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Earth as A Lens: Global Collaboration, GeoCommunication, and The Birth of EcoSentience
Bonnie DeVarco
How might a dynamic, collective, 3D "GeoBrowser" transform our relationship to our planet?
"I am certain that none of the world's problems – which we are all perforce thinking about today – have any hope of solution except through all of world around society's individuals becoming thoroughly and comprehensively self-educated. Only thereby will society be able to identify and inter-communicate the vital problems of total world society. Only thereafter may humanity effectively sort out and put those problems into order of importance for solution in respect to the most fundamental principles governing man's survival and enjoyment of life on Earth."
Buckminster Fuller, "Preamble and Memorandum to Those Interested in Playing World Game"[1]
A Next-Generation Tool for Reflexivity
 In the early 1940s, two distinctive views of Earth graced the pages of Fortune magazine. Both reached a similar achievement – for the first time viewers were brought to a single point above Earth so one could see all of the continents at once – in such a way that the world appeared to be a one-town island. One image in the August 1941 issue, Richard Edes Harrison's "One World, One War," depicted the rapidly growing world-conflict of World War II.[2] Because it answered the need for Americans to quickly become more literate about global geography, this map became a standard wall decoration in American homes.[3] The other image, appearing in the February 1940 issue, was Buckminster Fuller's "One-World Island in a One-World Ocean."[4] This earliest published version of his Dymaxion map was shown in the context of his study of the evolution of global industrial economy. Fuller's map concentrated on world energy production and consumption, highlighting the disparate distribution of Earth's natural resources.
The juxtaposition of these two maps gets to the heart of Fuller's great logistics game. As both Renaissance man and ecological visionary, Fuller felt we needed to shift in the 20th century from War Games to World Game, a game that could serve as a tool to be used by all humanity to solve the world's problems. The mandate of Fuller's World Game was to bring together players from all nationalities and cultural backgrounds to: "Make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone."[5]
Ultimately, Fuller's World Game was meant to be played inside of his most important invention, the Geoscope. The Geoscope, a spherical, immersive projection environment for Earth information, was never fully realized in his time. It was to be a fully computerized "globe" – Fuller, in fact, envisioned that Geoscopes of varying sizes could be viewed from the inside by a single individual to a group of hundreds of players. Although the concept came to Fuller more than 40 years ago, it was a tool for a time of technological maturity. His "Geoscope" was a tool for planning and stewardship that could offer experiential hands-on opportunities to discover vast amounts of information in a geospatial context. Well before the advent of the World Wide Web, Fuller had asserted, "With the Geoscope humanity would be able to recognize formerly invisible patterns and thereby to forecast and plan in vastly greater magnitude than heretofore. The consequences of various world plans could be computed and projected, using the accumulated history."[6]
Buckminster Fuller's synoptic visualization tool for planning and stewardship using an immersive globe actually has a longer history that includes the evolution of the planetarium, early "geo-sphere" ideas from the 18th, 19th and 20th century – such as Etienne-Louis Boullee's Cenotaph To Newton[7], Delanglard's Georama[8], and Wyld's Great Globe Model of Earth[9]. However, Fuller's Geoscope was envisioned as the first interactive geo-environment that would take advantage of the computing power we now see available to us through broadband Internet. It could be the first geo-environment that takes advantage of the technology convergence that now lies within reach. In fact, we now have the technological capability to create a fully realized Geoscope thanks to the convergence of ubiquitous computing, global communication, and visualization and simulation tools that are beginning to realize their potential.
Ubiquitous Computing and Earth as A "Lens"
Is there a link between ubiquitous computing and our natural environment, Earth? Many people still hold computing and nature in contradistinction to each other. In fact, as Fuller's Geoscope concept alluded to decades ago, they lend themselves to being intimately entwined, representing key aspects of a new era of global collaboration and geo-communication. To outline this relationship in detail, let's trace the evolution of two contemporary technologies in order to better understand their respective convergence. The primary uses for two tools described below might seem obscure to some today, but watch as they rise, harbingers of the next decade of global communication.
One, already widely available, is a household word and a tool so ubiquitous that we may have collectively underestimated its power: the common cell phone, the portable PC of the not-too-distant future. The other is evolving and manifesting itself in numerous ways, though it has yet to become widely adopted. It is a tool for group collaboration and for experiencing the patterns of Earth: the 3D GeoBrowser. By augmenting our view of the natural environment, such a tool will prove to be a visualization portal so powerful that the Earth itself may finally become its own lens on the world.
The Rise of GeoLiteracy and The E-911 Mandate
Each of the two tools mentioned above is linked to a mandate. These mandates may be just under the average person's radar, so let's go into a little detail on both. Why would I suggest that the cell phone is the new PC? Have you walked along a neighborhood street and noticed the ears of girls of 14 attached to their ever present device, walking out of movies pulling out their phones to share their instant reviews with friends? People of all ages in lines at the local grocery store are chatting on their cells, while businessmen in suits in cafes or in aisles at the airport participate in conference calls as if they were sitting at a roundtable. Cell phones have given rise to the all-in-one Pocket PC[10] and communication device: the Blackberry, the TREO, the NOKIA Communicator, and many others. These devices effectively add computing power to the wireless cell phone so that users can email, access the Internet, and carry out many tasks that formerly could only be done on a standard PC.
Fuller's Geoscope was envisioned as the first interactive geo-environment that would take advantage of the computing power we now see available to us through broadband Internet.
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In the 1980s, the Department of Defense's NAVSTAR satellites orbiting the Earth became available for civilian use. By 1996 this network of global positioning satellites had grown to its current number of 24, effectively triangulating location information with enough precision to cover all areas of the planet. Twice a day these satellites circle the globe, transmiting signals that can be picked up anywhere on Earth. We still do not realize how worldwide access to this satellite Global Positioning System (GPS)[11] and the GPS information it makes possible is causing a quiet revolution in our lives.
Many of us are becoming familiar with GPS units in our rental cars (such as Avis's Assist, phone-based GPS and Hertz's Neverlost dashboard GPS mapping[12]). GPS technologies now appear regularly in Hollywood movies, such as "Mission Impossible" and "Lara Croft's Tomb Raider," as well as in mobile, location-aware computing games or multi-player online games such as "MOGI"[13] or "Tiger Telematics Gizmondo,"[14] which utilize GPS to enable players to see each other's locations. But soon we will see a sweeping ubiquity of GPS when it becomes a standard feature embedded in the next generation of cell phones.
Along with other homeland security initiatives that followed the terrorist attack's in New York and Washington, D.C., the E-911 Federal Mandate – a series of orders going back to 1996 – was enhanced and accelerated in the United States.[15] This mandate by the Federal Communications Commission will require all US wireless cell phone companies to begin offering a number of features that will assist in disaster and emergency response. The FDA requires all new cell phones to have GPS devices that provide emergency services with location information as part of their regular features. Originally set to begin at the end of 2002, it has been delayed until 2005.[16] Nextel, the smallest national wireless carrier, leads the way, offering a new genre of location-based services, selling models with built-in GPS receivers, and offering location services from several providers. Other national carriers – such as AT&T wireless, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint – will soon announce similar services.
This new generation of cell phones and PDA/cell phones with GPS will become as commonplace as today's cell phones with digital cameras. With such an all-in-one handheld you can communicate as well as automatically geo-locate every single phone call you make, picture you take, or document you create. The side effect, invoking a sense of "big brother" in its darker manifestation but a life-saving tool in the lighter, is that you can be tracked wherever you are on the planet as long as you have your cell phone with you. In keeping with the more positive of scenarios, in Japan GPS cell phones with digital cameras are catching on faster than anywhere else, establishing intercultural sensibilities for their use as common extensions of the mobile, connected human.
We are seeing the rise of a new generation that is "location-aware." This generation is becoming familiar with the fact that wherever we are on the planet corresponds with a latitude/longitude coordinate. Part and parcel of this trend is the expansion of "location-based services" that offer support for mobile devices.[17] GPS devices will help us track our place on Earth, or to track our loved ones, our animals, our objects in transit. In fact, so entranced by the power of GPS tracking was Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, that in 2002 he launched Wheels Of Zeus, a company that will offer tiny, wireless GPS "tags" that can track just about anything.[18] In the early days of sea travel, it was only the navigator who held such awareness of his exact place on Earth. What would it mean for us to have as accurate an awareness of space as we have of time? In the same way that clocks and watches tell us the exact second, portable GPS devices help us pinpoint our exact location on Earth, within a matter of several meters. Although their potential may sound exciting, such devices as GPS tags and embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips caused a backlash when they were released before people were ready for them.[19] Just last year, clothing manufacturer Benetton incited a furor when it announced the embedding of "smart labels" in each garment to allow the company to track them through the manufacturing process.[20]
Looking closer at current trends around the globe, it is becoming clear that the changing face of cell phones and the E-911 mandate will converge with this new experience of location-awareness, something that is already infusing our youth with a zeal for the experience of continuous geolocation. Due to the popularity of portable GPS units for travelers, bike riders, backpackers, and adventurers to chart their planetary journeys, new organizations and tools are arising. GPS devices are converging with software and game technology to create a new genre of GPS-enabled communication. "Annotatespace"[21] and "GeoCaching"[22] introduced thousands to this emerging form of geolocated storytelling and global treasure hunts. GeoNotes[23] allows handhelds to be used to turn local areas of Earth into a "planetary chalkboard" using GPS-based hypertext. And the Degree Confluence Project[24] is a popular grass-roots effort to link world travelers together with stories and photos from every lat/long confluence on Earth.
Amy Jo Kim, a leader in community design for online collaborative environments suggests that mobile location aware games such as MOGI or those mentioned above are seeing broad adoption because they are "casual, playable on your way somewhere. It nestles in your every day life, rather than requiring you to change your behavior." She suggests that they amplify ordinary behavior – "it changes going on an errand into a piece of a game." Another nice side effect of this new genre of games is that they reframe the gaming experience by engaging players in collecting and collaboration rather than combat and destruction.[25]
Once only a ship's navigator knew his exact place on Earth. What would it mean for us to have as accurate an awareness of space as we have of time?
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Through the unique combination of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and 3D Geographic Information Systems (GIS), another concept, Worldboard was launched by Jim Sporher at IBM.[26] WorldBoard is a proposed planetary augmented reality system that facilitates innovative ways of associating information with places. It has the goal of linking students together to share a better understanding of local and global ecologies in realtime. Augmented reality juxtaposes the physical world with the virtual; users wear of a lightweight headpiece connected to a mobile computing device that layers a set of iconography over the physical environment they view through the headpiece. This allows users to "see" supplementary information (like maps or icons) laid onto the space before them. Because they are GPS enabled, each time the user turns her head, the shift in coordinates is registered by the computer, so that new, relevant data streams in dynamically. This type of mobile computing device can also be useful for archeological sites. For instance, it will allow a user to envision from within the Pantheon in Florence, Italy, what the site looked like more than a thousand years ago, or while visiting Stonehenge to visualize what it looked like two or three millennia in the past.
What is the common attribute shared by the rise of mobile communities using ubiquitous geolocation methodologies, on the one hand, and the rise of less-mobile geocommunities who are sharing information and taking visualization to new heights, on the other? It is the increasing quality and clarity of visualizations of Earth.
Profound Self-Reflexivity
In the past 30 years, some of our most profoundly self-reflexive experiences were embodied in the first true visualizations of Earth as a whole and its relationship to humans and to our greater universe. These landmark visualizations helped our perceptions shift, encouraging a much different understanding of space and time. We can easily remember the 1969 "Earthrise" image from the moon taken during the first Apollo 11 mission.[27] This image of Earth as a blue marble graced the cover of the now legendary first issue of the "Whole Earth Catalog," edited by Stewart Brand. This publication was the first periodical of its generation to introduce the concept of environmental stewardship.
In 1972, with the release of the first LandSat satellite images of Earth's majestic contours, we witnessed the natural patterns of deserts and mountain ranges, the poetry of the seas and clouds from a "God's eye view." This was to become even more pronounced when Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 film "Powers of Ten" was released.[28] This landmark film took viewers through a seamless visual journey from the tiniest scale of quarks to the scale of a human to the farthest reaches of outer space. Each of the 42 screen images showed a change of scale that measured 10 times larger or smaller than the last, creating the first revolution of scale perception – the ability to change scale with a speed that challenged the senses and inspired at least a few generations.
Then in 1990, National Geographic released the first cloud-free satellite map created with images of Earth. Composed from a mosaic of photographs from LandSat and NOAA by Tom Van Sant and his team of pioneer geo-artists – which included Robert Stacey and Jim Knighton – it helped us to see our planet, beautifully portrayed as never before.[29] From this image, we collectively imagined that controllable seamless fly-downs to Earth could not be far away; they presented a way for us to forge a new relationship to our planetary home, and ourselves.
A Next Generation Visualization Portal
A fully actualized version of Fuller's Geoscope concept, using state of the art technologies for interaction and display, represents the next great leap as a landmark visualization for self-reflexivity. Immersion, collaboration, interactivity, and realtime simulation are the hallmarks of this new experience. Similar to the first image of the Earth from the Moon, we can see from the inside the dynamics of the whole earth at one time rather than only in short segments. Like the Powers of Ten film, we can fly through the cosmos, the planets, the geographies of our biosphere to the smallest bioorganisms on any scale, down to the images of viruses and nano-sized environments in the electron scanning microscope. We can run simulations on the tiniest scale so we can feel as if we reside inside the cell, the DNA, the neurostructure. Recalling the impact of seeing the first LandSat images of Earth's biomes from space, or the first cloud-free satellite image of Earth without political boundaries, we can immerse ourselves in huge databases of patterns drawn from the climate, human population, and social networks – knowledge domains that present us with a clear picture of the true, interconnected Earth. But with this viewing capability, Earth becomes a dynamic geospatial and spherical "frame" through which to experience and understand biodiversity, life processes, and human impact.
Fuller's "Inventory of Resources, Human Trends, and Needs"[30] led to the beginnings of the World Game in 1969. Fuller's World Game[31] was to use a map the size of a basketball court linked to computerized information about Earth. Over the past 30 years, it reached thousands of students around the world through the World Game Institute[32], and included experiments online such as NetWorld Game.[33] World Game Institute, is being reorganized as Global Simulation Workshops through OSEarth[34] by its founders, Medard Gabel and Howard Brown.
Two years ago, the Buckminster Fuller Institute launched EarthScope[35], a tool that enables a wide audience to visually grasp the critical choices that shape our future by displaying interactive maps, animated trend data, and future scenarios within a single, user-friendly interface. Another ongoing, innovative initiative, Interactive Earth: Tools for Earth Systems Science[36], an NSF-funded project, brings together WorldLink Media, NASA Goddard, World Resources Institute, and TERC to design and develop a multimedia learning program. Consisting of a DVD-ROM, companion website, and secondary school curriculum, the program will provide access to a large and expanding collection of geospatial data and visualizations. With easy-to-use tools, Interactive Earth will allow students explore world trends and global change processes. Inspired in part by Buckminster Fuller's World Game and GeoScope ideas, as well as open source and 3D visualization technologies, Interactive Earth "will engage students with content and curricula that is relevant to real-world issues, their communities, and their lives."
There could be no better time than right now to effectively harness this confluence of emerging technologies for predicting outcomes and display: GIS and 3D visualization software. We are well equipped to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the rise of GPS literacy, worldwide georeference data libraries, and supercomputing power in order, which in tandem enables us to visualize our ecosystem and our impact upon it. This emerging combination of tools, data, and story allows for the meeting of scientifically grounded information with the patterns of human action and reaction, making possible an integration of science and culture that relies on broad views of the Earth itself as its locus. With the conscious facilitation by software developers and data standards bodies, such an integrated approach becomes increasingly likely.
[Continued on next page...]
Footnotes
[1] Fuller, Buckminster. 1971. "Preamble and Memorandum to Those Interested in Playing World Game," http://www.bfi.org/worlddesign/WG1_1.pdf.
[2] Harrison, Richard Edes. "One World, One War," Fortune magazine, August 1941, http://history.acusd.edu/gen/maps/1900s/1942fortune-map.jpg.
[3] "The World at War - Map 15 Curator's Notes," Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms,
http://www3.newberry.org/k12maps/module_15/curator.html.
[4] Fuller, R. Buckminster, Fortune magazine, columeXXI, February 1940, http://209.196.135.250/worlddesign/WG1_47.pdf.
[5] Fuller, Buckminster, Critical Path, 1981.
[6] Fuller, R. Buckminster, "The Geoscope," Education Automation, 1962, http://www.vterrain.org/Misc/geoscope.html.
[7] "Project for a cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton (sketch)," Etienne-Louis Boull_e 1784, http://arch.utexas.edu/AV/ARC318L/classwrk/Lect21/cenotaph.html.
[8] Charles Delanglard's Georama (original sketch, 1850), http://www.eugwiss.hdk-berlin.de/schmid/diss/A.I.17.html.
[9] "Interior of Wyld's Great Globe, Leicester Square," The Illustrated London News, 1851, http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/1859map/leicester_globe51b_a3.html.
[10] Manning, Rick, "The Ever-Evolvling Cell Phone." The Courier-Journal, Nov. 3, 2003, http://www.courier-journal.com/gizweb/cols/03/031004.htm.
[11]"Global Positioning Systems – What is GPS?" Cultural Resources Mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). National Park Service, http://www2.cr.nps.gov/gis/gps.htm.
[12]Perkins, Ed, "Driving in an Unfamiliar Area? Go with GPS from Hertz or Avis," Smarter Living, June 4, 2004, http://www.smarterliving.com/advice/edsenior/advice.php?id= 6708&ctid=i6708c35p38.
[13]Terdiman, D, "Making Wireless Roaming Fun," WIRED News, April 12, 2004, http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,63011,00.html.
[14]"Tiger Telematic's Gizmondo Premiers the World of 'Colors'," PR Newswire, May 12, 2004, http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=PRNI2&STORY =/www/story/05-12-2004/0002172413&EDATE=.
[15]"E-911 Mandate Fact Sheet," Federal Communications Commission, January, 2001, http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/releases/factsheet_ requirements_012001.txt.
[16] Rockhold, John. "E-911: Hero to Be." Wireless Review, Nov. 1, 2000 , http://wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_hero_2/.
[17] Location-Based Services (LBS) are applications that act according to a geographic trigger (i.e., a town name, zip code or street). They enable one to find the exact position of a mobile phone or car.
[18] "wOz and Motorola Broadband Plan to Develop Wireless Personal Location-based Products," Press Release. January 7, 2004, http://www.woz.com/press/010704.html.
[19] RFID – Radio frequency identification refers to technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify people or objects.
[20] "What Your Clothes Say About You" WIRED News, March 2003, http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,58006,00.html?tw=wn _story_related.
[21] Annotatespace: http://www.panix.com/~andrea/annotate.
[22] GeoCaching Web site: http://www.geocaching.com.
[23] Pearson, P., Espinoza, F. "GeoNotes: Social Enhancement of Physical Space," ERCIM News Online, Oct. 2001, http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw47/persson.html.
[24] Degree Confluence Project site: http://www.confluence.org.
[25] Hall, Justin, "Mogi: Second Generation Location-based Gaming," The Feature, April 1, 2004, http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100501.
[26] Spohrer, J., "What Comes After the WWW?" Learning Communities Group, ATG, Apple Computer, Inc. September 1998, http://www.worldboard.org/pub/spohrer/wbconcept/default.html.
[27] NASA's Online image gallery for Apollo 11 includes the 1969 "Earthrise" image from the moon: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap11ann/ kippsphotos/apollo.html.
[28] Powers of 10 CD and online multimedia site for Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 film "Powers of Ten": http://www.powersof10.com.
[29] Van Sant, Tom. National Geographic World Atlas. 1990 http://www.geosphere.com/imagery.html.
[30] Fuller, Buckminster, et.al., 1963-1971. Inventory of World Resources, Trends and Needs Volume I-5, http://www.bfi.org/worlddesign/.
[31] Fuller, Buckminster. 1971. The World Game Integrative Resource Utilization Planning Tool. World Resources Inventory, SIU, Carbondale, IL. http://www.bfi.org/worlddesign/#book.
[32] World Game Institute Web Site: http://www.worldgame.org.
[33] Wallace, David J, "NetWorld Game Achieves Inventor's Vision of Global Play." The New York Times, October 3, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/100397netgame.html.
[34] OSEarth Web Site: http://www.osearth.com.
[35] BFI EarthScope Project Web Site: http://www.earthscope.com.
[36] Interactive Earth: Tools for Earth Systems Science Project Overview, WorldLink Media: http://earth.telascience.org/public/Interactive_Earth.pdf.
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