2023 Proceedings

Two of geodesign's strongest missions lie in a) reconciling private interests with the public good, and b) structuring local projects as contributions to a stable climate - a basis for a healthy biosphere. This understanding is very timely, and not only in the context of the new AR6 IPCC Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. Many planetary challenges derive from the growing greenhouse gas bubble that has altered the very chemistry and temperature of atmosphere, oceans and the biosphere - our Global Commons. In order to halt and reverse this direction, climate neutrality - Net Zero - targets are not enough. A climate positive - or carbon negative - development focus has become indispensable. 

Freedom from global and local pollution is a fundamental right. The safeguarding of biodiversity and natural habitats is an existential performance indicator of all human endeavors. Hence every geodesign project carries both global responsibility and significance. Advances in multi-user and -level connectivity; close and remote sensing; crowd sourcing and emerging climate transactional tools will help shift our posture of resource users to that of Global Commons contributors.

The idea of the Global Commons has for centuries driven a wide range of domains as international law, colonial expeditions, ideas about universal democracy, and even hopes for a shared and healthy environmental destiny. Until now, key Global Commons - the 'public good' - have also served as waste receptacles for the 'private bad'. Common afflictions from energy to economics have brought humankind to the brink of planetary systems failure. In seizing on the promise that the idea of the Global Commons harbors lies the prospect for confronting and overcoming common threats.

A broader and deeper, even unflinching understanding of both economy and science is crucial – and a new appreciation of planetary dimensionality, going beyond the conventional dimensions of space and time, and understanding key Global Commons themselves as planetary dimensions that are inseparably interdependent in the fundamental fluidity of terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric interactions. Herein lies more than ample scope for geodesigners to find a common mission.