{07.03.08}
Euglena is coming to Portland, OR in July & August!
Presentations & weekend workshops in Portland during July & August
Please contact us for more information.
(Address with map is also on that page.)
Please consider a donation to help
Euglena Academy grow & evolve.
Euglena Academy is a collaborative endeavor between multiple individuals in EUG & PDX. I am the founder & “dean” (in charge of curriculum), but many are involved. I have, therefore, chosen to represent the academic side of Euglena on this web site, leaving my more personal elements for elsewhere.
However, those personal elements represent another dimension of me outside of my scholarly, hard-core academic side. I & others have often described that other dimension as “contemporary alderpunk”. You’ll know it when you see it.
Anyway, I’ve finally set up a blog page to let my muse play a bit, allow my “soul” come out to play. I intend to use it for opinions, rants, poetry, art, music, social commentary, etc.
The byline reads: “Musings about TEOTWAWKI by a biologist, systems thinker, educator, poet, percussionist & climate change adventurer with a nicely-aged, punk edge.”
I’ve called the blog Euglena.
A~
{5.31.08}
This is Alder Fuller’s response to stories about Euglena Academy
in the May 29 edition of Eugene Weekly:
First, thanks very much to Eva Sylwester, Camilla Mortensen & the Eugene Weekly. The stories are overall accurate & informative. I hope they will serve to stimulate discussion & debate about this very important issue in our community.
We must acknowledge that the issue is hugely complex - in fact, the most complex issue that humans have ever grappled with, bar none. And, it is crucial that we get it right, because if Lovelock and others are right, this is also the most important issue that humans have ever dealt with.
But attempting to accurately represent it in a single story is hopelessly impossible. Nothing short of a column devoted to it could be sufficient for a more complete understanding.
There are a few minor but significant errors or slight misinterpretations in the stories - I’ll take my share of responsibility for those - so I’ll address them here in order to clarify the issue as much as possible.
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First & foremost, the following statement from “Climate Apocalypse” is incorrect.
“James Lovelock … has predicted that Earth’s human population will drop to less than one billion by 2010.”
That date should read 2100, not 2010. [Thanks to Eugene Weekly for correcting that error on their on line version of the story.]
Even though we now understand that climate can undergo extremely large & rapid shifts in as little as a decade, a shift severe enough to reduce human numbers in less than two years is the stuff of science fiction like “Day After Tomorrow”. Even Lovelock’s sobering assessment of the climate crisis is not so bleak.
Here is a quote from a recent interview with Lovelock in Rolling Stone Magazine:
“By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes — Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.”
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Also, the title of Camilla Mortensen’s news note, “End of Euglena?”, is a bit misleading, even though the story itself is accurate. Euglena Academy will not “end” if Eugene doesn’t support it.
Instead, as the story correctly explains, we will move to another community, almost certainly Portland. (We almost headed up there three years ago, but decided to give Eugene one more chance.) Perhaps a better title is “End of Euglena in Eugene?”
Last call, Eugene. Anybody interested? If so, please let us know. We’d like to stay. 
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OK, now some more comments about particular excerpts from the “Climate Apocalypse” story. I’ll indicate story excerpts with “EW“, & my comments with AF (Alder Fuller).
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EW: “The end of the world as we know it is coming in the next few decades, Alder Fuller says. But he recently re-opened his local independent school, Euglena Academy, anyway.
“Climate change will be more drastic than commonly believed, and we’re heading for a climate-induced apocalypse, according to Fuller. ‘I’d be delighted to be wrong about this,’ he said.”
AF: I explicitly avoid using the term “apocalypse” when referring to climate change. Apocalypse has strong religious overtones. Euglena is specifically & emphatically about science, not religion. In fact, there are two things rarely discussed at all at Euglena: religion & politics. People are free to believe as they wish, but we just don’t discuss it here. Our clients are very diverse, and those issues inevitably cause stress, not a positive learning environment.
As a mountaineer, I’ve faced horrendous challenges, from blizzards above the tree line to blazing deserts. Those were some of the greatest adventures of my life. Metaphorically, those extreme conditions are similar to what we face now as Earth’s climate shifts into a PETM-like state: a radically different climate state not seen on Earth for over 50 million years.
However, I refer to neither extreme weather or extreme climate change as an “apocalypse”. Dangerous & dire? Yes. Challenging the existence of civilization? Almost certainly.
But it’s only “apocalyptic” for those who hold too dearly to the present state of human existence that are unwilling to consider a new mode of living on Earth.
Instead, I often say the following about climate change: “It’s not an apocalypse, it’s an adventure.”
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EW: “Fuller says he holds a doctorate in ecology and biological evolution and has taught at a community college in New Mexico and part-time at Evergreen State College in Washington.”
AF: My educational & professional background is described here.
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EW: “He is making plans for the science-based school’s future despite what he believes is the coming end of the world.”
AF: Again, NOT the end of the world, but the end of the world as we’ve known if for the last few millennia. There’s an important difference.
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EW: “Fuller’s read of the climate science is that climate change cannot be stopped. He advocates reducing carbon emissions dramatically in hopes of slowing climate change, but he said planning to adapt to coming changes is also necessary.”
AF: The main elements of my argument, offered numerous times in free public lectures over the last two years, and the basis of my Climate Change 1 workshop, are explained here.
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EW: “The world’s main synthesis of climate science research comes from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). … ‘We have to realize IPCC is a consensus,’ Fuller said. ‘Every government in the world has line-item veto over every word in the IPCC report.’ ”
AF: There are other more important issues with the IPCC report that the story omitted. For example, the IPCC explicitly does not make use of systems sciences in their assessment. Their predictions are based more on linear models & perspectives than nonlinear perspectives of systems sciences. That’s an important distinction, as linear perspectives suggest that changes will be long and gradual. Climate does not change in a linear, gradual way, but rapidly with big shifts.
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EW: “Fuller predicted that climate change would reach a critical tipping point and then progress rapidly into a climate no longer recognizable as Earth rather than continuing to gradually change at a relatively constant rate. This rapid change would happen because of positive feedback, a chain reaction caused by a variety of biological processes setting each other off, he said.”
AF: That’s actually not my prediction, but Lovelock’s. I’m holding it out to communities for consideration.
When one considers Lovelock’s arguments in the context of systems sciences, nonlinear dynamics & geophysiology - with which he is intimately familiar - it does indeed seem plausible.
Note: Many criticize Lovelock for some of his proposed “solutions” to climate change, notably his support of nuclear fission as an interim energy source until better energy sources - specifically for him, solar, hydrogen & fusion - are developed. My counsel to readers: if you don’t like his solutions, ignore them. But don’t ignore his science nor his assessment of Earth’s climate crisis, both of which need to be carefully considered.
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EW: The Earth naturally moves in cycles of ice ages and interglacial periods, Fuller said. The planet was actually cooling between the years 1000 and 1900 A.D., but the unprecedented carbon emissions of human industry stopped it from going into another ice age, Fuller said. There was another period of cooling between 1940 and 1970, confusing scientists about whether the earth was warming or cooling until 1988, when the larger warming trend became apparent.
AF: Spot on accurate statements.
More on the confusion that existed in the climatology community during the 20th century here.
More on the ice age/interglacial “cycles” here.
Note: Both of those links are to essays on physicist Spencer Weart’s excellent web page “The Discovery of Global Warming”, which is, IMO, the single best, most scientifically accurate & complete site on web about the issues of global heating & climate change.
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EW: Fuller said the models currently available for predicting climate change are solid on the direction of the change toward increasing temperatures but fuzzy on specifics of when and how fast the change will come. The Pacific Northwest is predicted to face the dual challenge of becoming hotter and wetter, with less snow and more rain.
AF: That “fuzziness” is an unavoidable part of the process of scientific modeling. No model of such a complex system as climate, no matter how good, will ever be able to yield accurate quantitative results for specific regions.
But that’s not the point of models, which many lay persons (including skeptics) do not understand. The role of models is to yield reasonable qualitative predictions. The current suite of global climate models are doing that, and have addressed many of the problems experienced with the models even a decade ago.
See Weart’s excellent article “General Circulation Models of Climate” for more on this topic.
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EW: Fuller said climate change wouldn’t be the end of all life on Earth, but James Lovelock, an independent British scientist Fuller frequently quoted, has predicted that Earth’s human population will drop to less than one billion by 2010.
AF: Again, that date should read 2100, not 2010.
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EW: “Euglena Academy resides in a nondescript warehouse in an industrial area, but the interior of the unit features classroom equipment, social space, a kitchen and even a workout area.”
AF: Mostly correct, but we have no “kitchen”, only a kitchenette, a place for folks to wash their tea cups or plates used for bag meals brought during classes or workshops. We’re an educational & multimedia development studio, not a cafe.
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EW: Euglena Academy will offer a free presentation on climate change from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 31, and Friday, June 6. For more information and to reserve a space at the presentation, visit Euglena Academy’s website (Euglena-Academy.net).
AF: Those presentations - offered at Euglena every Friday in June from 6:30 - 9 pm - are the basis of my weekend intensive workshops, Climate Change 1 & Climate Change 2.
Lectures are free, but donations are accepted. Attendance at a lecture does not commit one to participation in the workshops. However, after hearing the presentation, people may join the workshop (either that weekend or at a later time) if there is space available.
Please contact me to reserve a space.
Euglena offers education in cutting-edge systems sciences - grounded in the work of Earth’s most prestigious scientists, including Nobel laureates - that are changing the nature of how we understand Earth, life, consciousness & even the nature of reality itself. Our courses & workshops are available to any adult regardless of educational background.
If you have no previous background in science, our level-0 curriculum will get you up to speed quickly with the basics of science as process of knowing, scientific models & the basic concepts of chemistry needed for the remainder of the curriculum. We teach these ideas entirely conceptually with lots of imagery; anyone can grasp them & they add new meaning to understanding life & existence.
Our level-1 curriculum offers a 7-week core sequence of fundamental principles of sytems sciences (AKA complexity), followed by (for those who choose it) sequences in biology, evolution, geophysiology (AKA Gaia theory) & climatology.
For those seeking more depth, our level-2 curriculum offers over a dozen advanced courses in systems, biology, geology & climate.
Again, these ideas are not merely of intellectual & academic interest, but are important for communities to understand if we are to weather the coming global crises & create cultures capable of adapting to the rapidly changing conditions on Earth, changes that have only just begun & will continue to accelerate in coming years to a point that humans can hardly imagine at the moment.