From here to Phoenix and back again

Update: I got so wrapped up in the climate change and science discussion that I entirely forgot the promotional bit. After all, isn't social marketing what blogging is all about? :) But I really do want to share with readers that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the upcoming commercial offerings from Metascape and to spend some time discussing with people the basic Agent Modeling Framework approach and where I want to take Acore. And I'm really really gratified to say that it was all very well received. I've been talking to a number of people recently about these tools and they have all said to me quite clearly that I need to stop trying to perfect things and get the tools out there so that people can actually use them. So that's what I'm going to spend the next week or two doing. More news soon!

I just got back from another trip to Phoenix, for a conference involving another acronym that I have had a bit of trouble deciphering. This time the acronym is for CoMSES, or "COmputational Modeling for Socio-Ecological Systems" network. And since I'm now on the steering committee -- it seems that if you hang out for too long anywhere, you'll eventually be expected to actually do something -- I'd better work on remembering what it stands for. In this case, I think it's actually one of the better ways of explaining what it is that my colleagues and I actually do. That's not an insignificant challenge -- when friends and family ask me what I do, I usually end up mumbling something like "umm...it involves science and ..hmmm.. software studying economic and social systems and stuff.." and then kind of trail off. It all sounds pretty vague, and it's a bit frustrating, because in fact I believe that these tools and techniques are vital if we're going to get any kind of handle on the inherent complexities involved in the very serious issues our planet is facing. All of the safe and comfortable assumptions that our society and culture rely on are starting to unravel, and we need to understand what patterns to use to re-weave the piles of yarn that are piling up into something that's beautiful and resilient.

Conventional science approaches are not going to pass muster. They're too caught up in incremental -- and to be blunt, career preserving -- approaches to investigation. To an extent really under-appreciated outside of the academic world, science is actually a very conservative enterprise. It is difficult enough to get research projects that don't fit in with prevailing dogma recognized and funded; it is even more difficult to try to get new methodologies accepted.

For a great read that also happens to provide deep insight into the intersection of climate change and traditional science, you've got to read Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain. One of Robinson's great accomplishments is that he somehow manages to turn a description of an NSF panel meeting into a real page-turner. Take that, Scott Turow! The day to day activity of science really does make a compelling story. Our world is full of creative people coming up against powerful interests and taking real risks to try to do what's right.

The difference between Robinson's book and the typical lawyer thriller is that the issues and outcomes are quite real and potentially devastating. This has only become more apparent in the last few years. At the same time, people have if anything become more resistant to seeing this reality. Peering over my wife's shoulder the other day, I caught an entry from a mutual friend in Facebook. DC had just been pummeled with a 3 foot snow-storm... "So much for global warming". Ha ha. Yes, the level of basic ignorance of the science we do know is troubling. But it is both fascinating and disheartening to see the extent to which when faced by potentially really bad future outcome, we put our greatest energy into denying, diminishing or at best taking half-steps to face it.

It reminds me of a pattern that I've seen amongst people who are facing a potentially terminal disease and their families. After the immediacy and poignancy -- the absolute un-deniability -- of the prognosis, people immediately turn to making light of it. Yes, genuine humor is a profound and indispensable way of relating to life in a meaningful and courageous way, but so often it seems that those little jokes and half-truths simply cover up the underlying sorrow and panic, so that humor becomes a cheap and simple way to marginalize and push away stuff we don't want to hear or talk about. Often in these situations, people actually feel compelled to make light of their own suffering. They end up feeling even more isolated when they most need to feel connected. In this case, we really can do something about what is happening all around us, but only if we lose our reluctance to talk about it frankly and turn our vague, sublimated worries into action.

The good news is that many many folks within the science community, and even within the funding agencies themselves are leading the way toward studying and funding the kinds of science efforts that are needed. I'm very grateful to be in the company of a number of those people and to spend time with them at conferences like this one. (Though we have to make stronger efforts to replace air travel with virtual meetings whenever possible.) We all need to do whatever we can to create science that is non-incrementalist, breaks through institutional barriers and embraces rather than rejects new techniques and results. And we need to do it now.

I mean, it's terrific that Phoenix has put in a new light rail system, but is that going to help matters much when the mountain snowpack that the city is entirely reliant isn't there one spring in the not too distant future?