The Climate Change Elephant in the Room
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I have been searching for library blogs and librarians that are writing about climate change. Not so much about climate change as a topic, but how we as libraries and librarians should prepare for and face the challenging future that may lie ahead.
I found this blog
and its interesting synopsis of utilizing
resilience theory in planning for the changes. The author offers
some excellent suggestions for thinking about planning for a chaotic
future. The suggestions offer a framework for thinking about the future. We need more librarians to be thinking and
writing about what we should be doing in the event of climate change.
It is the reality that is upon us and we need to begin to develop
plans and contingencies now. The more voices there are, the more
likely we are going to develop some good solutions to the most
intractable problem of our time and possibly even all time.
The airwaves are filled with talking heads and their politicized rhetoric regarding climate change. We must listen to the voices of level headed scientists and not pin-headed pundits of the right and left.
Living in a state where many are hesitant to kick a golden gift horse in the mouth, even as it may be leading us over a cliff, it is easier to ignore the problem and believe it isn't real.
The skeptical should use a variant of seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal's Wager: Consider the costs of believing in or not believing in climate change. If in fact anthropogenic climate change is occurring, starting a new path to a sustainable future is the most prudent course. The potential costs of a worst case scenario of climactic chaos are difficult to fathom. If climate change is in fact a fallacy, we have lost nothing, yet we have gained a sustainable future. Unfortunately, many current prognostications echo the fact that we are already well on our way to some sort of irrevocable change. Due to the complex interconnections, it is difficult for even the best models to predict where we are headed. Our new reality is planning ahead to try to live with the impacts of climate change, whatever they might be. As we roll through the hottest recorded summer on record, surrounded by news that increasingly heralds changes that are taking place, we need to start thinking functionally about how to safeguard the accumulated intellectual heritage of humanity. Like the eponymous "boiling frog", we may get to a point where planning is no longer an option.
Individually, we may look at our library and archive collections and think that in the larger scheme of things, they matter little. Of what importance is our library or archive when people are struggling to survive? I wonder if similar logic was applied by librarians at Alexandria and Pergamum as their world began to change? Collectively, our collections add up to the stored record of humanity stretching back in an unbroken line several thousand years. If this is lost, where does that leave the modern world or its future?
In the United States we take so much for granted. Most of us can get up in the morning and be relatively certain that the lights will come on and water will come out of the faucet. As I write, I am complacent about the electricity and internet connection that make this blog possible. The networks of connections that make our life possible are complex and prone to break down simply because they are complex. In many parts of the world this is not something people take for granted. Unfortunately, we may be moving into a future where we need to examine these connections for resiliency and durability during a myriad of unforeseen events.
We are currently resting more and more of our intellectual heritage upon networks of connections that are only as good as the connections that make them useful. Just fifteen years ago, much of our library content was self contained in physical form within the confines of the library. Much of the content didn't need electricity, an internet connection or periodic upgrades. Yet, the many limitations of this type of library have led us to the amazing world of networked knowledge we live in today. Today, resources and content stored on networks and computer servers require electricity, internet connections, continually maintained hardware and upgraded software. This is not even mentioning the global supply chains that make everything possible. If any one of these elements is absent, we do not have access to the information stored within. If we live in a future where the vitality of larger networks may be prone to breakdown. Some of the ideas listed on the blog linked above offer us frameworks in which we can began to think critically about designing our libraries and the information systems within to weather the storms of the future. I hope that more librarians will start to think and write more actively about climate change so we can face it head on and develop a template for the future.
.
I have been searching for library blogs and librarians that are writing about climate change. Not so much about climate change as a topic, but how we as libraries and librarians should prepare for and face the challenging future that may lie ahead.
The airwaves are filled with talking heads and their politicized rhetoric regarding climate change. We must listen to the voices of level headed scientists and not pin-headed pundits of the right and left.
Living in a state where many are hesitant to kick a golden gift horse in the mouth, even as it may be leading us over a cliff, it is easier to ignore the problem and believe it isn't real.
The skeptical should use a variant of seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal's Wager: Consider the costs of believing in or not believing in climate change. If in fact anthropogenic climate change is occurring, starting a new path to a sustainable future is the most prudent course. The potential costs of a worst case scenario of climactic chaos are difficult to fathom. If climate change is in fact a fallacy, we have lost nothing, yet we have gained a sustainable future. Unfortunately, many current prognostications echo the fact that we are already well on our way to some sort of irrevocable change. Due to the complex interconnections, it is difficult for even the best models to predict where we are headed. Our new reality is planning ahead to try to live with the impacts of climate change, whatever they might be. As we roll through the hottest recorded summer on record, surrounded by news that increasingly heralds changes that are taking place, we need to start thinking functionally about how to safeguard the accumulated intellectual heritage of humanity. Like the eponymous "boiling frog", we may get to a point where planning is no longer an option.
Individually, we may look at our library and archive collections and think that in the larger scheme of things, they matter little. Of what importance is our library or archive when people are struggling to survive? I wonder if similar logic was applied by librarians at Alexandria and Pergamum as their world began to change? Collectively, our collections add up to the stored record of humanity stretching back in an unbroken line several thousand years. If this is lost, where does that leave the modern world or its future?
In the United States we take so much for granted. Most of us can get up in the morning and be relatively certain that the lights will come on and water will come out of the faucet. As I write, I am complacent about the electricity and internet connection that make this blog possible. The networks of connections that make our life possible are complex and prone to break down simply because they are complex. In many parts of the world this is not something people take for granted. Unfortunately, we may be moving into a future where we need to examine these connections for resiliency and durability during a myriad of unforeseen events.
We are currently resting more and more of our intellectual heritage upon networks of connections that are only as good as the connections that make them useful. Just fifteen years ago, much of our library content was self contained in physical form within the confines of the library. Much of the content didn't need electricity, an internet connection or periodic upgrades. Yet, the many limitations of this type of library have led us to the amazing world of networked knowledge we live in today. Today, resources and content stored on networks and computer servers require electricity, internet connections, continually maintained hardware and upgraded software. This is not even mentioning the global supply chains that make everything possible. If any one of these elements is absent, we do not have access to the information stored within. If we live in a future where the vitality of larger networks may be prone to breakdown. Some of the ideas listed on the blog linked above offer us frameworks in which we can began to think critically about designing our libraries and the information systems within to weather the storms of the future. I hope that more librarians will start to think and write more actively about climate change so we can face it head on and develop a template for the future.
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