The Signal is the System
[In which we state The Problem…]
One marker of human evolutionary thrusts is pegged to developments which accelerate our response to environmental challenges.
Like the biological refinement of sapiens’ senses, which served as essential wetware mechanisms for navigation, locating food, and evading predators.
Fast forward to the third industrial revolution. Over a couple of generations we developed countless hardware innovations — from weather satellites to MRIs — that reduced our response time to emergent phenomena.
In terms of evolutionary game theory, these technologies hit maximum efficiency when the signal is incorporated into a system that contains the mechanism for immediate and decisive human response.
So again, the human body — onboarded with faculties to sense a threat or opportunity and the limbs to maneuver and/or build — is at the highest level of evolutionary efficiency on Earth.
Non-biologically, one of the more mundane examples of highly-optimized signal-response systems is the fuel gauge on a car. The gauge gives live feedback to the driver on fuel tank status. When the empty light flashes, it happens within a motorized vehicle with access to networks of roads that lead to constellations of gas stations.
So the fuel signal sits at the top of a system of instruments, infrastructures, and services that were designed solely to ensure that humans can respond immediately when the empty light flashes.
The idea that automobile manufacturers would build a fuel signal into their machines without an integrated, operable refueling system would be… unthinkable.
And by today’s standards fuel gauges are pretty low-tech.
The highest tech, non-military signal-to-response innovations are in Market technologies. Untold billions have been invested in tech and infrastructure to ensure investors can respond immediately to centralized financial signals. Whether by brokers on trading terminals or kids on stock trading apps — every buy/sell action taken at any scale registers immediately in Market indices as a live feedback loop; the force multiplier for engagement and behavior change.
The entire modus operandi of the Market is to mercenarily reduce the lag between signal and response. Traders once dropped 827 miles of fiber-optic cable from Chicago to New Jersey to reduce data transmission time from 17 to 13 milliseconds.
They’re maniacs.
But whatever you think of them, the most competitive people on the planet are dead serious about their signal-response time. And their model is to vertically integrate the entire feedback loop of signal and its response.
The signal is the system.
In other words, we have a maxim that tells you everything you need to know about the operational value of a signal. And the intent, or at least proficiency, of its architects.
Applying The Maxim to Climate Signals
Using this maxim to evaluate our current earth systems signals — and what many scientists feel is a massive failure in our collective response to them — will be instructive.
Let’s take one of the most influential, recognized, and intuitive environmental alerts, the Planetary Boundaries.
Issued as annual update in a static analog graphic, the Boundaries monitor the extent to which human activity is transgressing safe operating space in nine categories deemed crucial to the stability and resilience of the Earth system.
This year, an alarming six of the nine boundaries have been transgressed. Which should be a massively engaging signal.
But therein lies a problem.
While static signals of earth systems are adequate at giving us a momentary snapshot of our status, they are non-starters in terms of activating and feeding-back responses from human beings who are receiving them.
They definitely do not have integration into any networked system that facilitates direct response to the signal.
As it currently exists, the Planetary Boundaries is a signal that has no system.
To be fair, it was never conceived as a signal/response instrument. Would they want it to be? We would hope so.
But knowing how high-friction the Academy is to new systems adoption, there would need to be an inciting event for earth systems scientists to update their signaling dashboards.
What could do that?
Crisis.
In a recent paper, Rockstrōm et al. (the climate scientists who manage the Planetary Boundaries) urgently call for the activation of a global human response network to address the challenges of the Anthropocene epoch.
And herein lies the great opportunity.
As climate scientists begin to think about ways to catalyze global collective action, they will have to consider evolving their signaling models from analog to digital.
Static to dynamic. Dead to alive.
And in so doing — initiate a critical evolutionary thrust for humanity by drawing us into a direct-response relationship with Earth systems.
Read Part II:
[In which we offer a Solution…]
