Medusa haidresser

Medusa at the Hairdresser

Tommaso Venturinitommaso.venturini@sciencespo.fr

www.tommasoventurini.it

Part I: Three Spheres

Crash!Melancholia, Lars von Trier, 2001

The Gaia Hypothesis

Lovelock, J. (1972).Gaia as seen through the Atmosphere.Atmospheric Environment, 6, 579–580.

Gaia. 8838: Tellus. Roman relief, 13-9 BC.Ara Pacis. Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

The Gaia Hypothesis

Lovelock, J. (1972).Gaia as seen through the Atmosphere.Atmospheric Environment, 6, 579–580.

Gaia. 8838: Tellus. Roman relief, 13-9 BC.Ara Pacis. Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

Earth as a whole

‘Earthrise’ (1968, Apollo 8 mission) ‘Blue Marble’ (1972, Apollo 17 mission)

And in thesame year

‘Blue Marble’ (1972, Apollo 17 mission)

Club of Rome, 1972The Limits to Growth

The End of Nature Latour, B. (1999).Politiques de la nature

(Politics of Nature)

http://www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085?WT.ec_id=NATURE-

20150312#/landscape

The great acceleration www.anthropocene.info

The Gaia Hypothesis

Lovelock, J. (1972).Gaia as seen through the Atmosphere.Atmospheric Environment, 6, 579–580.

Gaia. 8838: Tellus. Roman relief, 13-9 BC.Ara Pacis. Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

Anthropocene www.economist.com/node/18741749

Planetary boundaries

Rockström et al., Nature 2009A safe operating space for humanity

The Trueman Show

The Gaia Hypothesis

Lovelock, J. (1972).Gaia as seen through the Atmosphere.Atmospheric Environment, 6, 579–580.

Gaia. 8838: Tellus. Roman relief, 13-9 BC.Ara Pacis. Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

The Lord of the Flies William Golding, 1954

Emergence“the whole is more thanthe sum of the parts”

The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference(p. 412)

George Henry Lewes, 1875Problems of Life and Mind

The Gaia Hypothesis

Lovelock, J. (1972).Gaia as seen through the Atmosphere.Atmospheric Environment, 6, 579–580.

Gaia. 8838: Tellus. Roman relief, 13-9 BC.Ara Pacis. Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

The boostraping of economy(the invisible hand)

By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.(book IV chapter 2 paragraph 9)

Adam Smith, (1776).The Wealth of Nations

Externalities(or the market failures)

Externalitiesex. pollinators & polluters

Externalitiesex. fossil fuels Gras, A. (2007).

Le choix du feu. Paris: Fayard

The end of externalities

“Ecological crises are translated most often by the disappearance of everything external to the human world, every reserve for human action, every discharge by means of which one could, up to now, in the delicious euphemism invented by the economists, externalize actions.

Bruno Latour, (2004).Politics of Nature

This paradox has been noted often: the concern for the environment begins at the moment when there is no more environment, no zone of reality in which we could casually rid ourselves of the consequences of human political, industrial, and economic life” (p. 58)

Complexity

Emergence AKAthe Lord of the Flies

The DanishLord of the Flies

The failure of COP15in Copenhagen kidsnewsnetwork.wordpress.co

m/tag/copenhagen/

The DanishLord of the Flies

Wicked problems cannot be solved by simplification

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Retrospective_video_on_the_Montreal_Protocol.ogv/

IPCC AR5 WG3 SPM Fig. 1

Kyoto Protocol, 1997

The failure of COP15in Copenhagen

Hilborn, R. C. (2004). Sea gulls, butterflies, and grasshoppers: A brief

history of the butterfly effect in nonlinear dynamics. American Journal of Physics,

72(4), 425.

The butterfly effect

Petrified by Medusa

Untying not slashing

The failure of COP15in Copenhagen

“common but differentiated responsibility” principle

Which butterfly?

How to dressMedusa’s hair?

How to dressMedusa’s hair?

Digital technologiesare part of the problem

http://science.time.com/2013/08/14/power-drain-the-digital-cloud-is-using-

more-energy-than-you-think/

NSA Utah Data CenterAKA the Intelligence Community Comprehensive

National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center

The Bubble ChamberDonald A. Glaser, 1952

Extensive data Paul Butler, 2010Visualizing Friendships

Intensive data AOL user 711391 search historywww.minimovies.org/documentaires/view/ilovealaska

The quali/quantitative divide

poor data on large populationextensive data

intensive datarich data on small population

The micro/macro divide

Merian & Jonston 1718 Folio Ants, Clony, Nest,

Insects

Thomas Hobbes, 1651The Leviathan

La fabrique de la loiwww.lafabriquedelaloi.fr

On datascape navigation

Latour, Bruno, Pablo Jensen, Tommaso Venturini,Sébastian Grauwin and Dominique Boullier, 2012.

“‘The Whole Is Always Smaller than Its Parts’:A Digital Test of Gabriel Tardes’ Monads.”

The British Journal of Sociology 63(4), pp. 590–615

Venturini, Tommaso, Pablo Jensen, and Bruno Latour (forthcoming),

“Fill in the Gap. A New Alliance for Social and Natural Sciences.”

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulations.

A first set of disagreements concerns our images of the future:- how bad will be climate change;- how fast will it unfold;- where and who will it strike first.

Climate adaptationis delayed

http://climaps.eu/#/map/mapping-cli-fi-scenarios-book-covers-with-landscapes-

issues-and-personal-narratives

A second set of disagreements concerns the priorities of adaptation:- which regions will be more vulnerable - which sectors will be more affected;- which arrangements will make our societies more flexible or resistant.

Climate adaptationis dispersed

http://climaps.eu/#/map/mapping-cli-fi-scenarios-book-covers-with-landscapes-

issues-and-personal-narratives

Climate adaptationis diffused

http://climaps.eu/#/map/mapping-cli-fi-scenarios-book-covers-with-landscapes-

issues-and-personal-narratives

A third set of disagreements concerns the boundaries of adaptation:- how will global warming will interfere with natural and social equilibria;- whether adaptation generates additional actions or merely re-labelling;- whether previous problems and opportunities are taken into account.

Climate adaptationis opportunistic

http://climaps.eu/#/map/mapping-cli-fi-scenarios-book-covers-with-landscapes-

issues-and-personal-narratives

A fourth set of disagreements concerns therefore the wealth of adaptation:- who will provide resources for adaptation and who will use them;- through which channels will these resources flow;- who will decide how to employ them and who will assess the results.

And as a result…

A classic workflow

But things got slightly more complicated

Sprints

Sprints (Paris)

Sprints (Oxford)

Sprints (Milan)

http://climaps.eu/

Venturini, T. et al. 2014Climaps by EMAPS in 2 Pages (A Summary For Policymakers and Busy People in General). SSRNDecember 2, 2014.

Venturini, T., Ricci, D., Mauri, M., Kimbell, L., & Meunier, A. (2015).Designing Controversies and their Publics.Design Issues, 31(3).

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & Pryck, K. De. (2014).Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.Big Data and Society, 1(1).

Venturini, T. (2010)Diving in Magma: how to explore controversies with actor-network theory.Public Understanding of Science, 19(3), pp. 258-273

Venturini, T. (2012)Building on Faults: how to represent controversies with digital methods.Public Understanding of Science, 21(7), pp. 796-812