Techfestival Reflections: Open Source & the Fight Against Climate Change

Last Thursday, a group of concerned citizens gathered in the Copenhagen meat packing district to discuss open source technology and its potential to help climate change & the environment. This was the first program slot of Techfestival, and we were grateful to host a full house.

Our 3-person team consisted of Tina Ryoon, William Lloyd George and Tristan Copley Smith. We began by presenting the Whole Earth Catalogue and its connections to enviro-sustainability of the 1960/70s and early open source culture (see more in our previous post). Next we dove in to examples of open source environmental projects (including Rainforest Connection, OSBeehives and Public Lab) and how they connect with the environmental, self-empowered values of the Whole Earth Catalogue. Finally, we presented COACT, our new organisation working to incubate these kinds of open source environmental projects from the Green Fab Lab in Barcelona.

We then presented a short video report I produced following Daniel Connell, a low tech innovator. In the video, Daniel travels to Greece to build rocket stoves from junk materials for refugees at the dreaded Moria camp (see below). When the video ended, we called Daniel in over Skype from the Green Fab Lab, where he is residing as our first pilot innovator at COACT.

Below is an overview of three workshops that took place after this presentation; re-writing the Whole Earth Catalogue for today, brainstorming open solutions to global problems, and exploring the possibilities of an open environmental incubator.

Workshop 1: The Whole Earth Catalogue, Revisited

by Tina Ryoon

In this workshop we were six people that revisited the Whole Earth Catalogue and re-wrote its purpose and function, keeping in mind the focus on environmentalism that was at its core, when it first came out, but that disappeared when appropriated by the tech pioneers of Silicon Valley.

We started the workshop by exploring which aspects would need to change in order for a WEC to fit into a contemporary context. During this discussion we talked about the male-oriented and western-centric p.o.v that characterize the original Whole Earth Catalogue, and how we thought it would be necessary to make it more diverse and inclusive (both gender and culture), in its communication as well as items/content if it should work today.

We also discussed the new means of production and distribution that exist today, and talked about analogue vs/and digital. After a discussion with cultural and historical aspects of the WEC at its core, our next task was to re-write the purpose and the function of a WEC today. This is the result of the 30 min collaborative work:

Outcomes

The Whole Earth Catalogue, Revisited (2019):

Purpose: Raise awareness for sustainability and provide quantitative information, so we can have less impact and live in harmony with nature. Provide people with a variety of tools, suitable for a diverse set of cultures

The sentence was generated from these keywords: ‘Harmony with nature’, ‘Quantitative information about how to have low impact (low carbon footprint)´, ´Awareness´, ´Tool variety → multiculturalism´ and ´Education´

Function:

No Ego, Collaborative Work, Community, We (not Me), No marketing, Meant to be shared

Sections:

Same as the original +
Land Regeneration
Sobriety (less is more)
Frugality
Circular Economy

The Whole Earth Catalogue (original):

Purpose: We are as gods and might as well get good at it.[6] So far, remotely done power and glory — as via government, big business, formal education, church — has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.

Function: The Whole Earth Catalogue functions as an evaluation and access device. With it, the user should know better what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting. An item is listed in the catalogue if it is deemed:

• Useful as a tool
• Relevant to independent education
• High quality or low cost
• Not already common knowledge
• Easily available by mail

Workshop 2: An Open Source Experiment

by Tristan Copley Smith

In this (admittedly rather ambitious) workshop we aimed to solve the worlds most pressing environmental problems with conceptual open source projects.

We began by brainstorming “the big” massive-scale issues including soil degradation, biodiversity decline, ocean plastics, deforestation, food waste, and access to water. Not to worry, we’ll clear all this up by the afternoon! The group went to a vote, and were set into three smaller groups focusing on:

Deforestation, Food Waste, Access to Water

Each group then answered the following question: what three core factors contribute to this problem. Simple enough. Now, reverse each of these factors into an ideal outcome. For example: food waste is often caused by transportation, so the reverse would be our food does not need to travel.

Finally, each team developed open and inclusive solutions—perhaps inspired by projects delivered during the talk —to achieve these flipped outcomes. The resulting ideas were impressive. Team Food Waste presented a concept for a network of urban backyard food producers, who grow and distribute food among their communities using an app. Team Deforestation realised much deforestation is caused by illegal mining operations. In response they conceived an ingenious water sensor, designed to detect the unique chemicals used by mining operations in local rivers, send GPS notifications to investigate the area. Team Access To Water developed their own open sensor to detect points in water systems where there is wastage or toxic pollutants.

Workshop 3: Incubator Simulation

by William Lloyd George

During the presentations, William explained to the audience about the purpose and objectives of COACT Lab; an open source focused environmental incubator, set up to nurture radical solutions from around the globe which have the aim to fight climate change and prevent ecological collapse.

In Workshop 3, we wanted to work with members of the audience to explore the concept of open source incubators. It was a chance for the audience to take what they had heard during the presentation and consider how they would build an open source incubator themselves. It was also a chance to engage the audience and to get any feedback on COACT Lab.

The workshop started off with a fascinating presentation from the co-founder of the Good Tech Lab, Manuella Cunha Brit , outlining the results of their recently released report titled The Frontiers of Impact Tech. After the attendees were informed and inspired by Manuella’s talk, we split the group into two teams to start working on their incubator concepts.
The two groups were asked to answer a series of questions in order to generate discussion in the groups and help to arrive at a defined concept, which they had to present to the entire audience at the end.

When asked about how their incubator would have the most impact, the first group stated that this could be measured by how long the companies exist after incubation and how many people are inspired by it. They stated that their incubator could build a community to create impact. The second group decided their incubator would focus on open source solutions for the food packaging issue. They outlined how they would create open source education and research to generate innovation.

In Summary

We were really honoured to present this project as a team for the first time, to such an awesome group of concerned, creative individuals. We were also super happy to introduce a number of people to the Whole Earth Catalogue for the first time. We hope there are some new fans out there (you can find a full PDF of one issue here) — Tina and Tristan will also be working on a documentary/media project about the WEC in the future — stay tuned and reach out if interested to know more about this or collaborate.

The level of creativity from the workshops was remarkable — it is amazing how a number of minds coming together like this can result in so many good ideas in such a short space of time. If only we had more to develop and deploy them! Well, thats what COACT is all about ;-)

We hope that our audience will bring some of what they have learned into life outside of Techfestival, and the space and time we shared together. We encourage anyone interested in collaborating to reach out, and for everyone else to join us on Twitter and help us make a difference on Open Collective.

Thank you from Tina, Tristan and William. x