Adaptability : A Project

12.23.09 update : I finished reading The End of the Long Summer (EOLS) over a month ago; and promised an update to this essay shortly after. I've been smoked busy, and just haven't gotten to it yet. However, we have described Euglena's new Adaptability Project thoroughly on the Euglena Academy web pages. Please go check it out, along with our winter course offerings, one of which is a 4-week course about this book, which is the entry way for participants in the Adaptability Project.

During the next week, I'll update this essay. Suffice to say for now, as I continue to study & discuss EOLS, I continue to be impressed with it. It's an astonishingly informative, engaging & relevant book for our times. IMO, it's a must read.
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We're launching a new project at Euglena:
The Adaptability Project.

The project is motivated by & based on Diane Dumanoski's book The End of the Long Summer (see below for an evolving review) - along with public understanding - about how climate change, peak oil, & other global issues are accelerating our planet & the human civilization clinging to it to a new, dangerous state, & that if we are not prepared collectively, there's going to be hell to pay.

It's motivated by the understanding among Euglena staff, students & associates that programs attempting to solve the problems solely by reducing emissions - like the well-meaning people at 350.org or (gods forbid) geo-engineering (what a stupid idea) - are folly wearing rose-colored glasses unless we simultaneously prepare for an inevitable large-scale, potentially catastrophic climate change event of on a scale that hasn't occurred on Earth in over 50 million years.

The Adaptability Project is not going to be merely an educational program or intellectual exercise, but a dynamic, action-oriented community project involving as many people as possible. It will have a strong element of self-organization around a set of common goals.

There will be a reading seminar component, based on that book & others, but there will also be much more:

• lectures, including public lectures by notable people
  
• films : one of the first will be Baraka
  
• workshops on adaptability, ranging from deep survival & psychology to water catchment & food security that will be ongoing with actual action components
  
• a web site with forum & distance learning components

The project will be ready for public prime time beginning Wednesday, January 6.

For now, during December, a few selected Euglenoids are discussing it, brainstorming possibilities, discussing logistics, funding, etc. We're meeting weekly (sometimes more often), & progressively inviting more & more people into the process.

If you are interested in receiving information about this project, please contact me or Euglena Academy's president, Daniel Cassidy.