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R. Buckminster Fuller author, scientist, artist, inventor,
architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, metaphysician,
cartographer, visionary, social historian, creator of dymaxion
engineering, geodesics, synergy, synergetics, World Game &
world resources inventory, arguably the first modern futurist.
www.bfi.org
 The
devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26th, 2004 Highlights
the Urgent Need for Applied Design-Science in High-Risk Areas.
The Earth's population is greater than ever, now at over 6 billion.
This means more people than ever are living in disaster-prone
regions that will experience a certain frequency of natural
disasters including Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Tornados,
Fires and Volcanoes.
The 2004 Tsunami disaster highlights the very exposed
situation that large populations are unknowingly living with.
Local officials and National governments are usually too wrapped
up in financial issues, territorial fights, political issues
or other stuff to think about some of the large scale natural
or environmental problems they are not prepared for. When these
emergencies do arise the response is insanely ineffective for
the cost & the thought/science put into the rebuilding does
NOTHING to prevent the same problems from happening over and
over andover and over ....
The Survival of a good portion of Earth's population
now depends on the application of design-science technology
to shelter people from inevitable natural disasters,
as well as the human caused disasters, including the changing
climate, that are just as destructive. Because of the warming
of the earth's oceans and atmosphere, tornados and hurricanes
are on the rise, droughts in other areas have caused record
damage from forest fires and flash floods in normally dry locations
are becoming more common. The cost in terms of human life and
destroyed property has reached new record totals almost every
year for the last decade!
The main keys to not simply responding to emergencies
like the 2004 Tsunami -
but preventing the massive loss of life and property are:
 •
Preventative Generalized Design-science planning
& implementation
• Ephemeralized*
Emergency Shelters & Housing
• (*increased
structural loadbearing, self-stabilizing, decreased
materials use),
• increased
use of Space-Frame, Geodesic & Tension structures in housing,
offices and shelters,
• High efficiency/Low
Energy machines & appliances,
• Always
Re-building at a higher level of design safety after a disaster,
• De-centralized
local Solar-powered backup electrical grids,
• New semi-flexable
road-building materials,
• and new
high-strength composites made from recycled materials.
• Comprehensively
effective response also requires strategically coordinated emergency
planning between • National,
Regional & local governments, Local Fire & Police, and
Relief/Aid organizations, NGO's or humanitarian organizations
.
EARTHSCOPE,
formerly Dashboard Earth
NEW
from the EARTHscope v2.1 website
Inspired by Bucky Fuller's world game:
The EARTHscope (ES) is a new tool for displaying the profound,
yet often invisible trends affecting global and local communities.
It allows partner organizations to publish their information
as engaging geo-stories: downloadable presentations that combine
dynamic maps with supporting graphics, imagery, sound, and text.
ES is a project of the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) and
an extension of Fuller's lifelong commitment to promoting world
literacy about global problems, trends, and needs.
Key Objectives * Provide a digital publishing framework
that facilitates learning, research, and public outreach
* Advance a much-needed standard for online "geo-storytelling"
* Allow anyone, anywhere with low-speed, dial-up access to the
Internet to browse the
* EARTHscope Library and view the planetary situation using
the EARTHscope interface.
* provide "geo-stories" of the past, present, and
future through dynamic, map-based presentations featuring:
* Interactive maps with GIS-style layers
* Text, graphs, slideshows, video, and other rich media support
* Animations and scenarios to show change over time
In the long-term, we envision the EARTHscope as a full-fledged
application --
"the power-point of sustainability," as advisor Hardin Tibbs
calls it -- with an authoring suite that allows users build
their own ES presentations.
 The
ES player will feature scenario modeling and game tools that
would enable users to:
* Make on-the-fly queries to online databases
* Build and test run critical path scenarios
* Build animated maps and graphs to support their own scenario
models
* Replay, save, and post scenarios
An online ES community would let individuals and organizations
share information, build education networks, and use the ES
for strategic planning. Early features could include:
* Exchange successful or failed scenarios along with working
assumptions
* Access shared online white boards and discussion forums for
collaboration
* Poll users, track responses to discover the importance that
users ascribe to various issues, parameters and milestone events
* Build scenarios in an online collaborative environment
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With these few direct questions, Buckminster
Fuller defines Design-Science:
 "•What
are the resources?
•What
are the tasks necessary to make 100% of humanity a success?
•How
can we ever do so without ever advantaging one human at the
expense of another?
•How
may we render all the world and all its treasures enjoyable
available to all men without having one interfering with or
trespassing upon the other?
•How
may we reform the environment so that the integrity
of all society is not violated by the free initiatives of
the individual
nor the integrity of the
individual violated by the developing welfaring advantage and
happiness of the many?"
- Buckminster Fuller - NASA Speech 1966
 Read
that last highlighted quote above at least 5 to 10 times!!!
Really, it
takes a moment to see it, but he is adressing
the Root cause of nearly all human squabbling, waste and social
disharmony. Very perceptive and we need to think this broadly
about our super-inter-connected world.
Look into his works and you'll
find Fuller was:
an artist, geometer, numerologist, humanist, ecologist, economist,
cartogrpher,math
whiz, obsessive geometrical origami
maker, MENSA
president poet, meta-mystic,
social visionary and inventor, invented or discovered the word/concept
so commonly used today "Synergy" which is the behavior
of the 'extra wholeness' which is not predicted by analysis
of the seperate parts of a system. it's also the net energy/time/effciency
gain of co-operation.
and
Bucky tried desperately for 50+ years to prepare us very gently
and lovingly for the chaotic and uncertain future
we pushed ourselves into inhabiting
at this very moment,
and we need the
tools he left us (on an increasing basis) ....
to simply Survive as a species
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