exercise for those of us who hadn’t tried it before.

In drawing the light, at least for the first time, you can almost feel a different part of your brain working, and see an image emerge on paper that you know you didn’t draw in a standard way.  Out of total blackness and emptiness emerges a figure, an expression, and new possibilities previously unimagined.

While many an effort doesn’t work out exactly as originally hoped, sometimes the outcome is surprising simply because we didn’t expect it.  Drawing in search of such surprises seems to have parallels in methods for thinking strategically. If we applied similar counterintuitive reasoning strategies to some of the world’s greatest problems–drawing the light instead of (or at least in addition to) reacting always to the darkness we can see more readily–what could be the result? How much of what happens is driven by our expectations, as low as they might be for some issues?

Art can help reset the mind to realize that by learning to see differently we can open up different possibilities. Indeed, could persisting in traditional ways of seeing actually be dangerous in  a world so obviously transformed and transforming by the hour, if not the minute? Might we more inevitably face more dangerous surprises by persisting in unproductive ways of thinking (or working, or organizing, measuring, or valuing)?  Alternatively, by embracing more surprising thinking ourselves, might there be a way to gain strategic advantage?  Isn’t this already recognized in business as identifying ‘niche’ opportunities or fostering innovation?  In any case, by trying to draw an image again and again, it is possible to see how much went unseen before.

Image: Poster of child’s drawing displayed on the Paseo de la Reforma, Chapultepec Park, Mexico City as part of program focused on preserving the Lacandon Jungle

It seems that artists, including children, have much to teach us about different ways of seeing the modern world.  Without fully exploring these “adjacent possible” spaces, to use the phrase coined by Stephen Johnson in Where Good Ideas Come From, how many opportunities do we miss?  The recent lesson in drawing the light was a powerful reminder of how much innate capacity remains untapped in most traditional approaches to challenges!

Valentine’s Day Surprises Mexican-Style

Often there’s nothing more to noticing surprising things than to put yourself in a different environment or try something new, or both. Over this holiday weekend in Mexico City, there has been a lot to notice and enjoy, not least because the city is filled with Valentine’s Day celebrations!

Poster on Paseo de la Reforma in Chapultepec Park showing drawing by a child

So many things to see, and lots of fun things to taste. And great fiestas of sound and dance!  Not rare for the folks in this great town but still full of surprises for the visitor!

Unsurprisingly, the traffic can be a bit overwhelming for the newcomer, as living flows of cabs, people on skateboards and roller skates, bikes, and buses jostle for space down crowded boulevards.

The exquisite way-beyond “state-of-the-art” displays in the Museo de Arte Moderno and the Museo Nacional de Antropologia are full of spell-binding surprises.  Even for the seasoned museum-goer, these museums take one’s breath away!

Stained-glass dome ceiling over the lobby of the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad de Mexico

The street life especially around the Zocalo (central plaza) in the Centro Historico is full of diversity–and crowded with people–as bands play on a large stage–in front of the cathedral.  If traversing the streets gets overwhelming, as it did for me, duck into the lobby of the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad de Mexico and have a look at its stained glass ceiling; this building was once a department store!

Nearby in the Museo de Diego Rivera is a massive mural by the artist.  It’s something not to miss; it’s breathtaking!  (Reportedly as many as 200 other murals are inside the Department of Education–and usually free to visitors who want to see them–but it’s not open on the weekends.)

Inside the Museo de Diego Rivera

While the streets were filling to overflowing around the Centro Historica, with seemingly everyone in town out to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the police also were in seemingly full force directing traffic and providing directions.

Perro “Xoloitzcuintle”, a dog of prehispanic origin which is in danger of extinction, has no hair, lacks some teeth and has sensitive skin.

In nearby Coyoacan, the festivities were similarly joyful and colorful, with newlyweds having photos taken in the park in front of the cathedral… and a lot of dancing going on next to the cathedral!!!  Cobblestone streets and cafes extend from the central park in all directions. When we needed to stop, there was no shortage of places to get a great plate of enchiladas and a cold drink.  And over at the Museo de Dolores Olmedo–a beautiful setting for paintings by Diego Rivero and Frida Kahlo and majestically landscaped parks–the peacocks were in fine form!  As this male peacock trembled his feathers, a soft clicking sound–unlike any other–was audible. Nearby, hairless dogs at risk of extinction–whose line goes back to prehispanic times–played, with their 10 week-old puppies greeting visitors.

Everyone is out enjoying this Valentine’s Day and it’s not over yet!

Coyoacan on Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day festivities in Coyoacan

Mexico City in the morning

Creating the Future

Illustration: Graphite crayon and pencil by Black Elephant Blog author

My new class on “Climate Change and Security”–which I am co-teaching this Spring at a local university–has proceeded with supersonic speed due primarily to the students in it.  In one week’s time, they have demonstrated impressive capacities for agile thinking and reframing new concepts.  This is a good thing as, whatever your optics on the world, surely it’s clear that seizing and shaping the future(s) we face requires all kinds of agility today.  Our course alone requires us to move across disciplines as diverse as geology, biodiversity, land management policies, and international law.  (Due to the diversity of knowledge required for this topic–a diversity exceeding most people’s cognitive capacity–we always are on the lookout for guest speakers!)

At the outset, our class covers the science of environmental changes right down to the molecular level, and then–in a way that could be dizzying to some–moves rapidly into broad subjects related to concepts of national, global, and human security.   We zoom in close on a careful consideration of the chemistry and geophysical interaction of the biosphere and then, often in the same class session, zoom right out into the worlds created by man. Together we examine the evolution of international security studies and quickly weave in newer work on global risks, resilience, and broader notions of security.   This year, the World Economic Forum’s report, Global Risks 2014, is featured early in the reading assignments.

Looking at the larger context of global risks helps us see  right from the get-go that environmental security issues have much in common with–and are interconnected to–other global risks and challenges. Having people from around the world in the class always makes for richer discussions!  The discussions this past week have stuck in my mind, so perhaps jotting down a few notes here will make some ideas easily recoverable for later projects, links, posts, and so forth…

While this blog left off with a post last week on the notion of serial innovators (and their innate capacities for valuing the “whole”, including the whole team, the whole organization, etc.), the discussions in our brand-new class last week were a powerful reminder of the importance of cooperative (and iterative, “nonlinear”) sense-making abilities across disciplinary, national, and even generational boundaries.  Serial collaboration skills are coming into vogue, involving the abilities to rapidly form teams and networks able to leverage geographically dispersed expertise, technologies, and data. There is simply too much to know, or wonder about, for one individual, organization or even a single nation! In so many ways, our responses, organizationally, may need to mimic the nature of the challenges:  interdependent, diverse, flexible, and combining a bifocal capacity for short-term and long-term sensibilities.  “Progressive” lenses, that’s what we need! 🙂

So far the class has discussed how “security,” the concept, means different things to different people, primarily due to diverse contexts and values.  We had a presentation from one student based on the assigned readings, which highlighted that concepts of security are linked to given values, such as job security, cyber security, and national security.  The bottom line, as he saw it, is that the definition of security relies entirely on the environment in which it is presented.  Students’ short papers also emphasized, based on assigned readings, that prevailing views of security are out of step with emerging realities.  One suggested that a main challenge today is “our inability to change our way of thinking and reform institutions at a pace fast enough to deal with reality.”

Students have identified that a strictly state-centric perspective in security discourse can be a limiting factor, in the context of environmental security issues, and needs to change.  The concept of human security, already 20 years in the making, may offer a way to “shift to people and societies in discussions and discourses on security,” wrote one student.  This shift will be crucial to designing appropriate responses to the emerging challenges related to climate change.  In many ways, dealing with environmental security challenges requires “a longer-term, more complicated, and integrated response,” said a student.

Up to now, security studies have emphasized external threats to states and so, as some of the experts whose work we are consulting in the class, such as Simon Dalby of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Ontario, Canada, the very concept of security sometimes may be a detriment to providing it.  One student pointed out that security generally implies protection of the status quo and against change.

The students are grappling with the conflicting conclusions of the IPCC assessment reports regarding the link between climate change and security.  They also are reading about the fact that climate change threatens to “exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities on an international scale” as, according to one student’s paper, “the poorest populations are simultaneously the most vulnerable and least able to adapt to climate-induced impacts.”

Among the remarks made in the discussion were that effective responses require international cooperation, not rivalry. Participants in the class wondered whether this “security” challenge is like other global threats, such as the Ebola crisis, where required responses involve more than the military.  In addition, the discussion surfaced issues of risk assessment and perception, communication strategies, and public engagement.  Clearly it is going to be a busy semester! I am glad I just have one class! 🙂

Hippo Paradoxes

We return to the book, How We Got to Now,  (discussed in “The Hummingbird Effect” blog post) sooner than expected!   A reader of the last post asked if Johnson addressed at all in his book whether the “hummingbird effect” ever led to negative consequences.  Well, he did, as a matter of fact, and this leads straight to the topic of today’s blog.  But first, by way of explanation, a bit more on How We Got to Now.

Image: Watercolor, gouache, and ink by Black Elephant Blog author

At the outset of his latest book, Johnson maintains that this book will be “resolutely agnostic on these questions of value”; i.e., whether the ripple effects of innovations represent change for the better or worse.  For instance, the invention of air-conditioning allows us to live in deserts, “but at what cost to our water supplies?,” he writes.  He explains that his emphasis in writing the book is primarily to gain insights into how changes come about in the first place.  While acknowledging that we need a value system to decide which “strains” of innovation to encourage, he says he has tried to spell out the range of consequences, good and bad, in his book.  He cites, for instance, the fact that the invention of the vacuum tube helped bring jazz to a mass audience, [but] “it also helped amplify the Nuremberg rallies.”  How one considers the values of different innovations depends on “your own belief systems about politics and social change,” he writes.

Thus, in his chapter on the evolution of the concept of “clean,” which traces the creation of the first comprehensive sewer system in America, Johnson highlights the fact that the idea of bathing at all is a relatively modern idea. Attitudes began to shift in the U.S. and in England early in the 19th century, he said, as the availability of soap and showers helped lay the groundwork for a new paradigm:  the “germ theory of disease.”   With the cleaning business today worth about $80 billion, according to Johnson, another ripple effect of the discovery of clean technologies was the creation of an advertising industry to promote the benefits of cleaning products, such as chlorox.

But all this happened in the short span of the last two centuries and has had many unanticipated consequences, including  booming rates of urbanization. (An article in the December 6 issue of The Economist magazine refers to this phenomenon as “suburbanization.”) From a world of cities of no more than two million people, cities grew to accommodate tens of millions of residents, including the “megacities” of today.  In some cities, the benefits of the paradigm shift embracing cleanliness are evident in lower mortality rates and nearly nonexistent epidemic disease, Johnson writes. But around the world, there are still more than three billion people who lack access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation systems: “in absolute numbers, [therefore], we have gone backward as a species.”

Image: Wikipedia

Johnson asks whether there has not yet been sufficient innovation to enable the developing world to bypass the big-engineering phase of the developed world that involved building massive public infrastructure to filter and pump water.  So, in this chapter, it’s clear that acceptance of the concept of “clean” has led to benefits even as it has enabled urban sprawl in countries where there are inadequate sanitation facilitations and access to potable water.  Such tensions and paradoxes lead to new requirements for innovation.

• To step back for a moment from the book, it is clear today that failures to adapt in the largest, poorest of cities–even if they are a half a world away from us–can bring us full-circle, paradoxically: back to dealing with viruses and bacteria against which we have little or no defense.  We need look no further than the front pages of any major newspaper to see that this is the case.  Which brings us to:

“HIPPO Paradoxes”

Edward O. Wilson, one of the world’s most prominent naturalists and biologists, addresses the concept of “HIPPO” (actually an mnemonic, rather than a metaphor) in his latest book, The Meaning of Human Existence.  In order of relative importance, the letters in this acronym (which is one well-known to those in Wilson’s fields but was new to me) represent aspects of the human impact on biodiversity, as in:

H = “Habitat loss”, which he defines as the reduction of habitable area by deforestation, conversion of grassland, and climate change.

I =   “Invasive species,” which refers to alien animals, plants, and even fungi that cause damage to humans or the environment or both when they travel, or are transported, into areas where they are not native.

P =  “Pollution,” which Wilson writes has inflicted most of its damage on fish and other life in freshwater systems but also is the cause of more than four hundred anoxic “dead zones” in marine waters “that receive contaminated water from upstream agricultural land.”

P = “Population growth,” which Wilson writes is “actually a catalytic force of all the other factors.”  He continues:  “Damage will not be so much from the growth itself, which is expected to peak by the end of the century, but rather from the rapid and unstoppable ascent in per capita consumption worldwide as economies improve.”

O = “Overharvesting,” which, Wilson writes, “is best illustrated by the percentage of global decline in the catch of various species of marine pelagic fishes such as tuna and swordfish from the mid-1850s to the present: 96 to 99 percent.  Not only are these species scarcer, but the individual fish caught are on average also smaller.”

In this latest book, Wilson reissues his warning (familiar but no less sobering to readers of his earlier work) that the “remainder of the century will be a bottleneck of growing human impact on the environment and diminishment of biodiversity.”  Wilson is a scientist.  He writes that science “builds and tests competitive hypotheses from partial evidence and imagination in order to generate real knowledge about the world.”  “It is totally committed to fact…[and] cuts paths through the fever swamp of human existence,” he writes.

But, this book is a warning about the limitations of science and technology-driven paths to the future.  Wilson calls for reuniting the humanities with the sciences as the way forward.  He envisions a future where science and technology will be the same almost everywhere–“for every civilized culture, subculture, and person.”  But, “what will continue to evolve and diversify most definitely are the humanities.”  And only by fusing science and the humanities, Wilson suggests, can mankind deal with the coming onslaught of biology-based and technologically-enabled challenges to the “human nature we have inherited.”

Current technological and biological trends create “a dilemma of volitional evolution,” he writes.  In Wilson’s view, the choices ahead require nothing less than re-visting what it means to be human.  “Do we really want to compete biologically with robot technologies by using brain implants and genetically improved intelligence and social behavior?”   More knowledge doesn’t always equal more understanding or situational awareness; for boosting the latter, Wilson states that the humanities are “all-important.”  This is a powerful (if also controversial–can something be powerful without controversy?) book from a lifelong and keen observer of natural life from its most microscopic to (potentially) galactic scales.  It is rich with reminders of the many creative paradoxes of human and natural existence.  We are simply bound to be surprised.