Work together to save the planet?

Can we work together to save the planet from extreme weather and an asteroid catastrophe?

CURRICULUM: Progress & the Future: Who Designs The Future?

Summary: With pretty blue skies and the occasional stormy day, earth seems to be a congenial place to live. Over time, the opposite is true: great volatility lurks below the land and oceans, in the skies, and beyond, as space objects collide with stupendous consequences. For spaceship earth, awesome adventure awaits! Underlying it all: is it possible for the nations on earth to work together and save the planet from future mishaps and disasters?

Basic Understanding:

Working with commonly accepted information and shared beliefs

Different cultures, languages, political and economic situations

Need to come together in a singular understanding of the issue, and specific solutions
Brief history of many nations working together for positive results:

United Nations (for instance): human rights, disaster relief, children’s health, some military, intellectual property, education, science, meteorology

Political, economic and military organizations: World Bank, IMF, NATO

Various human rights, climate, ocean, space organizations, projects, treaties, protocols, etc.
What we know about extreme weather, climate change and the atmosphere
What we know about oceans, land masses and planet earth
What we know about asteroids and other space-based dangers (“not if, but when”)

Issues:

For climate and for space, precise (instrument) records date back about 150 years (earlier evidence is forensic): 150 years is about 1% of human era; about 0.000000000003333% of earth's era (4.5 billion years)… and about 0.000000000001111% of universe’s age (13.8 billion years)
Extreme weather risks easier to understand; disagreement re: speed, extent, ability to control: substantial warming extremes by century’s end (high confidence); substantial increases in rainfall (likely); increased quantity and intensity of cyclones (hurricanes) (likely); intensified droughts (moderate confidence); biodiversity loss of (fewer polar bears, etc.); acidifying oceans (acidification at rate unprecedented during past 65 million years); threats to forest health; wildfires surge; thinning ice, rising seas (glacier melt, etc.); worsening air quality; more.
Time, distance spans difficult to conceive, but high risk of asteroid collision (“not if, but when”)

Open Questions:

Climate change: what is possible, actionable and meaningful; can nations can achieve greater results by working together; big nation/small nation issues.
Asteroid catastrophe: minor role for individual nations; action must be planetary (involves changing the course of interplanetary bodies or blowing them up); possible windfall: asteroid mining
How to balance the self-interests of individual nations with a global perspective on what must be done in order to save the planet (or to make arrangements to migrate to a new planet)
What is the current and future role of the United Nations—or a successor organization?

Conversation Pit: Possible Topics

How was the solar system formed?[1]

Impact on the world around us. Coral reefs are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature and face extinction. [2]

Different extreme weather disasters throughout the world[3]

Fact vs. fiction about asteroids[4]

Notebook Contents

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Examples of Web Assets

Debate between Russian scientist and American scientist on how soon an asteroid can hit earth[5]

UN peacekeeping operations[6]

Finding ways to mine asteroids[7]

History of meteorology[8]

Space debris and human space junk[9]

An animated short on weather risk management[10]

Scholars, Books, Other Sources

Umberto Campins, current professor at University of Central Floirda, Campins headed the first team to discover ice on an asteroid in 2010 which bolstered the theory that water may have been brought to Earth by asteroids.

Dr. Harold Reitsema, a consultant to NASA and part of a mission to find, map and track, dangerous asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

Ian Johnstone, Academic Dean and Professor of International Law at Tufts University, previously served in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of United Nations.

Creative / Educational Opportunities

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[1] http://www.edf.org/climate/climate-change-impacts

[2] http://www.livescience.com/32778-how-was-the-solar-system-formed.html

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMHcCoZY1W4&list=PLwCHhfhLlSvvgRbmPkG_LiHpmCwvEw1Rj&index=7

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOKCeW66ncM

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NyG4q4HK08

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKLXlvpZoPI&index=3&list=PLwCHhfhLlSvvgRbmPkG_LiHpmCwvEw1Rj

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erF17yO9VsE

[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=776JZI2xuQQ&index=2&list=PLwCHhfhLlSvvgRbmPkG_LiHpmCwvEw1Rj

[9] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html#.U4yszXJdVBk

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKLXlvpZoPI&index=3&list=PLwCHhfhLlSvvgRbmPkG_LiHpmCwvEw1Rj