As the climate crisis intensifies, and while late-stage neoliberal capitalism enters a death spiral we need to be effective.
While carbon reductions and regenerative land use are absolutely crucial in avoiding a climate apocalypse they are only part of the story. Currently, the most pressing issues in our climate predicament are hardly acknowledged and barely addressed. Ocean acidification and thermal extremes threaten many habitats for life on Earth which endanger human longevity, while sea-level rise is set to uproot entire cities.
Before today, grassroots movements have been without the structural-functionalism that would enable coordination to respond to either these environmental threats or the institutions that have perpetrated them.
A regenerative system produces more than is required for consumption and therefore increases complexity and antifragility. In a world rapidly declining into chaos we need to encourage and incentivise antifragile systems at all possible points of experience - we need our psychology as well as our agriculture to become more antifragile, more regenerative, more local, more sovereign and less controlled by institutional power and monopolies. We need to decentralise society and luckily The Crypto Renaissance has arrived to enable us to do so, but it will not be easy.
Regeneering: regenerative+engineering
Regeneering can be defined as any attempt - great and small - at curating the conditions of systemic change that will enable self-generating synergisms of benefit. Regeneering is not limited to physical engineering; regeneering includes imagination, research and development.
By using cryptoeconomic funding and distribution mechanisms we can maximise ecological engineering efforts - or, what I am calling regeneering (regenerative + engineering). Effective regeneering is a new movement - similar to effective altruism - with a focus on engineering solutions for long-term planetary health. Effective regeneering is similar to effective altruism however it focuses on specific ecological engineering strategies that generate maximal beneficial outcomes (MBOs).
Effective regeneering today means deploying a science fiction scale surface-based solar radiation management system. We need to cover approximately 15 billion m2 of Earth’s surface in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. That’s approximately two times the area of Australia. We need to do this to be effective in avoiding ghastly global heating that threatens mass extinctions and civilisation collapse.
We need to deflect incoming solar radiation back out to space.
It’s quite simple, yet quite an undertaking. Improving carbon sinks and emissions reductions are important but our climate predicament is such that we must begin to respond directly to the heat incoming from the sun.
Global dimming is underrepresented in the conversation of climate restoration - losing carbon emission today would result in a 2-3 degree temperature increase. The absence of global dimming in the climate conversations today reflects a worldwide catastrophic inability to collaborate around nuance - this is why Mycelium Network Dialogue is so important.
Effective regeneering today means industrialising SeaScaping - the production of floating coral reefs and marine farming regeneratively producing fish, seaweeds and bivalves - clams, oysters, muscles, scallops etc.
The formation of coral and bivalves deacidify our oceans, and seaweeds like kelp protect bivalves. We need more of it - much much more. In combination, they will represent a super critical aspect of planetary regeneering while at the same time contributing to global food security. MBOs include healthy fish habitat and populations.
As sea levels rise, we need coral reefs and aquascapes to rise too, otherwise, it can only be assumed that existing coral reefs - who are massively threatened and dying fast - will perish in their totality.
Effective regeneering today also means deconstructing some of the world’s biggest cities deemed unsavable - like Jarkarta - and relocating them to higher ground. It also means moving dangerous facilities on low-lying coastlines, such as chemical plants and oil refineries. It means assisting forests and mangroves to migrate, creating structures for coral reefs to survive and improving river systems’ health while at the same time enabling effective water use.
There are many examples of effective regeneering and we must to enable them all.
The MEER Reflection Framework is the best-known integrative strategy for climate mitigation and adaptation. MEER has the support of many environmental justice movements such as Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future.
It is imperative for us to bring about a planet-wide shift towards effective regeneering solutions. MEER Reflections strategy of surfaced-based mirrors for solar radiation management is completely achievable, we are, after all, a hyper-keystone species. We influence and impact every single place, for better or worse. The Anthropocene is named in honour because of our massive impact. Together we are shaping our biogeophysical conditions and quite clearly for the worst.
Nate Hagens - host of The Great Simplification - an ecological economist writes of global civilisation “in a resource rich environment, we coordinate in groups, corporations and nations, to maximize financial surplus, tethered to energy, tethered to carbon. At global scales, the emergent result of this combination is a mindless, energy-hungry, CO2 emitting Superorganism.”
But this can be different. Built on a trustworthy substrate, and in sacred spaces, the immutable records of blockchain allow us to shape the world with intention and care. We can now regenerate all aspects of health. This will not happen using traditional power structures, economic models or financial systems. This will happen as we adopt and utilise blockchain decentralised ledger technology.
Coordination will happen in the form of decentralised autonomous organisations designed for impact (Impact DAOs) and the decentralised applications (dApps) that they create.
Daisyworld wants to be a decentralised control hub enabling communities to coordinate effective regeneering solutions while benefiting from cascading MBOs (maximal beneficial outcomes) such as regenerative agriculture boosting yields, passive cooling in hot conditions, biodiversity protection and community empowerment.
Daisyworld will act as a place where we decide how to automate the distribution of funding while also providing spaces and public databases for research hubs, sacred conversation circles and sense-making art houses.
I plane to explore these ideas a lot more into the future. I would love your help in shining a light on what might be possible. Let’s explore the liminal space together.
MirrorScaping - Decentralised surface-based solar radiation management (SB-SRM)
The NF-Flash Drive Armada is an artwork, sailing fleet, adventure and transport system. The NF-Flash Drive Armada is inspired by the adventures of Greta Thunberg and sail-powered cargo shipping visionaries like Tres Hombres and Grain de Sail Wines.
*We will decide on a name together if people don’t love this one as much as I do :)
The Mycelium Musaeum is a sacred place where we collect and curate the stories of our collective experience.
**This idea is in imagination phase. Would love to co-create it together. Please get in touch if you would like to help turn it into reality.**
Daisyworld plans to raise awareness and funds through a community art engagement project. People everywhere are invited to make artworks to be minted as NFTs.
The money raised from the NFT sales will be split between the creator communities, Daisyworld, MEER and DoinGud - who will host and facilitate sales.
The themes for the artworks are flowers, reflection and community.
We are still figuring out details as to how to run the program to ensure there are no barriers to entry aside from a basic smartphone and internet access.
Artists will mint and have control of their NFTs. They will submit to The Daisyworld New Musaeum by accepting terms and submitting their NFTs into a New Musaeum smart contract, where they will then be curated by Daisyworld participants.
Artists, or their community DAO, will receive a percentage of the sale and royalties thereon. Prizes will be awarded for a range of categories.
There are a lot of details to work out with all of this. Please get in touch if you would like to help turn this into a reality.
The idea of the community art engagement program is to encourage discussion around both blockchain and solar radiation management. As well as have a great time discovering art and sharing stories. This will involve a lot of coordination. We will want to translate messages and create streams for sending acknowledgements to generate further conversations. This kind of coordination will be vital in being effective with our mitigation and adaptation strategies.
This article is a work in progress and is subject to revision. Last revised 27-June-2022.