The Valley that Changed the World, and Could Do So Again.

Transforming the Derwent Valley for a Regenerative Future May 10, 2024

Image by Derwent Valley Mills
Authors: Jonny Norton, Stephen Martin, Chris Ives — School of Geography University of Nottingham
Nestled within the picturesque landscapes of Derbyshire, England, lies the Derwent Valley — a valley once pulsating with the relentless energy of the Industrial Revolution. From the late 18th to the early 19th century, this valley in Derbyshire served as an epicentre of innovation, driving rapid transformation of society through the mechanisation of industry and the harnessing of natural resources. Coal mines punctuated the rugged terrain, while the mighty River Derwent powered the water wheels and turbines that fuelled the factories of the era.
The legacy of this period of unparalleled industrial growth is etched into the fabric of the Derwent Valley. Its landscapes bear witness to the ingenuity and ambition of generations past, but also carry the scars of environmental degradation and social inequality. As the world grapples with the urgent challenges of climate change and social injustice, the Derwent Valley stands at a crossroads, poised to redefine its identity and shape a more sustainable future for generations to come.
Industrial Heritage: Triumphs and Tribulations
The story of the Derwent Valley is intrinsically linked to the rise of the Industrial Revolution. In the late 18th century, the discovery of coal beneath Derbyshire’s hillsides ignited a frenzy of mining activity, transforming the valley into a vital source of energy for the burgeoning factories. Coal, the black gold of the Industrial Revolution, powered the steam engines that drove mechanized production, propelling Britain to the forefront of global industry.
The River Derwent, with its abundant water resources, became the lifeblood of the valley’s industrial economy. Water wheels and later turbines, through the works of Sir Richard Arkwright and his invention of the water frame, were employed to harness the river’s flow, providing a reliable source of power for textile mills, iron foundries, and other industrial enterprises. Arkwright built his first water-powered cotton spinning mill in Cromford, Derbyshire, in 1771, marking the beginning of the factory system in Britain and the widespread adoption of mechanised production methods in the textile industry. The valley echoed with the rhythmic clatter of machinery, as workers toiled in the factories that dotted its landscape.
However, this period of rapid industrialization came at a steep cost. The relentless extraction of coal scarred the landscape, leaving behind a legacy of abandoned mines and polluted waterways. The air was thick with the acrid smoke of coal-fired furnaces, while the river ran black with industrial waste. Moreover, the social fabric of the valley’s communities frayed under the strains of labour exploitation and poor living conditions. Workers toiled long hours in hazardous conditions for low wages, their lives overshadowed by poverty and uncertainty.
A New Dawn: Transformation the Valley for the Anthropocene
Despite the challenges posed by its industrial legacy, the Derwent Valley is undergoing a remarkable transformation, driven by a collective commitment to sustainability and renewal. At the heart of this transformation is the recognition of the valley’s rich cultural heritage and natural beauty as assets to be cherished and preserved for future generations.
One of the most significant initiatives driving this transformation is the embrace of community energy projects, through organisations such as Derbyshire Dales Community Energy and many more. Local residents are taking control of their energy future by investing in renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. These projects not only reduce carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels but also empower individuals and bring economic, community benefit and philanthropic support, creating local jobs and fostering a sense of ownership and pride.
The Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, which encompasses a series of historic cotton mills and industrial complexes along the River Derwent, has become a focal point for community-led regeneration efforts. Initiatives such as the Cromford Mills Renewal Project are revitalising historic mill complexes, transforming them into a vibrant cultural and educational hub that celebrates the valley’s industrial heritage while promoting sustainability and innovation through repurposing old water mills into hydroelectric power — not only providing electricity for the mill and the various businesses who now use its premises, but also providing energy for the grid and using profits to support local initiatives.

The new Hydro scheme at Cromford Mill generating for the first time in over 200 years zero carbon energy for the site and an educational resource promoting renewable energy.


These efforts are becoming a focus across the entire World Heritage Site, presented in the above figure. On a global level, UNESCO World Heritage Sites are increasingly aligning themselves with frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), recognising the interconnectedness between heritage conservation, sustainable development, and community & ecosystem health around the world. They open up conversations beyond cultural and natural heritage, including sustainable tourism, community empowerment, and fostering climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. World Heritage Sites have the potential to create a significant learning platform across sites, ensuring that efforts such as those within the Derwent Valley are able to be replicated in other regions globally.
This work is developing on a plethora of scales across the Derwent Valley — on a wider regional scale, around the World Heritage Site, and on a smaller, town level. On a broader regional scale, upstream from the Derwent Valley, lies the Peak District National Park. The Peak District is one of the most visited and densely populated national parks in the United Kingdom, meaning that its already threatened landscape is under increasing pressure and strain through tourism and recreation. Initiatives such as the Peak District National Park Sustainable Development Fund are supporting a range of inter-disciplinary projects, and play a crucial role in driving innovation and collaboration across the wider Derbyshire region. Around the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, DerwentWISE, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s largest ever project, is a partnership scheme aiming to directly support and bring a natural conservation focus to the World Heritage Site and the range of designated nature reserves and protected areas across the Derwent Valley. The partnership brings together local authorities, conservation organisations, community groups, and landowners to preserve important habitats and increase the level of involvement with local landscapes. On a town level, Transition Belper is an example of a community-led initiative, organising events, workshops and campaigns in light of further adoption of sustainable lifestyles.
The efforts in the Derwent Valley to revitalise and transition towards sustainability not only benefit the environmental and community wellbeing but also have significant positive effects on local economy. Efforts to promote local economic development and entrepreneurship are empowering residents to take ownership of their economic futures. Initiatives such as the Derwent Valley Community Fund provide funding and support for small businesses, social enterprises, and community-based projects, fostering economic resilience and social cohesion — supporting the increasing trends of job creation, local procurement, tourism revenue, property value, and quality of life in the valley.
Bioregional Solutions: Shaping Our Future in a Changing Climate
Implicit within climate, natural and social issue solutions is the work of building local resilience. “Bioregions” offer a useful frame for a regional strategy in light of such issues and are gaining much recognition within the sustainability landscape. A bioregion is a geographical area defined by its unique combination of natural features (ecosystems, watersheds, mountain ranges), as well as cultural and human systems — moving beyond “man-made” boundaries such as political jurisdictions and encouraging a sense of interconnectedness and mutual dependence. They provide a framework for understanding and managing complex regional interactions, and allow for targeted, collaborative strategies to emerge for transformational solutions. As a bioregion, the Derwent Valley holds tremendous potential to shape a future approach to climate and social issues not only within the Derbyshire region, but to offer a blueprint and sources of inspirations to other bioregions both nationally and internationally — offering up potential collaboration with groups such as the Bioregional Weaving Labs and Regenerative Communities Networks. By amplifying the good work already happening within the valley, and creating a strong weave and learning loop between initiatives, innovative solutions can be developed which transcend geographic boundaries and address global challenges.
Furthermore, the greatly progressing concept of “hospicing modernity” by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira offers a profound insight into our relationship with the past, present, and future, and very much speaks to the journey of the Derwent Valley bioregion. “Hospicing Modernity” calls for an acknowledgement and hospicing (letting go) of the modern behaviour patterns that in many ways of killing the planet, and step into a new space of opportunity and hold oneself accountable. By recognising the impacts of neoliberalism and rabid consumption and honouring the legacy of the events such as the Industrial Revolution, while acknowledging its shortcomings, the Derwent Valley has the potential to chart a significant course towards a more sustainable and equitable future — not only embracing technological advancements but also reclaiming traditional knowledge and practices that have sustained communities for generations.
The Derwent Valley finds itself at a crossroads, poised to either retreat into the shadows of its industrial past, or boldly step forward into a future defined by resilience and community empowerment.
Forging a Path to a Sustainable Future
The Derwent Valley stands as a beacon of hope in a world grappling with environmental degradation and social injustice. Through community-driven initiatives, environmental stewardship, and social innovation, the valley is reclaiming its place as a catalyst for positive change — as it once was in industrial times. The Derwent Valley is a green shoot of resilience, visioning a world where sustainability, equity, and well-being are at the forefront of collective consciousness. A world where the lessons of the past are a guiding star towards a flourishing world for generations to come.

MURDER IN THE CLIMATE ASSEMBLY by Denise Baden

Murder in the Climate Assembly is a contemporary literary fiction novel that weaves moral philosophy, climate policies and elements of the popular whodunnit genre into an engaging story.
This original take on the traditional campus novel addresses broad themes of what justice means in an age of climate change. The story grapples with one of the most pressing questions of our age: how we enact change in our unsustainable lifestyles and ways of transforming our thinking on climate change and loss of biodiversity. An astonishingly good read full of engaging material on justice, ethics and democracy and moral philosophy. Timely and cutting edge but entertaining and thought provoking.
‘Having assessed this novel, I was struck first by its deft and unusual use of form to create a kaleidoscopic and deeply clever narrative. At once a commentary on the looming responsibility of the climate crisis and our ever-shrinking opportunity to enact meaningful change, and a far from conventional whodunnit, the book plays with the notion of what is moral and what is right.
Complicit in the book’s central sprawling philosophical dilemma, the reader finds themselves judge, jury and executioner in the case of the century. While the novel tackles prescient and troubling themes and poses difficult questions (how far should we go for the greater good?), it does so with a sense of dry humour and a delightful eye for the absurd.
Above all, the warmth and resilience of its ineffable protagonist suffuses the narrative and, as the story ends, we struggle to leave her behind. Not only is this a timely, thought-provoking and essential story in an age of urgent, innovative climate action that demands the attention of us all, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Funny, memorable, characterful and original.’
Miles Hawkley, senior editor of The Literary Studio.
https://www.dabaden.com/murder-in-the-climate-assembly/

A Quantum Year of Turmoil


We are in the International Year of Quantum (IYQ). Can the conceptual turmoil in physics one hundred years ago tell us anything about doing science amidst the political turmoil we experience today?
Karen O’Brien

Feb 2025

The International Year of Quantum (IYQ)
How exciting! The United Nations has designated 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). The aim of IYQ is “to help raise public awareness of the importance and impact of quantum science and applications on all aspects of life.”
This month’s Opening Ceremony for IYQ included discussions on how quantum science can be used to address global challenges and align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It’s a nice start for an initiative that aims “to continue fostering conversations, collaborations, and initiatives that ensure quantum science benefits society in meaningful and lasting ways.”
Well, timing is everything. Just when we are enthusiastically invited to engage with the wonders of cutting-edge science and to consider what it means for all aspects of our lives, the new U.S. administration has taken a giant wrecking ball to research and education.
Political Turmoil
Scientists are in the middle of a disorienting moment. It’s hard to grasp the systemic and institutional attack on research that is currently taking place in the United States. This includes, but is not limited to, the targeting of climate change research.
As Sudip Parikh, the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said at the opening of their annual meeting last week, “We are gathered in a moment of turmoil. It’s turmoil.”
This turmoil has consequences. It is part of a larger political agenda that is amplifying the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline — exactly when we should be reducing them. The three underlying causes that we identified in the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment are:

  1. Disconnection from and domination over nature and people;
  2. Concentration of power and wealth;
  3. Prioritization of short-term, individual, and material gains.
    But this is not all! The current regime is also undermining three of the four principles of transformative change: 1) equity and justice; 2) pluralism and inclusion; and 3) respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships. It is doing this by erasing this language from research and education and removing protections.
    The current political turmoil is not generating transformative change for a just and sustainable world. On the contrary, it is enabling a small and elite group to destroy nature and widen the path of plunder. Cuts in research funding, along with the termination of federal jobs related to education, national parks, environmental protection, and energy transitions, is pure folly. It has consequences for all of us.
    The Threat
    What is going on? History shows that authoritarian regimes are threatened by knowledge production based on independent, critical thinking. Unless research is dictated, controlled, and aligned with the objectives of the regime, it is likely to be viewed as dangerous. Why? Here are a just few reasons:
    • Research involves asking questions. Authoritarian regimes suppress questions.
    • Research focuses on solving problems. Authoritarian regimes thrive on creating problems.
    • Research is creative. Authoritarian regimes are destructive.
    • Research develops through collaboration. Authoritarian regimes develop through obedience.
    • Research seeks truth. Authoritarian regimes survive through lies.
    • Research thrives on discussion and debate. Authoritarian regimes depend on controlling information.
    • Research expands knowledge. Authoritarian regimes limit or restrict it.
    • Research empowers people. Authoritarian regimes oppress people.
    • Research explores the uncertain and the unknown. Authoritarian regimes keep people in the dark.
    In these unsettling times, how do we ask the right questions, expand knowledge, empower people, work collaboratively, creatively solve problems, and embrace the uncertain and unknown?
    To answer this question, I’m looking to quantum physics for insights, analogies and metaphors that can help us generate transformative change that is equitable, ethical, and sustainable.
    Back in Time
    Let’s travel back in time to a pivotal quantum year. One hundred years ago, scientific understandings of the nature of reality were unravelling. New discoveries revealed that natural phenomena could not be accurately described by classical physics. Still, no one knew how to approach emerging and competing interpretations of quantum mechanics. Sean Carroll sums up the problem: “The failure of the classical paradigm can be traced to a single, provocative concept: measurement.”
    Quantum physics created turmoil for research that was based on measurement. Many scientists knew that basic assumptions about reality were being challenged. A Nature editorial about the importance of this quantum year considers the implications:
    [The revolution] did require its initiators to abandon dearly held common-sense ideas — for example, the expectation that subatomic objects such as particles have a well-defined position and momentum at any given time. Instead, the physicists found that natural phenomena had an inherently unknowable nature.
    Physicists recognized that they’d need a new set of concepts to describe a quantum view of reality. However, they didn’t know what this would mean and where it would lead. In an recent article in Nature, science historian Kristian Camilleri describes how a bold paper published by Werner Heisenberg in 1925 upended our understanding of reality:
    Pragmatic considerations lay at the heart of Heisenberg’s physics. He often played with all sorts of ideas until he found one that worked — an approach well suited to a period of such conceptual turmoil.
    What does conceptual turmoil have to do with today’s political turmoil? A pragmatic “let’s play with ideas and see what works best” approach may not be the best response when the stakes are so high. Maybe the real lesson is that our responses should be adaptive, creative, and open-minded — and based on science, including social science.
    Quantum social science
    This year’s celebration of quantum science and technology is exciting, but where is the quantum social science? I ask this because the quantum breakthroughs we need now are not just technical; they are social.
    Yes, quantum computing and quantum encryption sound promising. But for whom? Values and principles underpin every technology. Quantum breakthroughs have led to the development of lasers, cell phones, computers, and weapons, and these have not always been used to promote a peaceful and equitable world where nature and people can thrive. As discussed in a Forbes article on the risks of quantum computing: “The power of quantum computing can be leveraged for bad purposes as well as good, and even when organizations have the best intentions.”
    It’s great that IYQ is focusing on quantum conversations, and I appreciate their call to action: “those who have insights into the beauty, power, and importance of quantum science and technology should use IYQ as a moment to share these insights with people who are less familiar with quantum.” However, I believe we need a radically different approach to social change — one that addresses the underlying causes of nature’s decline and recognizes the metaphorical and meaningful significance of entanglement, complementarity, superpositions, potentiality, and wholeness. As in oneness.
    In a period of political turmoil, it’s critical that our responses draw on insights from quantum social science. For example, I would like to see conversations with Alexander Wendt about his work on Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology. It would be timely to hear from Laura Zanotti about her work on Ontological Entanglements, Agency and Ethics in International Relations. I also want to engage with Laura’s more recent work on “Cosmologies, coloniality and quantum critique,” which links quantum thinking with Indigenous knowledge. And shouldn’t we be paying close attention to insights from James Der Derian’s Project Q on peace and security in a quantum age? I can think of many other social scientists, artists, and activists with important quantum insights to share during this “International Year of Quantum.”
    Action
    In a climate of repression and oppression, what strategies can we use to maintain a clear and strong voice for critical and independent thinking and collaborative research?
    If quantum physics is telling us that we live in a participatory universe, and that our actions matter more than we think, then those of us who care about a just and sustainable world need to take action now. Just as researchers got through their conceptual turmoil in 1925 and started a quantum revolution, I believe we have the potential to get through the political turmoil in 2025 by engaging with quantum social change for a just and sustainable world.

Paradigm Shakes


We seem to be stuck in a dangerous and destructive paradigm. Our current approach to climate change is painfully inadequate. Will shifting paradigms be easier if we start with a few small shakes?
Karen O’Brien

Jan 20

Extremes
These are not easy times. It’s hard to watch the news and read the latest climate projections. And it’s painful to experience the reality of extreme climate events and witness so much suffering and loss. It’s even more painful to see the woeful inadequacy of political responses.
We understand the impacts of climate-related disasters. Wildfires. Floods. Droughts. Heat waves. Hurricanes. We know that they will get much worse as the atmosphere continues to warm. Yet we are doing astonishingly little to address the underlying causes.
How did we get here? Weren’t these “extremely extreme” climate events avoidable?
Patterns
I’m experiencing a sense of déjà vu. I worry that I have written about this before. I probably have… It’s just that these questions keep coming up, and the patterns we see are annoyingly repetitive. We are stuck in thought patterns that are leading to dire consequences.
Reflecting on past, present and projected patterns took me back to the IPCC special report on extreme events — the SREX report for short.* The report, published in 2012, drew attention to the risks of extreme events associated with climate change.
The SREX report highlighted the importance of low-regrets measures as starting points for addressing projected trends in exposure and vulnerability to extreme events: “They have the potential to offer benefits now and lay the foundation for addressing projected changes.” They are, in other words, important adaptation strategies.
Low regrets measures are the obvious solutions that fit within current paradigm, and they include:
• early warning systems
• risk communication between decision-makers and local citizens
• sustainable land management (e.g., land use planning; ecosystem management and restoration)
• improvements to health, water supply, sanitation, and irrigation and drainage systems
• climate-proofing of infrastructure
• development and enforcement of building codes
• and of course, better education and awareness
Low-regrets options make perfect sense. Regretfully, we are not implementing them. It’s clear that something is missing.
Opening Minds
I worked on chapter 8 of the IPCC’s SREX Report, Towards a Sustainable and Resilient Future. In the chapter, we talked about the need to move beyond the dominant paradigm by opening our minds to new perspectives. This was one of the key findings in the SREX summary for policymakers:
Progress toward resilient and sustainable development in the context of changing climate extremes can benefit from questioning assumptions and paradigms and stimulating innovation to encourage new patterns of response (medium agreement, robust evidence). Successfully addressing disaster risk, climate change, and other stressors often involves embracing broad participation in strategy development, the capacity to combine multiple perspectives, and contrasting ways of organizing social relations.
The importance of shifting paradigms comes up repeatedly in the recent IPBES Transformative Change Assessment. The report emphasizes that “[t]ransformative change involves questioning the individual and collective paradigms and cultural narratives that perpetuate the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline.” This includes transforming dominant economic and financial paradigms that currently prioritize private interests over nature and social equity. How do we shift these paradigms?
Shakes and Shifts
Quantum social change emphasizes our potential to consciously disrupt habitual patterns and generate new ones. We often talk about shifting paradigms as if they were momentous events that occur in an instant, as in “Eureka! I’ve shifted my paradigm!” This may be true in some cases, but more often it’s a gradual process. In fact, it may be easier to shift entrenched paradigms if we start with small tremors, rather than wait for a dramatic shift.
For me, it took a series of small shakes to shift my thought patterns. My first “paradigm shake” came in 2007, after reading Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Interpreting it through the lens of climate change, I began to question the logic of striving to be “well-adapted” to dramatic environmental changes, at the same time as we were continuously accelerating the trends.
Writing in 1970, Freire warned of the dangers of adapting to oppressive situations:
The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe.

Awakening individual and collective agency is risky to those who benefit from an unquestioned acceptance of the status quo. Freire points to some of the tools for maintaining power over people, including the use of myths and the discouragement of critical thinking and inquiry. He relates this to the banking concept of education, where knowledge is deposited but never critically assessed:

The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

As disinformation spreads, fake news and fake images are increasingly deposited in our minds. It’s not surprising that many of us are well-adapted to a fragmented, polarized view of reality. The antidote Freire offers is conscientization, the process of developing a critical awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action.
Quantum Shakes
Pedagogy of the Oppressed shook my paradigm and led me to think critically about adaptation in relation to transformation. It also primed me to look at social reality through other lenses. My next paradigm shake occurred when I discovered Alexander Wendt’s work on quantum social theory. Wendt’s auto-critique of his constructivist approach to international relations led me to question how I was thinking about the relationship between individual change, collective change and systems change, including the implications for climate action. This paradigm shake opened me to an ongoing inquiry into what quantum social change means in theory and practice.
In The Social Life of Democracy, Sundar Sarukkai points out that democracy is a mindset. He emphasizes that people in every society are influenced by their cultural beliefs, including their beliefs about the relationship between the “I” and the “we.” His argument is that to understand the nature of democracy, one has to begin with the relationship between the self and the collective.
Quantum social change recognizes that individuals and collectives are entangled through language, meaning, and shared contexts, and that our deepest values and intentions are powerful sources of societal-scale change. As power is increasingly shifting to people who have little regard for climate science, nature conservation, and the well-being of all people and species, I think that our fragmented paradigm could use a quantum shake.
Scaling Ideas
In Think Scale, social entrepreneur Sanjay Purohit points out that “solving for scale is a mindset before it is an action.” He emphasizes that things scale through the sharing of ideas, and he encourages us, amidst the uncertainties that are unfolding around us, to “pause for a moment, reimagine what will work at scale, explore alternatives, and raise the aspiration to move forward on a journey of exponential change.”
I’m ready for the journey of exponential change to a just and sustainable world. The idea that I want to share and scale is that we matter more than we think. On January 20th, I’m going to make the You Matter More than You Think audio book freely available to newsletter subscribers for two weeks. Readers are in turn welcome to share it with people who matter to them.
I hope that sharing these ideas contributes to reflection and action on why paradigms, beliefs, relationships, metaphors, entanglement, consciousness, agency, and fractals matter — and most of all, why you matter. It’s time to both shake and shift a dangerous and destructive paradigm. With love! As Paolo Freire put it, “no reality transforms itself.”


[C]risis simultaneously loosens the stereotypes and provides the
incremental data necessary for a fundamental paradigm shift.
— Thomas Kuhn

Biesta: The Beautiful Risk of Education


We seem to be in the process of creating an education system that strives to reduce all risks whilst making ever-greater demands. The new system tells our students they must work harder, be more productive, and aim ever higher, but is not prepared to allow them simple freedoms or opportunities to make choices and to decide things for themselves. It is a mechanistic system of control and productivity that sees qualifications as the over-riding purpose of education.
Recently I read a blog written by a teacher at a high performing academy where the students are required to move around in total silence and are told where to sit at lunchtime. This is justified because some students find social situations difficult, and silence ensures minimum disruption between lessons. But is this level of control desirable? Is it even educational?
Gert Biesta, in “The Beautiful Risk of Education”, argues systems of this kind have got their priorities out of balance. They are efficient at maintaining the status quo and at reproducing what already exists but are useless if what we want from education is students who can think and make judgements for themselves – “free subjects rather than docile objects”.
For Biesta, education has three aims: the attainment of academic qualifications, socialisation into a community, and ‘subjectification’ – becoming a wise human being. He understands there is a tension between these three aims and that the purpose of education is to find a productive balance. If one or more of the aims is allowed to dominate the others, then the education of the students will suffer.
The problem with the new system approach is that the aims of student attainment and socialisation have been privileged above subjectification and this has led to the development of an instrumental (as well as dehumanising and dysfunctional) process of schooling, that might get better results, but exacts a terrible cost.
To become a wise person requires experience, it is not something learnt from a book, but something developed over time through experience and reflection. If we deny students opportunities to take risks, make mistakes, and experiment with power, then we deny them opportunities to develop wisdom and to learn how to become responsible ‘grown up’ human beings.
This is the ‘risk’ of education in the title of Biesta’s book. The risk we must take as teachers if we are to allow our students experiences of freedom and responsibility. As well as the risk of engaging with ambiguity and complexity in a system prepared to share power and decision-making.
The new system justifies high levels of control and risk-reduction by claiming they are acting in the best interests of the students. By limiting their options and requiring simple obedience and hard work, the new system claims it gives students the best chance they must realise their potential. This is particularly true, they claim, of the poor who are disadvantaged from the beginning by their badly educated parents. This is evangelical education. An approach that justifies the means by the ends and claims other less regimented approaches have low expectations.
But, as Biesta points out, we don’t ‘produce’ our students: they are not products of our schools they are human beings with agency and minds of their own. The idea of emancipating the poor through education, in a system that denies them freedom and the power to influence, is patronising and self-justifying. In fact, it’s not education at all, but a system of schooling that puts the interests of the system and the economy above those of its subjects. Freedom is not something people are educated into, but something education is for. There is no graduation date for becoming a human being and having the rights of a person. And as much as we tell ourselves we are doing it on their behalf, we do not have the right to control children’s every move.
Biesta’s book is a challenging read. It is academic and heavy going in parts, but it shines a bright light on the mistakes we have made in the past and the new ones we are beginning to make for the future. He is not interested in apportioning blame or looking for scapegoats, rather he understands education is a complex multifaceted business and most people are working hard with good intentions. The problems we have, he argues, are created because we have never clearly decided on the purpose of education – what it is for and for whom. Until we do, we will continue to repeat the makes of the past.
I’m convinced by Biesta’s plea for balance. Education is not about denying children knowledge, opportunities to belong, or chances to experience freedom and responsibility. It is about striving to find methods that embrace all three and give our students the best chance that they become educationally wise human beings.
This blog was first published in Teach Primary 13TH DECEMBER 2014

Back to fossil fuels-with AI?

An edited opinion piece by John Elkington
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), AI-related energy demand is set to almost double between 2022 and 2026. Bad enough, but Generation is more pessimistic still. “There are … forecasts that are much more drastic,” it concludes. “It is easy to imagine a world in which ever more sophisticated AI causes global energy demand to soar, which in turn raises carbon emissions.”
One possibility is that cloud companies decide to meet the demands of generative AI by moving back to fossil fuels. “Fossil fuels could provide a steady, ‘behind-the-meter’ (i.e., off-grid) supply of energy for data centres,” Generation warns (https://www.generationim.com/our-thinking/insights/is-ai-sustainable/).


Experts suggest that to meet the extra energy demand, we might have to keep old gas- or coal-power plants running longer, or even build new ones. Already there are anecdotes of this happening. That is deeply concerning. Just as the world needs to make progress on cutting carbon emissions, we risk going backwards.
Ultimately, the white paper concludes, “there is great uncertainty about whether AI will prove to be sustainable or not.”


So, who must do what?
Cloud companies now have a grave responsibility, Generation insists. “They have real agency here—not only to participate in the buildout of the grid, but also to reward, punish and lobby governments which help or hinder the rollout of renewables and grid reform.”


Data centres already use a lot of energy. In combination with data transmission networks, they now account for 1-2% of energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions. As AI has become cleverer, it has become hungrier for power. According to one estimate, OpenAI’s GPT-4 required 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity to train—roughly the annual consumption of a small city.


Once AI models are trained, they then require power to be used in real-world applications (so-called ‘inference’). It is harder to measure the power demands of inference “largely due to its distributed nature, compared with the relatively time- and location-constrained nature of training.” But the academic evidence suggests the energy demands of inference increase with the size of the AI model. The most energy-intensive tasks are those which generate new content, such as text or images.

Interdisciplinarity makes us greater than the sum of our parts

The real world is complicated. Let’s give our students the tools to take it on with interdisciplinary education


Graduates are increasingly entering a work landscape that demands agility, flexibility and a diverse skill set, and as a result, the value of interdisciplinary education is on the rise. Universities are seeking out ways to expand students’ horizons beyond a discipline-specific degree, creating pathways for students to tackle some of the complex challenges they are likely to face in their future careers.
LSE100 is the flagship interdisciplinary course taken by all undergraduate students at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since 2010, we have been building our students’ capacity to tackle multidimensional problems through research-rich education, giving them the opportunity to explore transformative global challenges in collaboration with their peers and leading academics from across the university.


• Making group work work: how to enable successful student collaboration
• Interdisciplinarity in teaching: what it is and how to make it work
• Building the future: the case for inter-faculty learning


The course has evolved significantly since its creation. We shifted its mode of delivery away from face-to-face lectures and towards a flipped classroom format that prioritises collaborative, interactive seminars to maximise student engagement. Teaching LSE100 to more than 20,000 undergraduates over the past decade has offered some important lessons for designing an interdisciplinary course – one that can develop students’ abilities to embrace complexity, as they work to solve the world’s most pressing issues.


Engage students with the breadth of academic research
One of our core aims at LSE100 is to bring students into the heart of the LSE tradition of thinking like a social scientist, inviting them to embrace the School’s motto of “understanding the causes of things for the betterment of society”. Key to this goal is showcasing the research of LSE academics. As part of the course, we invite contributions from researchers across the university, filming short interviews to highlight their findings and impact, which students then watch as part of their preparation for LSE100 seminars. Engaging students with the breadth of academic research is a valuable way to develop skills in synthesising and integrating insights from a wide range of perspectives, which is a core competency of interdisciplinary learning.


Signpost the value of different perspectives
In allocating students to LSE100 seminars, we work with our timetabling colleagues to ensure there is as much diversity of perspective in the classroom as possible. The best conversations happen when students are introduced to an idea or argument, then draw on their disciplinary knowledge to interrogate it. Hearing what a philosopher, lawyer, statistician, anthropologist, and political scientist have to say about the concept of fairness, for example, is hugely valuable for our students.
This exposure to new perspectives is accompanied by clear signposting throughout the course when students are engaging with different disciplines. Knowing what a sociological perspective on markets might look like, and how it differs from an economic one, is often an eye-opening experience for first-year undergraduates in thinking beyond the boundaries of their chosen degree.


Develop students’ abilities to tackle wicked problems
We design LSE100 around three complex global challenges, which we argue require an interdisciplinary perspective to meaningfully address. The challenges change over time, and students are given the opportunity to choose the challenge they’re most interested in. Our current challenges (How can we control AI? How can we create a fair society? How can we transform our climate futures?) can all be considered what design theorists Rittel and Webber identified as “wicked problems” – multifaceted, complex problems with no one straightforward solution.


Using a wicked problems framing highlights the value of an interdisciplinary approach, expanding students’ toolbox for how to tackle these thorny issues. Students are empowered to consider how they would lead and make change in a world of wicked problems, drawing not only on their disciplinary knowledge but on the theories, methods and concepts offered by fields other than their own.


Introducing the tools of interdisciplinary thinking
In thinking about the design of an interdisciplinary offering, it may be tempting to fall into a trap of multidisciplinarity – showcasing the contributions of many disciplines, but not reaching a truly interdisciplinary space where students can synthesise and integrate these insights. One way to avoid this pitfall is to draw on interdisciplinary frameworks and methods, giving students the tools they need to do interdisciplinary investigation.
In LSE100, we develop students’ skills in systems thinking with this goal in mind. Systems thinking, itself an interdisciplinary field, invites students to think not just about individual components of systems but the system itself, as well as its connections. Introducing students to feedback loops, systems mapping and the importance of interconnectedness gives them a way to tackle wicked problems, breaking down challenges into essential parts of a complex system.
Embracing complexity through interdisciplinary learning can be a hugely rewarding experience for students, helping prepare them effectively for the world of work. Alongside developing disciplinary expertise and knowledge, we should strive to train our students to think creatively and widely, both when working individually and as part of a team, aiming to create something greater than the sum of its parts.


Jillian Terry is associate professor (education) and co-director of LSE100 at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

WHAT IS TRUE NET ZERO?

From the Guardian 19/11/2024


Under the “true” net zero definition, the natural world’s vast carbon-absorbing capabilities must only be put to work to remove historical emissions so that the planet can slowly cool over time, the net zero researchers say – not to cancel out future fossil fuel pollution.
“It is a common assumption that removing carbon from the atmosphere to offset burning of fossil fuels is as effective as not burning fossil fuels in the first place. It is not. Offsetting continued fossil fuel use with carbon removal will not be effective if the removal is already being counted on as part of the natural carbon cycle and if the carbon is not permanently stored,” says Prof Kirsten Zickfeld of Canada’s Simon Fraser University, a co-author and leader of one of the 2009 net zero papers.
The intervention comes at a time of increasing concern about the Earth’s carbon sinks, one of the least understood parts of the climate change equation. During record temperatures in 2023, new research shows that the amount of carbon absorbed by the land fell dramatically due to wildfires and drought turbocharged by El Niño. Many European countries – including Finland, Germany, France, Estonia and Sweden – are experiencing large declines in their land sinks, imperilling their national climate targets in some cases. This is giving researchers cause for concern.
“Unrealistically optimistic estimates of land-based removal potential by climate models is giving us a false sense of the capacity for land to absorb our future emissions, potentially locking us into scenarios where we greatly overshoot our temperature targets – which comes with various risks and uncertainties,” says Joanne Bentley, an analyst for Zero Carbon Analytics, who has recently reviewed how nature is being used to meet the Paris agreement.
Zero Carbon Analytics found that countries are using different methods for reporting their land-based carbon removal to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, making countries appear to be further ahead of climate progress than they truly are. When harmonised, the budget for limiting warming falls by as much as 18%, they say.
“How land is classified in national climate commitments is a critical blind spot in carbon accounting. It allows vast emissions from wildfires and natural disturbances in forests to go uncounted, ultimately misrepresenting the emissions accounting process.

NET ZERO MEANINGLESS WITHOUT NATURE’s SUPPORT


There can be no net zero without nature. Each year, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions. They feature in dozens of national plans to limit global heating to below 2C. This week, however, the scientific architects of net zero have a warning: you have misunderstood mother nature’s role in our plan.
On Monday in the journal Nature, the researchers who developed the concept in 2009 say that vague net zero definitions could mean that the world only ends up meeting the target on paper while the planet continues to warm. By including naturally occurring carbon removals from forests, oceans and other natural sources as if they were human-caused in national plans, the scientists say that countries could, in effect, “cheat” their way to towards Paris agreement targets.
“We are already counting on forests and oceans to mop up our past emissions, most of which came from burning stuff we dug out of the ground. We can’t expect them to compensate for future emissions as well,” says Oxford professor Myles Allen, who led the study.
As Cop29 in Baku enters its second week, the researchers are urging governments at the summit to clarify their definition of net zero, underscoring the need for “geological net zero”.
What would that actually mean? And how would we do it?

THE URGENT NEED FOR AN ACADEMIC REVOLUTION IN OUR UNIVERSITIES

By NICHOLAS MAXWELL- PHILOSOPHER

We might put the matter like this.  Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe and us and other forms of life as a part of the universe; and learning how to create a genuinely good, civilized, wise world.  We have solved the first problem of learning.  We did that in the 17th century when we created modern science.  But we have not yet solved the second problem. This puts us in a situation of unprecedented danger.  For, because of solving the first problem and creating modern science and technology, we have enormously increased our power to act.  We have employed this vastly increased power to act to enhance human welfare in endlessly many ways, via the development of modern medicine and hygiene, modern industry and agriculture, modern transport and communications, and in countless other ways.  But, in the absence of the solution to the second great problem of learning, these very successes, the outcome of our enhanced power to act have, as often as not, also led to harm and death.  They have led to population growth, environmental degradation, loss of wild life, mass extinction of species, gross inequality, the lethal character of modern war, the threat of nuclear weapons, pollution of earth, sea and air, and above all to the impending disasters of climate change.  All these global problems come from a single source: our immense success in solving the first great problem of learning and our lamentable failure to solve the second great problem of learning.

It is this deadly combination of science without civilization that is at the root of many of our most threatening global problems.  Before science, lack of wisdom did not matter too much.  We lacked the power to do too much damage to ourselves, or to the planet.  Now that we do have science, and the power to act that it bequeaths to us – to some of us at least –  lack of global wisdom has become a menace.  Wisdom has ceased to be a private luxury and has become a public necessity.  Solving the first great problem of learning and failing to solve the second one puts us into a situation of extreme and unprecedented danger.  As a matter of extreme urgency – now we have solved the first great problem of learning – we must discover how to solve the second one.  If we do not learn soon how to make progress towards a wiser, more civilized world, we may well end up destroying ourselves. 

But how is this to be done?  Prophets and philosophers have been holding forth on the need for wisdom for millennia, without much apparent success.  The very idea that humanity can make social progress towards a better, wiser world has become thoroughly dubious in recent times, even disreputable.

Here is the key to the solution of this crisis.  We need to learn from our solution to the first great problem of learning how to go about solving the second great problem.  As a result, we might get into efforts to achieve social progress towards a good world some of the incredible success of science in achieving intellectual progress in knowledge.

This is not an entirely new idea.  It goes back to the 18th century Enlightenment.  A key idea of the Enlightenment, especially the French Enlightenment, was to learn from scientific progress how to make social progress towards an enlightened world.  (Peter Gay’s The Enlightenment is still, in my view, the best overall account of The Enlightenment.)

In order to put this Enlightenment idea into practice properly, so that we really do learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards a good, enlightened world, there are three crucial steps that must be got right.  First, we must capture correctly the progress-achieving methods of science – that which makes scientific progress possible.  Second, we must generalize these progress-achieving methods of science correctly, so that they become applicable in a potentially fruitful way to all worthwhile, problematic human endeavours.  Third, we need to get into personal, institutional and social life these progress-achieving methods arrived at by generalizing the methods of science – so that we can get into our efforts to achieve what is of value in life some of the success and progress achieved by science.

Put these three steps correctly into practice, and we would have what humanity so urgently needs: a kind of inquiry devoted to helping humanity make progress towards a civilized, enlightened, wise world.

Unfortunately, the philosophes of the 18th century French Enlightenment, Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the rest, in developing and implementing this profoundly important idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world, made dreadful blunders.  They got all three steps drastically wrong.  First, they failed to capture correctly the progress-achieving methods of science.  Second, they then failed to generalize scientific method correctly to facilitate progress in other fields of human endeavour besides science.  Third, and most disastrously, they failed to apply progress-achieving methods, generalized from science to the social world, and above all to the task of making progress towards an enlightened world.  Not only did they fail to formulate correctly progress-achieving methods, generalized from those of natural science, fruitfully applicable potentially to all worthwhile, problematic human endeavours.  Far worse, they did not even conceive of the task in this methodological way.  Instead, they thought the task was to develop the social sciences alongside the natural sciences.  Thus, the philosophes set about creating and developing the social sciences: economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and the rest.  Instead of attempting to apply reason, extracted from science to the task of making progress towards an enlightened world, the philosophes sought merely to make progress in knowledge about the social world.  They thought that such knowledge had to be acquired as an essential preliminary to the task of making social progress towards enlightenment and civilization.

This botched version of the profound, basic Enlightenment idea was developed throughout the 19th century by J.S. Mill, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and others, and was then built into academia in the early 20th century with the creation of academic social sciences: economics, anthropology, psychology, sociology and the rest.  As a result, modern science, and modern academic inquiry more generally, still embody the three ancient blunders of the 18th century Enlightenment.  Academic inquiry as it exists today is the outcome of an attempt to put the profound, basic Enlightenment idea into practice – the idea of learning from our solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second one.  Unfortunately, it is a very seriously botched attempt.  Therefore, academia today does not, as it should, actively seek to help humanity solve those problems of living, including global problems, that need to be solved if humanity is to make progress towards a better, wiser, more civilized and enlightened world.  Instead, it devotes itself to acquiring and applying knowledge – knowledge of the natural world, and knowledge of the social world.  Judged from the standpoint of helping humanity learn how to create a better world, academic inquiry, devoted primarily to the pursuit of knowledge, is damagingly irrational in a wholesale, structural way, and this irrationality of our institutions of learning has much to do with the dangerous situation we find ourselves in today.  We fail to learn how to make progress towards a better world because our institutions of learning are profoundly dysfunctional intellectually.  They have in them three structural blunders inherited from the Enlightenment.  In devoting themselves primarily to the acquisition and application of knowledge, universities in the modern era have in effect restricted themselves to putting the solution to the first great problem of learning into practice, to the neglect of the second problem, and in doing so they have intensified the danger we are in that comes from enhanced power to act bequeathed to us by the success of science without the global civilization required to use this power wisely.

To develop universities that are actively, rationally, and perhaps effectively engaged in helping us create a more civilized world, it is essential that we cure academia of its three big defects inherited from The Enlightenment. First, we need to adopt and implement a new conception of science that acknowledges profoundly problematic metaphysical, value and political assumptions inherent in the aims of science and, as a result, adopts a meta-methodology designed to facilitate improvement of aims and associated methods as science proceeds.  Second, this aims-improving, progress-achieving conception of scientific method needs to be generalized to form a new, aims-improving, progress-achieving conception of rationality, fruitfully applicable, potentially, to all worthwhile endeavours with problematic aims.  And third, social inquiry and the humanities need to be transformed so that they take up the task of helping humanity get this new conception of rationality into the fabric of social life, into all our other human endeavours besides science: politics, industry, agriculture, economics, the media, the law, finance, international affairs. In actively engaging with people to promote cooperatively rational tackling of conflicts and problems of living, local and global, it is essential that universities, and the more general social and political effort to make progress towards civilization, seek to put into practice the aims-and-methods improving conception of rationality arrived at by generalizing and adapting the aims-and-methods methodology of science.  This needs to be done because the aim of seeking civilization, like the basic aims of science, is inherently and profoundly problematic.  Ideas about what a civilized world might be, desirable and attainable, will need to be improved as we proceed.  As a result of putting these three key steps into practice, correcting the three blunders we have inherited from The Enlightenment, humanity would have what it so urgently needs, a kind of academic enterprise rationally devoted to helping us make social progress towards a genuinely civilized, wise, enlightened world – a world that has the capacity to discover undesirable consequences of new actions made possible by new technology, and then modify actions before their undesirable consequences become too widespread.  Furthermore science, transformed because of implementing the aims-and-methods improving methodology that corrects the first blunder inherited from the past, would be better, potentially, at improving our scientific knowledge and understanding of the universe, and would be better able to respond to the most urgent and best interests of humanity. 

Here, then, in very brief outline, is an argument that, if valid, establishes the urgent need to bring about a profound intellectual and institutional revolution in universities around the world so that universities may cease to play a role in intensifying global problems that threaten our future, and may instead, come actively to help us resolve these global problems and thus begin to make social progress towards a genuinely civilized world.  Even if we lived in peaceful, civilized times, I would have thought this argument deserved to receive serious attention.  In our world, fraught with war, dictatorial regimes, poverty, democracy under threat, the menace of the climate and nature crises, and with nuclear weapons at the ready in the wings, I would have thought that an argument that claims to show that universities have some responsibility for this situation, and how they need to change to become more helpful, ought to receive more attention than the neglect my argument has actually received.

Why has it been ignored?  Perhaps the very immense scope of the argument tells against it.  It does not fit into the modern specialized academic mind.  Perhaps it is the lack of success of the argument that tells against it.  Just as nothing succeeds like success, perhaps nothing fails like failure.  Perhaps individual academics are discouraged from taking the idea seriously because of the apparent impossibility of it ever being taken up and put into academic practice.  To that objection I do have a reply.  It is first perfectly possible to create serious academic discussion of the argument – discussion of potential objections, discussion of how aspects of the idea might be put into practice, what practical objections and difficulties there might be.  Furthermore, the basic idea that knowledge-inquiry needs to be transformed into wisdom-inquiry (as I call the two kinds of academic inquiry at issue) does not, of course need to be done in one blow, all at once.  Bits and pieces of knowledge-inquiry can be modified to become bits of wisdom-inquiry.  Not all the social sciences need to be transformed in one revolutionary act, and nor do all the natural sciences either.  Some components of the changes that are needed are much easier to change than other components.  I have drawn up a list of 23 structural changes that are needed to transform knowledge-inquiry into wisdom-inquiry.  Some involve changes in disciplines; those are hard to change, because they involve changing aspects of universities all around the world.  But other changes do not involve changes in disciplines, and those can be made, university by university, each acting independently.  That apples to the idea that there should be sustained imaginative and critical exploration in the university of our fundamental problem: How can our human world exist, and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe?  See What Needs to Change Step 20.  It applies to steps 22 and 23 as well.  Elements of wisdom-inquiry could be created, in this or that university, and that might well form growth points for more substantial change in the future.  The matter is too urgent to leave for another generation to deal with, or likewise ignore.

There are of course any number of reasonably obvious intellectual and institutional reasons why what I advocate should be resisted.  But the argument has not even reached that stage yet.  Most academics, even most philosophers, have not even heard of it.

Some academics are actively concerned to change academia so that it comes to respond more adequately to the problems we face see Faculty for a Future for example.  I have tried to interest them in my work.  They have seemed not that interested, and it is not reflected in their activities in any way.

 That is the tragedy, I suppose, that I face as I head towards death.  All the work I have put in has turned out to be wasted because it never became sufficiently known when no one was taking such matters seriously, and now that they are, my work is ignored as an ancient irrelevance from the past.  So, there we are.  I must accept that much of my working life – much of my life – has been a wasted effort.  But what really matters to me is that the academic world should wake up, grasp the uniquely dangerous situation we are in, and set about doing something serious about it.  We really do need a transformed academic enterprise, somewhat along the lines of wisdom-inquiry, so that it becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity make progress towards a genuinely civilized, enlightened world.

Incidentally, the argument I have just outlined very briefly first appeared in a book published in 1976, called What’s Wrong With Science?, written in three weeks to meet the publisher’s deadline.  Most of the book takes the form of a furious debate between a Scientist and a ‘Philosopher’ about the issues.  My next book, From Knowledge to Wisdom, published in 1984, spells out the argument with great care and in some detail.  It took 5 years to write.  14 subsequent books develop diverse aspects of the basic argument for the urgent need for the academic revolution.  One of these, Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment, a collection of articles, is available free online like the two already mentioned.  For a lively account of my 50 year struggle to get a hearing for the argument for the urgent need for the academic revolution see How Universities Have Betrayed Reason and Humanity—And What’s to Be Done About It.  Over the decades, I have published a number of articles, all available free online, that summarize in diverse ways the basic argument indicated above; see, for example,  What kind of inquiry can best help us create a good world?, 1992; Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized? The Crisis of Science without Civilization, 2000;  The Urgent Need For An Academic Revolution: The Rational Pursuit Of Wisdom, 2010;  Can Universities Save Us From Disaster?, 2017; How Wisdom Can Help Solve Global Problems.2019; or The Scandal of the Irrationality of Academia, 2019.     

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